Hunting the old men.

Dan · Post by **Dan** » 28 May 2002 12:31

Thanks from me too to MadJim for explaining the origin of this unAmerican (very MidEastern, vengful) law.

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » 28 May 2002 13:13

However, since the moment our dear friends from the UN were so kind to improve our laws(about the 1950s or so), this doesn't apply to "crimes against humanity". Therefore, while a killer, drug smuggler, even traitor, can escape the punishment if he/she hides himself/herself enough time, "someone" charged with any sort of "crime against humanity" can be sentenced anytime - even after 100 years, if he/she lives so long. Frightful, isn't it?

Crimes against humanity are nothing other than organized mass murder, and the legal systems of several countries know no time limit for the prosecution of murder. Germany, for instance.

Because these kind of penal research and trials do not fall under common law, but more under Murphy's Laws, somehow like Franz Kafka's Trial.

Is that supposed to be a joke, or are there any procedural inadequacies in “these kind of penal research and trials” that you can show us?

michael mills · Post by **michael mills** » 28 May 2002 13:53

Crimes against humanity are nothing other than organized mass murder, and the legal systems of several countries know no time limit for the prosecution of murder. Germany, for instance.

I think however that there is a moral difference between persons who commit murder on their own initiative and because they desire to do so, against the will of the community, and persons who kill in obedience to orders, in a situation in which they have been placed by higher authorities, and in which the killing is to some extent tacitly sanctioned by society.

That difference was implicitly recognised in the German trials of former camp staff of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. Those staff members who had participated in the extermination process in compliance to orders they had received, eg by overseeing the operation of the gas chambers, or the burying of the bodies, but had not killed anyone on their own initiative, apart from the extermination process, were found guilty of being an accessory to murder ("Beihilfe zum Mord"), not of murder itself, and were generally given short sentences.

Other staff-members who were found to have killed particular individuals on their own initiative, as well as participating in the extermination process, were found guilty of murder for the former offence and of being an accessory to murder for the latter.

I found it a travesty of justice that a German found to have overseen the Ukrainians who operated the gas-chamber at Treblinka could receive a sentence of a few years, while a Ukrainian accused of operating the gas-chamber under the orders of the former person could be sentenced to death.

Ovidius · Post by **Ovidius** » 28 May 2002 14:15

Roberto wrote:
Because these kind of penal research and trials do not fall under common law, but more under Murphy's Laws, somehow like Franz Kafka's Trial.
Is that supposed to be a joke, or are there any procedural inadequacies in “these kind of penal research and trials” that you can show us?

Not only in those trials that ended by the death sentence or long prison terms for the defendants can be found procedural inaccuracies(for example in the Nuremberg mock-Trial, where Doenitz was sentenced to ten years on some nebulous charges, and his time spent in arrest - 1 and a half year - was added to the sentence instead of being deduced), but also in those trials where the court appeared "mild" by comparison.

For example the West German Treblinka Trial. The court appeared "benevolent" to the defendants, granted "short" sentences and tried them decades after the proper time for this, but the goal of the entire trial was to dissociate the German people & government from those who perpetrated any "crimes against humanity". The trial was "unfair" in the favorable sense, it's goals weren't. It saved the lives of the defendants, but turned them into pariah, to save the face of the German Government.

What I'm trying to say is that those trials were mounted mostly to throw out the accusations from people like Goldhagen, who said that the Germans were "willing executioners". They repelled the accusation or "harboring war criminals", but instead they enforced the impression that anyone linked to the "monstrous Hitlerian regime" had to be scum of mankind.

~Best regards,

Ovidius

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » 28 May 2002 14:25

I found it a travesty of justice that a German found to have overseen the Ukrainians who operated the gas-chamber at Treblinka could receive a sentence of a few years, while a Ukrainian accused of operating the gas-chamber under the orders of the former person could be sentenced to death.

That was so under a legal system less benevolent in regard to Nazi crimes than the one of the German Federal Republic, where the legal acrobatics of the Supreme Court in the early 1960’s allowed even for people who had personally committed homicide on a large scale and with a great deal of freedom of action and room for “creativity” to be sentenced not as murderers but as mere "accessories to murder". The precedent for this kind of jurisprudence was created with the famous case of Soviet KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky, who in 1959 killed the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian exiles in Munich. Although Stashinsky had himself planned and carried out the killing in all its details, the German Supreme Court considered him a mere tool of the KGB superior in Moscow on whose orders he had acted – an “accessory to murder”. Henceforth long explanations as to why a Nazi criminal who had murdered under orders was to be considered a mere “accessory” could be replaced by a short reference to the Stashinsky precedent. The mild sentences resulting herefrom were what I would consider a travesty of justice.

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » 28 May 2002 14:52

Not only in those trials that ended by the death sentence or long prison terms for the defendants can be found procedural inaccuracies(for example in the Nuremberg mock-Trial, where Dönitz was sentenced to ten years on some nebulous charges, and his time spent in arrest - 1 and a half year - was added to the sentence instead of being deduced), but also in those trials where the court appeared "mild" by comparison.

Doenitz was sentenced mainly on account of his responsibility for the implementation of Keitel’s “Commando Order” in his area of command – not exactly a “nebulous” charge. As to the time spent in custody not having been discounted from the time of the sentence, you may or not consider that a legally questionable decision. Under German law, for instance, discounting of time spent in custody prior to the sentence may be refrained from if the court does not consider it justified in view of the perpetrator’s behavior after the deed. Why this individual flaw would make the Nuremberg Trial into a “mock-Trial”, however, is completely beyond me. Criminal justice is never perfect, but it’s quite a leap from fallacies of a court decision such as described to “mockery”.

For example the West German Treblinka Trial. The court appeared "benevolent" to the defendants, granted "short" sentences and tried them decades after the proper time for this, but the goal of the entire trial was to dissociate the German people & government from those who perpetrated any "crimes against humanity". The trial was "unfair" in the favorable sense, it's goals weren't. It saved the lives of the defendants, but turned them into pariah, to save the face of the German Government.

Every criminal trial turns the convicted defendant into a pariah. As to why the trials against Nazi criminals before German courts were held, your assertions are somewhat bizarre. These people had committed murder, after all, a crime which it is the duty of criminal justice authorities under any legal system to prosecute.

What I'm trying to say is that those trials were mounted mostly to throw out the accusations from people like Goldhagen, who said that the Germans were "willing executioners". They repelled the accusation or "harboring war criminals", but instead they enforced the impression that anyone linked to the "monstrous Hitlerian regime" had to be scum of mankind.

With all due respect for your personal opinion, I see no evidence supporting your contentions. As I said, these people had committed plain and simple murder. On a scale rarely equaled in history, for sure, but still plain and simple murder. Like murderers they were accordingly treated by criminal justice – though with unusual benevolence, as you pointed out yourself.

michael mills · Post by **michael mills** » 28 May 2002 15:01

That was so under a legal system less benevolent in regard to Nazi crimes than the one of the German Federal Republic, where the legal acrobatics of the Supreme Court in the early 1960’s allowed even for people who had personally committed homicide on a large scale and with a great deal of freedom of action and room for “creativity” to be sentenced not as murderers but as mere "accessories to murder". The precedent for this kind of jurisprudence was created with the famous case of Soviet KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky, who in 1959 killed the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian exiles in Munich. Although Stashinsky had himself planned and carried out the killing in all its details, the German Supreme Court considered him a mere tool of the KGB superior in Moscow on whose orders he had acted – an “accessory to murder”. Henceforth long explanations as to why a Nazi criminal who had murdered under orders was to be considered a mere “accessory” could be replaced by a short reference to the Stashinsky precedent.

The decisions of the German courts in relation to both Stashinsky and the former camp staff, executors of the orders of the Soviet and Nazi German regimes respectively, were eminently reasonable, and demonstrate the progressive nature of the German legal system in comparison with that of the Jewish State, based as it is on an atavistic reversion to the primitive Hebrew revenge ethic.

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » 28 May 2002 15:12

michael mills wrote:
That was so under a legal system less benevolent in regard to Nazi crimes than the one of the German Federal Republic, where the legal acrobatics of the Supreme Court in the early 1960’s allowed even for people who had personally committed homicide on a large scale and with a great deal of freedom of action and room for “creativity” to be sentenced not as murderers but as mere "accessories to murder". The precedent for this kind of jurisprudence was created with the famous case of Soviet KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky, who in 1959 killed the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian exiles in Munich. Although Stashinsky had himself planned and carried out the killing in all its details, the German Supreme Court considered him a mere tool of the KGB superior in Moscow on whose orders he had acted – an “accessory to murder”. Henceforth long explanations as to why a Nazi criminal who had murdered under orders was to be considered a mere “accessory” could be replaced by a short reference to the Stashinsky precedent.
The decisions of the German courts in relation to both Stashinsky and the former camp staff, executors of the orders of the Soviet and Nazi German regimes respectively, were eminently reasonable, and demonstrate the progressive nature of the German legal system in comparison with that of the Jewish State, based as it is on an atavistic reversion to the primitive Hebrew revenge ethic.

If you consider it reasonable to give people who voluntarily and dedicatedly killed with their own hands the benefit of seeing them as mere "accessories" and letting them off with a few years imprisonment, that is.

michael mills · Post by **michael mills** » 28 May 2002 15:23

If you consider it reasonable to give people who kill with their own hands the benefit of seeing them as mere "accessories" and letting them off with a few years imprisonment, that is.

I strongly doubt that Mr Muehlenkamp would consider all "people who kill with their own hands" as guilty of murder.

For example, agents of the Government of the Jewish State who assassinate Arab exiles living in other countries. The agents who killed a quite innocent Moroccan in Lillehammer, Norway, in the 1970s were caught but never prosecuted, since it was considered that, though what they had doen was wrong, they were acting on the orders of a "friendly" country. I guess Mr Muehlenkamp would concur with that decision.

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » 28 May 2002 15:32

michael mills wrote:
If you consider it reasonable to give people who kill with their own hands the benefit of seeing them as mere "accessories" and letting them off with a few years imprisonment, that is.

I strongly doubt that Mr Muehlenkamp would consider all "people who kill with their own hands" as guilty of murder.
Whether they commit murder or just manslaughter depends on their motivations and/or on whether they kill their victims cruelly, treacherously or using means that are dangerous for others than the intended victim, according to German law. In any case I would consider them perpetrators of the deed (Täter) and not mere accessories (Tatgehilfen).

For example, agents of the Government of the Jewish State who assassinate Arab exiles living in other countries. The agents who killed a quite innocent Moroccan in Lillehammer, Norway, in the 1970s were caught but never prosecuted, since it was considered that, though what they had doen was wrong, they were acting on the orders of a "friendly" country. I guess Mr Muehlenkamp would concur with that decision.

Mr. Mills has again misjudged me. And the example he picked splendidly reveals his obsessive preoccupations.

Ovidius · Post by **Ovidius** » 28 May 2002 15:48

Roberto wrote:Every criminal trial turns the convicted defendant into a pariah. As to why the trials against Nazi criminals before German courts were held, your assertions are somewhat bizarre. These people had committed murder, after all, a crime which it is the duty of criminal justice authorities under any legal system to prosecute.

Roberto wrote:With all due respect for your personal opinion, I see no evidence supporting your contentions. As I said, these people had committed plain and simple murder. On a scale rarely equaled in history, for sure, but still plain and simple murder. Like murderers they were accordingly treated by criminal justice – though with unusual benevolence, as you pointed out yourself.

Isn't search for the criminals ended after a number of years equal to the punishment(i.e. 20 years or so for assasination etc)? I think it's called "prescription" or something like that(I'm not very familiar with English legal terms

)

The only field where it doesn't apply are "crimes against humanity", punishable wherever possible. So "assasination" turns into "crime against humanity"

~Ovidius

Roberto · Post by **Roberto** » 28 May 2002 15:55

Ovidius wrote:
Roberto wrote:Every criminal trial turns the convicted defendant into a pariah. As to why the trials against Nazi criminals before German courts were held, your assertions are somewhat bizarre. These people had committed murder, after all, a crime which it is the duty of criminal justice authorities under any legal system to prosecute.

Roberto wrote:With all due respect for your personal opinion, I see no evidence supporting your contentions. As I said, these people had committed plain and simple murder. On a scale rarely equaled in history, for sure, but still plain and simple murder. Like murderers they were accordingly treated by criminal justice – though with unusual benevolence, as you pointed out yourself.

Isn't search for the criminals ended after a number of years equal to the punishment(i.e. 20 years or so for assasination etc)? I think it's called "prescription" or something like that(I'm not very familiar with English legal terms )
Murder doesn't prescribe under several legal systems including that of Germany, as I already said. Of course you can convert a murderer into an "accessory to murder" and thus give him the benefit of time limitation to the prosecution of his deed.

The only field where it doesn't apply are "crimes against humanity", punishable wherever possible. So "assasination" turns into "crime against humanity"

Crimes against humanity are essentially organized mass murder, as I said. Murder, regardless of the number of victims, does not prescribe under a number of legal systems. Assassination would necessarily be murder under German law, if only because the legal criterion of "Heimtücke" (treacherousness) is complied with.

walterkaschner · Post by **walterkaschner** » 28 May 2002 20:02

Hi Ovidious,

In no jurisdiction in the US that I am aware of is there a statute of limitations under which the crime of murder is prescribed by the passage of time. I say "that I am aware of" because each of the 50 States has its own criminal code, and it's more than I can handle just to keep track of the law in the four that I am licensed to practise in. But as a general rule there is no prescription for murder. (BTW, your use of the term is quite correct.) Is the law different in Romania in this regard?

Regards, Kaschner

Ovidius · Post by **Ovidius** » 28 May 2002 20:40

walterkaschner wrote:In no jurisdiction in the US that I am aware of is there a statute of limitations under which the crime of murder is prescribed by the passage of time. I say "that I am aware of" because each of the 50 States has its own criminal code, and it's more than I can handle just to keep track of the law in the four that I am licensed to practise in. But as a general rule there is no prescription for murder. (BTW, your use of the term is quite correct.) Is the law different in Romania in this regard?

Thanks for the info.

In Romania(as long as I'm aware of, since I'm no professional

), all crimes(or at least all common law crimes) can be prescribed after a period equal to maximum length of the penalty(i.e. the penalty for murder being "15 to 25 years in prison or life imprisonment", murder can be prescribed after 25 years (if no prosecution took place at all during this period, which is highly unlikely). "Crimes against Peace and Humanity" can't be prescribed at all, under any conditions.

~Best regards,

Ovidius

PS While for the crimes punishable by life imprisonment committed during peacetime the court has the option between 15-25 years and life imprisonment, "Crimes against Peace and Humanity" committed during warfare are punished solely by life imprisonment, with no other option. So if Mr. Schiffer was to be tried(which wasn't and isn't possible since he didn't do anything in Romanian jurisdiction).... the result is easily to be imagined

MadJim · Post by **MadJim** » 29 May 2002 02:46

"Annelie" said:Thankyou MadJim:

You are quite welcome.

one would think that someone in the Justice Department should have another look at this particular law and maybe revise its implemtation. It does seem unconstituental and cannot understand how this got legistated

.

The whole problem is that this would require true moral courage - and lets face it - anybody that would dare bring this up that actually had the ability to make a change would be immediately denounced as an anti-semite. They would then spend the rest of their time explaining that they were not a "Jew hater" and a "Nazi sympathizer"

I understand that in Canada in the forties and fifties one was not asked about involvement in such and one only answered questions put to them and did not voluntered other information. I am assuming their interests (gov.) lay in only knowing of involvement in communism. I feel sorry for "Hans" and hope that his future was better than he expected.

Not explored here (on the board, I mean) is the reason many of these people from Eastern Europe were let in here in the first place - propaganda. The US and Canada were were very happy to show the large numbers of folks that were fleeing Communist states in exchange for freedom in the west. "They come! Therefore we are better than you!"
Also in some cases people with certain job skills were considered more desireable.

In Hans B's case he had applied for permission to come to the US but was rejected. He assumed it was becasue of his service in the Waffen SS. Several years later he was surprised to have a letter forwarded to him saying he was now approved.( he had moved on and settled into life in West Germany) He told me that he thought they changed their minds because he was a skilled machinist. The OSI claimed he had reapplied and lied - but even though they could produce many details of his service - they couldn't produce the document where he lied about SS service. End result: deportation.

That leaves one question which I would like to know. Why now and is it as HaEn says their is no one left and they are scrapping the bottom of the barrel? AND who are "THEY". To know whom they are we could then question their motives and objectives before this continues to go on and on.

In my opinion: Support for Israel, holocaust publicity, and anti-semitism charges are all very carefully entwined. (Is it a conspiracy, I don't know, but I'm not a conspiracy freak anyway) In the states the Jewish Defense League motto is "Never Again" - that is no more Holocausts - certainly a reasonable way to feel. However, Holocaust rememberance is often used as banner to screen some of Israel's more dubious deeds - afterall the saying goes Israel is defending itself from another "Holocaust". ( a recent pro-Israeli demonstration in Philadelphia couldn't resist bringing up the death camps) The Jewish American J Pollard who was convicted of spying on the US for Israel gave his reason for treason as "I had relatives killed in the Holocaust" When told his prosecutors from the Justice Department were Jews; he replied "There were Jewish Kapos in the KZ"

Americans have a dreadful knowledge of history. This is a fact. The big nazis are all gone, Bormann the bogeyman is dead - and so are butchers like Mengale. All that is left to keep the Holocaust in front of the American viewer are these old men who were at the most minor functionaries in a huge killing machine.

Perhaps the short view of these actions are they just old fashioned revenge on the part of SOME American Jews.

Thankyou again Jim, very interesting!

Annelie

ps. Could all this be about "money"

[/quote]

I know of no financial gain for the parties involved in these prosecutions.