Berlin to mark Nazis' gay victims

[R.M. Schultz]

I love this sort of "double speak". So exactlty how to you determine "degree of guilt".

It's not really that hard to make moral distinctions if you think about it logically. Our legal system differentiates between pre-meditated murder (first degree homicide), crime of passion (second degree murder), assault with no intention of murder that results in a death (first degree manslaughter), and mere negligence (second degree manslaughter). That's not too tough to understand, is it? Using a similar process we could limn out similar degrees of atrocity:

First Degree Atrocity: Volitional slaughter of wholly innocent groups. This would include:
— Genocide, the killing of a group by race (e.g. the Final Solution, the Armenian genocide)
— Slaughter for Profit, the kill of masses of people for economic benefit (e.g. the Belgian exploitation of the Congo, the Spanish occupation of Santo Domingo).

Second Degree Atrocity: Volitional slaughter of self-selected groups. This would include:
— Democide, the killing of religious, political, or social groups.

First Degree Mass-Manslaughter: Killing non-combatants as a by-product of wartime conditions. This would include:
— Strategic Bombing
— "Counter Insurgency" measures

Second Degree Mass-Manslaughter: Unintentional deaths as a by-product of bad policy. This would include:
— Political Miscalculation (e.g. the Ukrainian Famine, the Great Leap Forward)
— Barbaric Conditions (e.g. the Trail of Tears, the Gulags)

Of course, there are advantages to lumping things together. If we do not distinguish among degrees of guilt, then Eichman and Eisenhower can stand before us equally "guilty."

[ChristopherPerrien]

It's not really that hard to make moral distinctions if you think about it logically.

Just don't make a "logical fallacy"

Our legal system differentiates between pre-meditated murder (first degree homicide),

Yes this is true , and even with our twisted hate crime legislation, the penalites for killing some one because of their race or sexual preference is the same. So where is a basis in fact for your saying it is worse to kill person A over person B.

I hope you would agree that killing either Gays or Jews by the Nazis is at least both premeditated murder.

But you for some "logical" reason want to judge a crime by the victim and not the crime itself. That is a logical fallacy, beside being bigoted and prejudical and few other latin legal terms I can't place at the moment.

Your view in a concentration camp would have you save a Jew before a gay jew, because the gay jew is gonna die for a less important reason anyway. Logic or logical fallacy? tell me?

Any way I know you won't accept another view , but it is at least nice to debate this in a civil matter, sadly I think we have ended up in the old arguement of "Jews are the most important people in the world" versus something different. So I lose interst, give in, and will let somone else come in here to talk for the dead Homosexuals, or the topic can die as an
oxymoron - a one-sided debate,

Regards Chris

[R.M. Schultz]

Your view in a concentration camp would have you save a Jew before a gay jew, because the gay jew is gonna die for a less important reason anyway. Logic or logical fallacy? tell me?

That's just a mucked-up example that clarifies nothing.

Let's compare instead Hitler's genocide against the Jews with Stalin's Democide of the Kulaks. Edith Stein, a racial Jew, could not escape persecution even though she had converted to Catholicism and become a nun. On the other hand, thousands of Kulaks escaped their fate by moving to the cities and becoming proletarians. Thus, because Democide allows an "out," it is less heinous than Genocide.

Why do so many people seem to have trouble grasping this point?

[michael mills]

Why do so many people seem to have trouble grasping this point?

Perhaps because they do not see it as all that relevant.

With regard to Edith Stein, what was the background to her arrest and deportation?

Had she spent her time quietly praying in her convent, while the German occupation authorities assiduously tracked her down?

Had she come to the attention of the German occupation authorities because of some activity?

Did some malevolent person report her? Was she reported by the Church itself?

[R.M. Schultz]

With regard to Edith Stein, what was the background to her arrest and deportation? Had she spent her time quietly praying in her convent, while the German occupation authorities assiduously tracked her down? …

Sounds like that's just what happened:

During the nights of 9 and 10 November 1938, Nazi mobs stormed through the streets of Germany, burning, looting, beating, and murdering Jews. Jewish homes, property, and synagogues were broken into and pillaged. The nation had gone mad. "This is the shadow of the Cross falling on my people," Edith wrote. Convinced that her presence would bring Nazi wrath upon the innocent nuns of her Cologne convent, she was given permission to emigrate to the Carmelite convent in Echt, Holland.

German forces invaded and occupied Holland in 1940. Edith's superiors had a mind to transfer her to a convent in Switzerland but negotiations grew complicated. Hitler meanwhile declared that every Jewish child must be expelled from Dutch schools and citizens of Jewish origin be prohibited from holding office in Holland. The Gestapo, Hitler's secret police, hunted down, arrested, and deported thousands of Jews to the dreaded concentration camps, gas chambers, and crematoria. The Dutch roared in protest. In July 1942 the Dutch Catholic Bishops wrote a pastoral letter condemning Nazi actions against the Jews. In retaliation the Gestapo dragnet swept across Holland and Catholic priests and Religious of Jewish parentage became particular targets of Nazi wrath. Two S.S. officers came to Echt and arrested Edith and her sister Rosa, who now lived with her in the convent. Dutch men and women rallied in front of the convent as they were taken, but to no avail. The Steins were shoved into a police van. It was the start of their journey East to the death camp at Auschwitz.

En route there was a stopover at Westerborn in Holland. About 1,200 people were in the camp. Among them fifteen Religious Orders represented. An eyewitness, who survived the horror, recounted: "Sr. Teresa Benedicta was sad, but not anxious. She moved about among the women, many of them near mad with anxiety and fear, and she cared for them and their children, washing them, comforting them, and somehow providing food." On 7 August, Edith, her sister Rosa, and companions left Westerborn for Auschwitz. There they were stripped, forced into line, and marched into the gas chamber. After that, there is no more.

http://carmelnet.org/sword/v58/08.htm

[LAH Pz Grenadiere]

Why glorify homosexuals?

[michael mills]

Re Edith Stein

Thanks for the background information, RM.

Now, you originally referred to the case of Edith Stein as an illustration of the distinction you draw between democide and genocide.

As I understand it, a genocide is aimed at a group from which exit is impossible, eg a group defined by descent, an unalterable factor, whereas a democide is aimed at a group from which exit is possible eg a group defined by particular behaviours or activities, from which escape is possible by altering behaviour or activity.

You made the point that Edith Stein's conversion to Christianity did not save her from being identified as a member of the target group, the Jews, and being treated accordingly. That assumes that Edith Stein was attempting to exit from the Jewish target group; however, the passage quoted by you indicates that she still identified herself as Jewish. For example, she referred to the persecuted Jews as "her people".

So the situation was that Edith Stein had not attempted to leave the target group by changing her personal status, in the manner of a Russian kulak moving to the town and becoming a proletarian. She considered herself to have remained a member of the target group; that identity was not forced on her by the persecutor.

Furthermore, there is also the behavioural factor. The passage states that the German occupation authorities in the Netherlands began to crack down on Catholic priests and Religious of Jewish parentage (a group to which Edith Stein belonged) in retaliation for a specific anti-german action by the Dutch Church, the pastoral letter of the bishops of July 1942, opposing German actions against the Jews. The crackdown was a measure to punish the Dutch Church for its action in identifying itself with the Jews, by arresting church members of Jewish origin.

The implication is that if the Dutch Church had not taken an anti-German stand but had remained passive, the Catholics of Jewish origin might have been left alone.

Because of the above factors, the case of Edith Stein does not effectively prove the distintion you make between democide and genocide.

[R.M. Schultz]

Why glorify homosexuals?

This monument does not glorify homosexuality, it memorialises the victims of an unjust persecution. Or do you approve of persecuting homosexuals?

[R.M. Schultz]

You made the point that Edith Stein's conversion to Christianity did not save her from being identified as a member of the target group, the Jews, and being treated accordingly. That assumes that Edith Stein was attempting to exit from the Jewish target group; however, the passage quoted by you indicates that she still identified herself as Jewish. For example, she referred to the persecuted Jews as "her people".

By this I intended to prove that Nazi persecution of the Jews was by "race" and not by religion. It is axiomatic that while one cannot change their race (or more properly in this case, ethnicity), religious faith is an entirely volitional matter. Stein's motivation in becoming Catholic is irrelevant to my point about the Nazi world-view.

She considered herself to have remained a member of the target group; that identity was not forced on her by the persecutor.

Yes, she accepted martyrdom. Thus Catholics call her Saint Edith Stein.

The passage states that the German occupation authorities in the Netherlands began to crack down on Catholic priests and Religious of Jewish parentage (a group to which Edith Stein belonged) in retaliation for a specific anti-german action by the Dutch Church, the pastoral letter of the bishops of July 1942, opposing German actions against the Jews. The crackdown was a measure to punish the Dutch Church for its action in identifying itself with the Jews, by arresting church members of Jewish origin.

Let me get this straight — because the Dutch Church published a letter objecting to genocide, the Dutch Catholic Jews deserved genocide? Wow, there's a concept! Genocide as the proper punishment for objecting to genocide! Now there's a sterling moral principle!

Because of the above factors, the case of Edith Stein does not effectively prove the distintion you make between democide and genocide.

I think it does but, just for the record, what kind of proof would you accept?

[michael mills]

R M Schultz wrote:

Let me get this straight — because the Dutch Church published a letter objecting to genocide, the Dutch Catholic Jews deserved genocide? Wow, there's a concept! Genocide as the proper punishment for objecting to genocide! Now there's a sterling moral principle!

Yes, RM. Please get it straight. At the moment, your understanding of my words is not very straight at all.

I did not say or imply that the Dutch Catholic Jews deserved genocide (if you wish to use that term; I would simply say being killed as a group). I said that their targeting, as opposed to the targeting of Jews as such, appears to have been triggered by action of the Dutch, regardless of the moral evaluation one might give to that action. I said it also appears that in the absence of that action, regardless of the moral evaluation one might give to that putative avoidance of action, the targeting of the Dutch Catholic Jews might not have occurred. There were many instances where Christians of Jewish origin were tacitly left alone.

An anlogy might be drawn with a person who persistently drove behind a group of Hell's Angels, honking loudly. Such a person might be in danger of suffering a severe damage. That does not imply that the damage inflicted by the Hell's Angels would be morally justifiable; it does mean that the incautious action by the person, combined with the propensity to violence of the Hell's Angels, had caused a damage that otherwise may well not have occurred.

One might well applaud the person's moral courage in expressing his disapproval of the Hell's angels, while acknowledging that he had acted very foolishly.

As for "proof" of the distinction between "genocide" and "democide", I think they are both very amorphous concepts not really amenable to proof. I do not want to go into the issue here, but am prepared to do so if you insist.

[R.M. Schultz]

I did say or imply that the Dutch Catholic Jews deserved genocide (if you wish to use that term; I would simply say being killed as a group). I said that their targeting, as opposed to the targeting of Jews as such, appears to have been triggered by action of the Dutch …

You are grasping at straws. To say that the mere publishing of a letter could have been anything more than a transparent excuse for genocide is absolutely disingenuous.

An anlogy might be drawn with a person who persistently drove behind a group of Hell's Angels, honking loudly …

Bad analogy, but I'll give you a better one.

On Dec. 6, 1969 the Hells Angels were hired as security for a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway outside San Francisco. During a fracas at the concert, several Hells Angels stabbed to death an 18-year-old Stones fan named Meredith Hunter. Supposing I had voiced an objection to this murder to the Hells Angels and they had then gone and killed all of my Jewish friends. That would be analogous.

As for "proof" of the distinction between "genocide" and "democide", I think they are both very amorphous concepts not really amenable to proof. I do not want to go into the issue here, but am prepared to do so if you insist.

Genocide refers to the killing of a group by birth (e.g. race, ethnicity, congenital condition, etc.), while Democide means killing by social group (e.g. religious, political, avocational, etc.). What exactly is "amorphous" about that? I think that's pretty black-and-white. Are you saying there's some imprecision in this definition or are you saying that there is no difference in moral weight?

[Deitschuke]

While we're on the topic of definitions:

Would the killing of people who had converted to Judaism be considered part of the jewish genocide (though Ethinic Cleansing is probably a better term), or would it be a whole new category of Jewish democide?

Essentially, why care about the terminology? The problem would then be moral weight-

Is there more weight generally attributed to the killing of Jews? Is this caused because infomation is not as readily available on the percecution of other people or because the percecution simply wasn't as marked?

Which could be some equivalencies to homosexuals, for instance:
April 1st 1933 boycott?
Kristallnacht 1938?

A random question: were homosexuals still considered Aryans?

[Beppo Schmidt]

Why glorify homosexuals?

Why glorify Jews? Why glorify Communists? Why glorify Catholics?

All of the above groups were greatly persecuted by the Nazis, saying so doesn't mean you are "glorifying" them. I would say everyone who was victimized by Hitler has every right to be recognized as a victim. But some people have a problem with people who have different sexual orientations than themselves.

[R.M. Schultz]

Would the killing of people who had converted to Judaism be considered part of the jewish genocide (though Ethinic Cleansing is probably a better term), or would it be a whole new category of Jewish democide?

Did that ever happen?

Which could be some equivalencies to homosexuals, for instance:
April 1st 1933 boycott?

Homosexual public houses (taverns, dance halls, etc.) were ordered closed on 23 February 1933.

"Indecent" publications (pornography, homosexual literature and political writings, nudist magazines, etc.) were banned on 24 February 1933

…Kristallnacht 1938?

The Magnus Hirshfeld Institute of Sexual Science was ransacked by SA men and then demolished on 6 May 1933.

The records of the Magnus Hirshfeld Institute were burned in a public bonfire in Berlin's Opernplatz 10 May 1933, though this action is disguised by the simultaneous burning of "anti-German" books by students from the NSDStB.

Preventive detention of homosexuals authorised on 10 February 1934.

The Gestapo is ordered to draw up lists of all known homosexuals on 24 October 1934.

A round-up of homosexuals in conducted in Berlin by LSAH troopers, 11 March 1935

On 28 June 1935, ¶175 of the criminal code, which had outlawed homosexual activity "similar to intercourse," broadened to include every "indecency" between men and even thoughts about such actions if they were of "some intensity and duration." Penalties started at 10 years incarceration and, in severe cases, authorised "Entannung" (emasculation).

[R.M. Schultz]

The reason why both male and female homosexuals ended up in concentration camps is not specifically their sexual orientation, but rather a provision made in 1943 that persons convicted to sentences over a specific term could be transferred to concentration camps for "destruction by labour".

False! According to documents in Hidden Holocaust? Gay and Lesbian Persecution in Germany 1933-45 (edited by Günter Grau, Cassell, London, 1995, p. 56) "very large numbers" of homosexual were being sent to the Lichtenburg concentration camp as early as June of 1935.

A police report of 5 November 1935 reports that 513 homosexuals were being held in preventive detention by the Gestapo that week (as opposed to only 124 political prisoners) and that an additional 325 homosexuals were at the Lichtenburg concentration camp while 88 others were in "various prisons." So homosexuals in camps outnumbered those in conventional prison by a factor of 7:2. (Grau, p. 60).