Execution of Edelweiss Pirates

[Marcus]

Get back on topic, this thread is not for discussions on various methods of execution.

/Marcus

[Bernaschek]

I had once prepared a longer response, but deleted it accidentially when posting;

I just want to remember, that what is called "Edelweiss - Piraten" was a much larger group or maybe rather substrata of rebellious youth than discussed about here.
The Gestapo Cologne alone had labeled appr. 3.000 youth as such.

3 of them, including Bartel SCHINK from the here discussed "Ehrenfels" group have been declared "righteous" by Yad Vashem.

source mainly german Wikipedia

[Panzermahn]

I don't understand why the execution of Edelweiss Pirates are considered war crimes. The members of this gang violated the legally enacted laws of Third Reich (even if the laws are not to your liking) and were executed for it.

It's the same anywhere in the world. If someone were proven in a court of law of commiting a murder in United States and gets the death sentence for it, does it make it a war crime?

The members of Edelweiss Pirates were nationals of the Third Reich. They violate their country's laws and got executed for it.

[Marcus]

I don't understand why the execution of Edelweiss Pirates are considered war crimes.

The thread was moved here to be in the same section as the long-running "Beheadings in the Third Reich".

/Marcus

[Bernaschek]

I want to repeat, that we discuss here about the "Ehrenfels"-group, a small group of thousands of rebellious youth, and maybe the most radical of those.
If you kill, you may get killed.
In this sense I don't think the death of some of the group are a crime of war; but then that's a complex moral question - might it rather be a crime of justice ? What about legality if the laws are bad and amoral ?.
I didn't check out all the members killed, but wouldn't wonder, if some of them hadn't committed such crimes or violent resistance acts but were hanged nevertheless.
(Note - I do not consider the shooting of an enemy in Uniform a crime per se as Michael Mills does, though crimes pure and simple have also been committed)

I think they are more remembered or celebrated for rebellion than as victims of the regime.

We also shouldn't forget, that after the war the survivors faced largely the same policeman and officials as under the Nazis. They didn't have a "good press" and a lot of it came out only very late after the war - and as such were then celebrated by a new group of rebellious youth

sources : again mainly german Wikipedia and some stuff I forgot but read long ago, likely the "Spiegel", especially about other groups of Edelweiss Pirates, coming especially out of conservative groups, more like the boy scouts ("Bündische Jugend")

edited a little for the sake of clarity, though not sure if I achieved that

[waldzee]

Sophia Scholl was given the death sentence for, ‘treason’. Her real ‘crime’ was pointing out the ‘coarse German’ used in Mein Kampf.
Justice was subverted when the crime & the penalty had no ‘match’.

[BillHermann]

I don't understand why the execution of Edelweiss Pirates are considered war crimes. The members of this gang violated the legally enacted laws of Third Reich (even if the laws are not to your liking) and were executed for it.

It's the same anywhere in the world. If someone were proven in a court of law of commiting a murder in United States and gets the death sentence for it, does it make it a war crime?

The members of Edelweiss Pirates were nationals of the Third Reich. They violate their country's laws and got executed for it.

Yes but Nazi Germany was not like any other country. I am stunned by this opinon however you are intilteld to have it however if the US turned into a Fascist state and made it illegal to have guns and did not allow you to assemble and began summary public exicutions you would probably be asking for civil war. If the US exicuted criminal publically with or without trial and it was law you would be screaming.

The Third Reich came to power partially through criminal means, acted in its courts, prisons and camps completely against human rights and many laws were unjustified but some how the Nazis are right here? I understand your basic theory however you can not use the morality of the Nazi system to condone these exicutions. If you do then you are way off the mark. Nazi exicution had little to do with justice anyways and was all to do with a dramatic show and to install fear in the people and to proove their overall strength ruling Germany, it was not about justice.

What the Edelweiss Pirates were doing was little diffrence from the SA did to help hitler gain power. What would your thought be if the Weimar Republic had done the same thing to the SA.

And the possibility regarding criminals being treated fairly in Nazi Germany is a farce as many SS, SA, Gestapo members were common criminals within the system and before the Nazis came to power and the Nazis used criminals quite willingly without prejudice these were thieves, extortionists, murderers and sexual deviants. The Nazis gave them a clear pass to work in the system, even in the camps the common criminal had more respect over the individual that was there because of race or religion. Sadly though even with factual evidence of ranking members being criminals gets debated as many don't want to believe that the Nazi system had its fair share of common criminals. To implement such a régime you need people to do the dirty work and ranking members of the SA, SS and Nazi party members knew this. Loyalty to the party and organization, race and religion was far more important than innocence.

[jackconnor]

Sophia Scholl was not an Edelweiss Pirate but member of the White Rose with her brother.