German Woman, 95, Charged With Complicity In More Than 10,000 Murders During WWII

[Chef]

Japan was down and out for the count when Little Boy made his entrance.
LeMay had already written to the Joint Chiefs telling them he was going to be out of anything of any worthwhile size to bomb by the end of August and would be down to using his B-29's bombing very small towns and villages. He was already throwing 400 B-29's at a time at towns of 50,000 in July.
Remember, the target cities had been off limits to conventional bombing so they would be good test targets.

Read 'Quartered safe out here' G. MacDonald Fraser for a view on how down and out Japan was.

I definitely think I'm better than any nazi. I have never loaded my fellow citizens into a gas chamber, for instance.

You're presumably too young to have been offered the chance. I notice you don't say you wouldn't have either. Which is at least honest.

 

[ches]

You don't understand do you? In the Nazi Germany that @ches and @PhotEx lived in and experienced the Nazi party were an law abiding bunch who would turn the other cheek and nobody ever got punished if they kept within the law. When the war ended I presume they moved to the east end of London where the Krays and that other bunch of loveable rogues, the Richardsons, only attacked their own kind and the front door could be left unlocked.

The scary world your family lived in was exaggerated and simply didn't exist.

The woman in question is still innocent until proved guilty. So we'll find out when the court reaches its decision. Then her motives may be scrutinised

I would say again that unlike some of the heroes on this thread I don't know how I'd behave in a different world in the 30s and 40s. But I doubt they know what they'd do to stay alive and not go up the chimney.

Give your head a wobble & feel free to quote where I've said that nobody got punished for 'crimes' against the Nazi party. The only point i've made & been able to back up with links to the relevant sources is the lack of any CM or disciplinaries of any member of the armed forces for asking to be moved away from camp or mass shooting actions. To repeat again, the impact on German servicemen & women was known about & studied with a report produced for the senior SS that highlighted the problems they had already encountered in the latter half of 1941 - predating the full implementation of the death camp system by nearly 12 months. They knew that personnel wouldn't be able to continue to kill at the rates required due to personnel becoming ineffective due to the mental stresses of killing civilians - so the process of allowing affected personnel to move without penalty was supported & allowed to ensure the efficiency of units if nothing else. It wasn't a crime to request a move if you couldn't handle the duty of killing.

You have the option of disproving that, so go ahead. Don't forget to let the likes of Holland, Walters, Gilbert et al know of your discovery of your new empirical evidence.


This case is about a civilian support worker in the camp system. I've already said that the decision to prosecute her may be debatable but thats down to the German govt & their moving of the legal goalposts but to repeat yet again, her requesting a move away from her duty for the above reasons would not have constituted a crime in Germany. She would have been able to make such a request.

 

[Chef]

Give your head a wobble & feel free to quote where I've said that nobody got punished for 'crimes' against the Nazi party. The only point i've made & been able to back up with links to the relevant sources is the lack of any CM or disciplinaries of any member of the armed forces for asking to be moved away from camp or mass shooting actions. To repeat again, the impact on German servicemen & women was known about & studied with a report produced for the senior SS that highlighted the problems they had already encountered in the latter half of 1941 - predating the full implementation of the death camp system by nearly 12 months. They knew that personnel wouldn't be able to continue to kill at the rates required due to personnel becoming ineffective due to the mental stresses of killing civilians - so the process of allowing affected personnel to move without penalty was supported & allowed to ensure the efficiency of units if nothing else. It wasn't a crime to request a move if you couldn't handle the duty of killing.

You have the option of disproving that, so go ahead. Don't forget to let the likes of Holland, Walters, Gilbert et al know of your discovery of your new empirical evidence.


This case is about a civilian support worker in the camp system. I've already said that the decision to prosecute her may be debatable but thats down to the German govt & their moving of the legal goalposts but to repeat yet again, her requesting a move away from her duty for the above reasons would not have constituted a crime in Germany. She would have been able to make such a request.

Point taken. This was my first post on the matter:

Considering the number of active participants in the mass murdering who were ignored, indeed the vast majority of the SS weren't pursued at all. Now when there is clear blue water between the Germans and the Nazis the last few members are being tracked down and tried maybe to establish that there really were the two races in Germany.

There was no punishment for refusing to work in the camps, presumably becoming public knowledge

I wonder how happy some of the hind sight warriors of today would be to go back in time and be known as 'not a team player' in a totalitarian state where 'Nacht und nebel' was an established police procedure.

In fact I wonder how many have spoken out against some woke excesses or refused to attend unconscious bias training courses at work as a matter of principle.

In this case who knows whether she was an out and out Nazi or a late teens, early twenties girl glad of the work?

I believe you absolutely when you say that despite 'Sippenhaft', 'Nacht und Nebel' and popular sayings like 'Careful what you say lest you go up the chimney' not a single person was officially punished for declining a directive they felt was morally wrong.

Where we do appear to part company is your certitude that the people who were living in a war torn country after 12 years of Nazi rule trusted implicitly in the rule of law and that unofficial sanctions would never be applied to an awkward person.

You and I are lucky enough to live in a society with no death penalty a robust and non political legal system plus a plethora of quangos dedicated to ensuring the rights of the individual. We can express our views and opinions mostly without the police getting involved and long may it continue.

What I don't know is how I'd behave in a foreign country, in the midst of a struggle for national survival, under a dictatorship three quarters of a century ago. So how can I know what someone who was there at that time and place do? Rather like some of the trials of soldiers on Op Banner almost 50 years ago.

You on the other hand seem to be absolutely certain that you'd stand up to the authority which for eleven years of your 19 you'd been taught to obey.

Maybe we're comparing apples and oranges.

ETA 'Don't forget to let the likes of Holland, Walters, Gilbert et al know of your discovery of your new empirical evidence.'

I didn't know it was possible to prove the nonexistence of these punishments. That should make the job of atheists a bit easier.

 

[ches]

Point taken. This was my first post on the matter:

Considering the number of active participants in the mass murdering who were ignored, indeed the vast majority of the SS weren't pursued at all. Now when there is clear blue water between the Germans and the Nazis the last few members are being tracked down and tried maybe to establish that there really were the two races in Germany.

There was no punishment for refusing to work in the camps, presumably becoming public knowledge

I wonder how happy some of the hind sight warriors of today would be to go back in time and be known as 'not a team player' in a totalitarian state where 'Nacht und nebel' was an established police procedure.

In fact I wonder how many have spoken out against some woke excesses or refused to attend unconscious bias training courses at work as a matter of principle.

In this case who knows whether she was an out and out Nazi or a late teens, early twenties girl glad of the work?

I believe you absolutely when you say that despite 'Sippenhaft', 'Nacht und Nebel' and popular sayings like 'Careful what you say lest you go up the chimney' not a single person was officially punished for declining a directive they felt was morally wrong.

Where we do appear to part company is your certitude that the people who were living in a war torn country after 12 years of Nazi rule trusted implicitly in the rule of law and that unofficial sanctions would never be applied to an awkward person.

You and I are lucky enough to live in a society with no death penalty a robust and non political legal system plus a plethora of quangos dedicated to ensuring the rights of the individual. We can express our views and opinions mostly without the police getting involved and long may it continue.

What I don't know is how I'd behave in a foreign country, in the midst of a struggle for national survival, under a dictatorship three quarters of a century ago. So how can I know what someone who was there at that time and place do? Rather like some of the trials of soldiers on Op Banner almost 50 years ago.

You on the other hand seem to be absolutely certain that you'd stand up to the authority which for eleven years of your 19 you'd been taught to obey.

Maybe we're comparing apples and oranges.

ETA 'Don't forget to let the likes of Holland, Walters, Gilbert et al know of your discovery of your new empirical evidence.'

I didn't know it was possible to prove the nonexistence of these punishments. That should make the job of atheists a bit easier.

I've said previously on this thread about the unofficial penalties many people paid especially in the latter months of the war. It will be down to her & her defence to provide evidence that she would have faced some form of unofficial penalty however if she started working there early in the camps life then that would be debatable.

At no point have I said I'd stand up to the authorities. You may have me confused with another poster. I have no idea what i'd have done.

 

[PhotEx]

Read 'Quartered safe out here' G. MacDonald Fraser for a view on how down and out Japan was.

That would be the shattered remains of the 14th Army that had completely collapsed and was in full rout from Burma by the time Little Boy had his big day out?

 

[ches]

That would be the shattered remains of the 14th Army that had completely collapsed and was in full rout from Burma by the time Little Boy had his big day out?

Shattered may be, but fighting like demons all the way. Commonwealth casualties were awful pushing them back.

 

[Chef]

That would be the shattered remains of the 14th Army that had completely collapsed and was in full rout from Burma by the time Little Boy had his big day out?

No. That would be the ascendant 14th Army that was chasing the Japanese out of Burma prior to facing, possibly, a conventional invasion of the Japanese homeland where casualties were expected to be so huge that the US are probably still using the Purple Hearts struck then in anticipation of the aforementioned casualties.

A war which may have gone on for years.

As you've read possibly read the book I presume you're on the side of the man who'd rather the allies suffered casualties than the Japanese. With whom we were at the time at war with.

Personally I'm glad that GMF survived to write the 'Flashman' books.

'The essence of war is violence, moderation in war is imbecility.'

 

[Norwegian Blue]

Some of the Dutch were pretty enthusiastic anti-Soviet types. One of the largest foreign contingents in the SS was a brigade strength unit as 4th PZ Gren SS Nederland

I recall reading that the Dutch were very contradictory, with both the highest percentage of any western population as collaborators and the highest as actual resistors.

 

[ches]

I recall reading that the Dutch were very contradictory, with both the highest percentage of any western population as collaborators and the highest as actual resistors.

Indeed & tbf the recruits to the SS were anti-communists first, turn coats second......in their own eyes at least.

 

[PhotEx]

No. That would be the ascendant 14th Army that was chasing the Japanese out of Burma prior to facing, possibly, a conventional invasion of the Japanese homeland where casualties were expected to be so huge that the US are probably still using the Purple Hearts struck then in anticipation of the aforementioned casualties.

A war which may have gone on for years.

As you've read possibly read the book I presume you're on the side of the man who'd rather the allies suffered casualties than the Japanese. With whom we were at the time at war with.

Personally I'm glad that GMF survived to write the 'Flashman' books.

'The essence of war is violence, moderation in war is imbecility.'

The Japanese were in no position to fight on in Burma, they were a starved rabble in headlong retreat.

 

[adouglasmhor]

There were certainly enough Nazis or even just disfavourable people who denounced their neighbours, relatives and even friends. This is nothing new, these people have existed for as long as there have been people.
My grandfather who lived at that time also had his one or two run-ins with the Nazi hierarchy. He actually dared to let Russian prisoners of war eat at his table. He was then quickly betrayed, which earned him an appointment with the local Nazi bigwig, a harsh warning and a notice that he would be a "Wehrbauer", a kind of colonial peasant, in the East after the final victory.
If he had been caught slaughtering illegally, all the animals had to be delivered, or bootlegging, or forking out cream for butter, that would have been the death penalty, depending on the circumstances.
Inspections took place regularly and I have some stories from my grandparents about how two policemen crawled into the last corner of the barn to check everything. Once or twice it got really tight.

The only "heroic" thing my grandfather did in the Second World War was to let these Russians eat, to give my uncle a good beating when he wanted to fight with the HJ against the advancing Americans and, out of sheer fear that they would fire on the village, to warn these Americans that a bridge could not carry their Shermans. It's quite simple, even in our small village with 600 or 700 souls at the time, people were picked up, imprisoned, sent to concentration camps and one even made it to Plötzensee.

Everyone should think carefully about how they would have reacted in such a situation, especially with a family that would have had to bear the consequences.

Similar story, not a family member, but our German Civy Clerk in Herford (NRW), Paula retired in the late 80s, at her leaving do she told me about how her father who was a devout Catholic, refused to allow her to join the Jungmadelbund which was a legal requirement for ethnically German girl citizens 10 and over in good health, or buy the uniform for her. He was fined, then some men who everyone knew were brownshirts but wouldn't say, turned up as he was leaving work and gave him a severe kicking, then the police told him he wasn't getting away with a fine the next time. So he had to suck it up and buy the uniform. Sje was crying when she told me about this.

 

[Chef]

Similar story, not a family member, but our German Civy Clerk in Herford (NRW), Paula retired in the late 80s, at her leaving do she told me about how her father who was a devout Catholic, refused to allow her to join the Jungmadelbund which was a legal requirement for ethnically German girl citizens 10 and over in good health, or buy the uniform for her. He was fined, then some men who everyone knew were brownshirts but wouldn't say, turned up as he was leaving work and gave him a severe kicking, then the police told him he wasn't getting away with a fine the next time. So he had to suck it up and buy the uniform. Sje was crying when she told me about this.

That sort of thing never happened. Every German's choice was respected. No punishment or retribution was ever handed out. There's no record of it so it's unpossible.

According to some on this thread.

 

[Goldbricker]

Japan was down and out for the count when Little Boy made his entrance.
LeMay had already written to the Joint Chiefs telling them he was going to be out of anything of any worthwhile size to bomb by the end of August and would be down to using his B-29's bombing very small towns and villages. He was already throwing 400 B-29's at a time at towns of 50,000 in July.
Remember, the target cities had been off limits to conventional bombing so they would be good test targets.

Yet still fighting to the literal death in China, Burma, Borneo, Okinawa, Philippines and little abandoned atolls, on the last day of the war, some holding out for decades. Kamikazes still appeared and gave their lives for the Emperor/God Hirohito.

It made no sense to the western mind to the Japanese it meant everything. Look at the Coup attempt to seize the Emperor's surrender record before broadcast. The Jap soldier would still kill you in a heartbeat for his god when any western soldier would have said **** it and given up

IJN still had hundreds of suicide boats and minisubs, small arms galore in the home islands and the WILL

 

[Goldbricker]

That would be the shattered remains of the 14th Army that had completely collapsed and was in full rout from Burma by the time Little Boy had his big day out?

Battle of Central Burma- January to March 1945 cost the 14th Army over 2,300 killed and over 15,800 Wounded

For a enemy supposedly fleeing as fast as they could, thats a hell of a cold shock to the 14th

 

[Goldbricker]

indirectly oh yes- it's politics remember and it was the German Lobby that is used as an excuse for the US not joining the first lot earlier. America did not want to be in the European war again.

German Lobby
Irish Lobby
Pacifist Lobby
Anti Semite Lobby (Bund, KKK, Father Coughlinites, etc)

Many AEF Veterans also wanted no new US war

a great many Americans thought they were suckered into WW1 by the propaganda from Wellington house and Arms manufacturers (Whether true or not).

JFK was an America Firster

 

[Bodenplatte]

Late war, a bomber came home with a dud AA shell stuck in its wing.
A curios intel type dismantled it to see if they could figure out why its didn't go BANG!

On opening up the shell, he was intrigued to find no powder and a little pencilled note

'This is not much, but it is the best we can do'

iirc, a Czech made shell - all the Germans had to do was 'little things'.

This might be the case of Royal Flush of the 100th Heavy Bombardment Group (Thorpe Abbotts) on the Munster raid of October 10th 1943. Piloted by Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal she was the only plane of the Group (the aptly named Bloody Hundredth) to return. An unexploded cannon shell was found rolling around inside one of the wing fuel tanks, and after examination by an armourer it was speculated that the round had been sabotaged by a slave labourer.

 

[Goldbricker]

That would be the shattered remains of the 14th Army that had completely collapsed and was in full rout from Burma by the time Little Boy had his big day out?

Uh the 14th Army was the British one not the Jap one

 

[diverman]

German Lobby
Irish Lobby
Pacifist Lobby
Anti Semite Lobby (Bund, KKK, Father Coughlinites, etc)

Many AEF Veterans also wanted no new US war

a great many Americans thought they were suckered into WW1 by the propaganda from Wellington house and Arms manufacturers (Whether true or not).

JFK was an America Firster

So JFK a Democrat was doing a Trump before Trump?

 

[LeoRoverman]

German Lobby
Irish Lobby
Pacifist Lobby
Anti Semite Lobby (Bund, KKK, Father Coughlinites, etc)

Many AEF Veterans also wanted no new US war

a great many Americans thought they were suckered into WW1 by the propaganda from Wellington house and Arms manufacturers (Whether true or not).

JFK was an America Firster

Never disputed that. Not least because of fairly anti British sentiment that has been with us since the Revolution. A lot has been blamed on isolationist policies, but you don’t get to pick up the pieces to dominate by isolationism.

 

[LeoRoverman]

Similar story, not a family member, but our German Civy Clerk in Herford (NRW), Paula retired in the late 80s, at her leaving do she told me about how her father who was a devout Catholic, refused to allow her to join the Jungmadelbund which was a legal requirement for ethnically German girl citizens 10 and over in good health, or buy the uniform for her. He was fined, then some men who everyone knew were brownshirts but wouldn't say, turned up as he was leaving work and gave him a severe kicking, then the police told him he wasn't getting away with a fine the next time. So he had to suck it up and buy the uniform. Sje was crying when she told me about this.

Like all these stories, you have to be careful. irc BDM wasn’t compulsory, it was more a matter of those in the NS party had access to it. It had links to HJ which was basically the party scout movement. How common was it for non party members to be intimidated or beaten up, quite common and by refusing to let his daughter join BDM it became a personal issue.Brown shirts were the SA
Grandad Anton found that life could become very difficult for non party members if the Gau was run by the NS. It was rather like a mafia operation. But that was earlier in the 30’s , but he had the perfect excuse to keep mum and my aunt out of the BDM. As an innkeeper he was training them in the job. Girls had to do Land arbeit compusorily from around age 15 or so.