Atrocities, Nazis, etc

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

That's ridiculous. The only reason most of those weren't hanged was because they committed suicide before they could be executed. That's not "escaping". Only Mengele actually escaped.

By the use of the word "escaped" the inference was that they avoided trial and execution and took their own lives instead. Although had the Russians got to Hitler while he was alive I do not think there would have been any trial.

[Cow Poke]

Are a few hundred deaths less of an atrocity than approximately eleven million?

If so, on what criteria?

Common sense.

[CivilDiscourse]

By the use of the word "escaped" the inference was that they avoided trial and execution and took their own lives instead. Although had the Russians got to Hitler while he was alive I do not think there would have been any trial.

What makes his suicide better/worse than being hung?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Killing people on a mass scale through poison gas never took place in the Dachau concentration camp. It remains unexplained as to why the SS never used the operational gas chamber for this purpose. According to one contemporary witness account, some prisoners were killed by poison gas in 1944.

Somewhat secluded from the rest of the camp complex, the SS used the crematorium area as an execution site. Here prisoners were hung or shot in the back of the neck. The victims were mainly members of resistance organizations. A commemorative “path of death” takes visitors past the execution sites and the graves with the ashes.

Between 1933 and 1945, around 41,500 persons died of hunger, exhaustion, and disease, the direct result of being tortured, or were brutally murdered in the Dachau concentration camp and its subcamps.
https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau....matorium-area/

Whether they used gas chambers or starvation, execution or disease, it still sounds like "extermination" to me.

And you are doing the whataboutism thing again.

Dachau was established in 1933 for political opponents and "enemies of the state" many of whom were subsequently murdered. Those later incarcerated suffered atrociously and thousands died as slave labour and/or from starvation, beatings, summary executions, and inhumane experiments but it was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz which from the start had been established as such.

[Sparko]

Dachau was established in 1933 for political opponents and "enemies of the state" many of whom were subsequently murdered. Those later incarcerated suffered atrociously and thousands died as slave labour and/or from starvation, beatings, summary executions, and inhumane experiments but it was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz which from the start had been established as such.

Seems like you are using semantics to excuse the murder of 41,000+ people in an attempt to play your "whataboutism" games to excuse Nazi's again. Whether they created it to be an extermination camp from the start, it ended up exterminating over 41K people. It could even be argued that at least the gas chambers were quick and painless, where at Dachau the prisoners died in slow agony from hunger, disease, torture...

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Yes.



Standard arithmetical ordering.

In that one death is less than twenty deaths.

However, given the definition of an atrocious act as something considered to be extremely wicked, monstrous, evil, brutal, or cruel [and so forth], where, at an ethical level, lies the difference between the atrocity which brings about the deliberate killing of one innocent individual and the atrocity which brings about the deliberate killing of hundreds?

For my part I cannot see any ethical distinction.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

What makes his suicide better/worse than being hung?

Hitler's? Can you imagine what would have happened to him if the Russians had got him alive?

He knew what had happened to Mussolini and his mistress. I doubt his end would have been so quick.

[Cow Poke]

Dachau was established in 1933 for political opponents and "enemies of the state" many of whom were subsequently murdered. Those later incarcerated suffered atrociously and thousands died as slave labour and/or from starvation, beatings, summary executions, and inhumane experiments but it was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz which from the start had been established as such.

Yes, the Germans can be particularly heinous.

[Sparko]

In that one death is less than twenty deaths.

However, given the definition of an atrocious act as something considered to be extremely wicked, monstrous, evil, brutal, or cruel [and so forth], where, at an ethical level, lies the difference between the atrocity which brings about the deliberate killing of one innocent individual and the atrocity which brings about the deliberate killing of hundreds?

For my part I cannot see any ethical distinction.

If you don't see a difference between one murder and twenty, you might be a psychopath.

[Cow Poke]

If you don't see a difference between one murder and twenty, you might be a psychopath.

I wonder if there's a reason that an airplane crashing with 420 people on board gets more airtime on the news than a vehicle crashing into a truck resulting in 2 deaths.

[CivilDiscourse]

Hitler's? Can you imagine what would have happened to him if the Russians had got him alive?

He knew what had happened to Mussolini and his mistress. I doubt his end would have been so quick.

And? He's dead either way. "Ethically, I can't see the difference"

[Sparko]

I wonder if there's a reason that an airplane crashing with 420 people on board gets more airtime on the news than a vehicle crashing into a truck resulting in 2 deaths.

or a serial killer over someone who just kills his wife.

[Juvenal]

In that one death is less than twenty deaths.

Were you aware that grammatical purists insist on "fewer" in this instance? Of course, when I find grammar nazis in disagreement with standard mathematical nomenclature, I respectfully suggest they go pound sand.

However, given the definition of an atrocious act as something considered to be extremely wicked, monstrous, evil, brutal, or cruel [and so forth], where, at an ethical level, lies the difference between the atrocity which brings about the deliberate killing of one innocent individual and the atrocity which brings about the deliberate killing of hundreds?

For my part I cannot see any ethical distinction.

Are you familiar with the trolley dilemma?
.

Imagine you are standing beside some tram tracks. In the distance, you spot a runaway trolley hurtling down the tracks towards five workers who cannot hear it coming. Even if they do spot it, they won’t be able to move out of the way in time.

As this disaster looms, you glance down and see a lever connected to the tracks. You realise that if you pull the lever, the tram will be diverted down a second set of tracks away from the five unsuspecting workers.

However, down this side track is one lone worker, just as oblivious as his colleagues.

So, would you pull the lever, leading to one death but saving five?

There are endless variations, all of which provide grist to the ethicists' mill asking how and why one might choose the lesser of two evils. For my part, I'd pull the lever on the death of one to save twenty, on twenty to save hundreds, and on hundreds to save millions, with little if any hesitation. Because some evils are easy to see as worse than others. Now if the choice was between five children and ten adults, I'd absolutely hesitate.

In any case, whether one can personally recognize a distinction, the existence of standard challenges such as these makes clear that ethicists can and do draw distinctions themselves.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Seems like you are using semantics to excuse the murder of 41,000+ people in an attempt to play your "whataboutism" games to excuse Nazi's again.

I will put this repeated assumption from various contributors that I am excusing the Nazis down to inveterate trolling and nothing else.

Whether they created it to be an extermination camp from the start, it ended up exterminating over 41K people. It could even be argued that at least the gas chambers were quick and painless, where at Dachau the prisoners died in slow agony from hunger, disease, torture...

I do not deny the brutality meted out at Dachau and the numbers who died, although as a point of information we do not actually have total figures for all those murdered at Dachau.

However, I consider that your comment on the gas chambers being "quick and painless" is a little naive. I understand it could take between 15 - 25 minutes to suffocate. As you correctly note that is indeed a much shorter period of time than slow death by disease and/or starvation but...

[Sparko]

I will put this repeated assumption from various contributors that I am excusing the Nazis down to inveterate trolling and nothing else.

I do not deny the brutality meted out at Dachau and the numbers who died, although as a point of information we do not actually have total figures for all those murdered at Dachau.

However, I consider that your comment on the gas chambers being "quick and painless" is a little naive. I understand it could take between 15 - 25 minutes to suffocate. As you correctly note that is indeed a much shorter period of time than slow death by disease and/or starvation but...

I will bow to your superior knowledge regarding the gas chambers, but that doesn't change the point I was making.