Former Auschwitz guard charged with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder

[Christianbookworm]

Wait a sec... how is that guy still alive??? Wasn't WWII 70+ years ago? Sure, why not charge a geriatric for something they did over 70 years ago...
A bookkeeper???

[KingsGambit]

Stolen funds wouldn't be prosecutable this late unless German law is completely insane (I'm not ruling that out...).

I get the impression they're sort of making it up as they go along.

[Teallaura]

I thought they had substantiated that he had stolen money, but the wording isn't that clear. I will say I don't see the point in going after the lower level guys 70 years later.

Stolen funds wouldn't be prosecutable this late unless German law is completely insane (I'm not ruling that out...).

[KingsGambit]

For the record, merely being a bookkeeper isn't a justification: the fact that they do not seem able to substantiate an actual criminal act makes prosecution itself unjustifiable.

I thought they had substantiated that he had stolen money, but the wording isn't that clear. I will say I don't see the point in going after the lower level guys 70 years later.

[Teallaura]

For the record, merely being a bookkeeper isn't a justification: the fact that they do not seem able to substantiate an actual criminal act makes prosecution itself unjustifiable.

[Paprika]

He'll be a useful scapegoat to appease the collective guilt...for a time.

[TimelessTheist]

Eh, I don't know, I think about this kind of stuff a lot. I guess you could say he was responsible for war crimes, which aren't just internal politics of a nation, which is something I don't advocate warring against a nation for. On the other hand, he wasn't really responsible for them in the first place, he was basically just a bookkeeper.

[Epoetker]

On the same level as charging the guy who shot someone that died 30 years later from complications of the previous murder, just stupider.

[Teallaura]

Um, from the article it sounds like the courts are changing the rules which is not technically an ex post facto law. Doesn't sound like a genius rule change, either.

A bookkeeper? Seriously? Based on nothing more than being assigned to a camp is a dumb standard - it technically means that the Jews who were forced into labor there would also be guilty.

On the bright side, the prosecutions are likely to just be paper.

[TimelessTheist]

I'm not sure I'd use that argument; using that argument, you couldn't have charged Himmler with anything.

I'm just saying, it's kind of a double standard. Hitler used the same logic to kill all those Jews: Make it illegal for Jews to be in Germany; implement it while Jews are still living in Germany, and there you go! Instant massacre. Albeit war crimes are different, as they affect the populaces of territories outside that of the territory your own regime controls, but you see what I'm getting it.

[KingsGambit]

Hasn't Germany ever heard of ex post facto laws?

I'm not sure I'd use that argument; using that argument, you couldn't have charged Himmler with anything.

[TimelessTheist]

http://online.wsj.com/articles/forme...68082?mod=e2fb

There has been some debate over whether it is even worth charging such people at this point in time. A complicating factor here is that this individual has been open about his past occupation but claimed he didn't participate in the atrocities. I haven't seen anything to suggest he's an Oskar Schindler, though.

Hasn't Germany ever heard of ex post facto laws?

[Darth Executor]

Stupid, and not because of his age or the distance in time. The original "crime" isn't worth prosecuting.

[KingsGambit]

http://online.wsj.com/articles/forme...68082?mod=e2fb

There has been some debate over whether it is even worth charging such people at this point in time. A complicating factor here is that this individual has been open about his past occupation but claimed he didn't participate in the atrocities. I haven't seen anything to suggest he's an Oskar Schindler, though.