Nazi prison guard living in Tennessee gets deported

[Fuzzy Bear]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/20/us/nazi-guard-deported-trnd/index.html

It’s a travesty that this goosestepper evaded justice for so long. If he lived in my neighborhood, it would’ve been a different story.

https://www.memphisflyer.com/NewsBlog/archives/2020/12/11/german-prosecutors-drop-case-against-former-nazi-guard

The man is 95 years old now.  He was 19 when he served in the SS in a Concentration Camp.  His time at this job was short and he was not part of the killing, nor did he witness any killing.  These are the findings of a German Court.

"During interrogations in the U.S., the accused admitted that he had guarded prisoners in the Meppen area for several weeks. He did not observe any mistreatment of prisoners. He was not aware of any deaths among the prisoners. He was not used to guard an evacuation march. Additional information is not to be expected when the accused is questioned in Germany."

If the man had been found to have actively participated in murders I'd be less sympathetic, but he was not found to have done so.  He was 19 years old when this happened, and asking for a transfer in the outfit he was with isn't quite like asking the US Army for a reassignment.  It also doesn't mean you'd get one.  He was 19 years old and was only in this possession short term.

I do not know what this man was like in life.  I don't know what he did while in America.  Perhaps this is a just outcome, but I can't square this deporation with the action Biden has taken in halting other deportations that will keep MS-13 gang members (who are committing crimes in the United States in the here and now) from being deported.  This man is 95 years old, he was acquitted of War Crimes in a Court, and he was 19 at the time.  He's not a hero.  But he was a person doing what HE needed to do to keep himself alive in a situation that no 19 year old person should be in.

I will say this:  If this man is to be deported, so be it.  But construction on The Wall needs to be restarted and those who are in INS custody that have so been designated ought to be deported as quickly as possible.  I'll change my mind if you can show me that his role was bigger than what is documented here.  But you haven't done so to date.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Regarding the issue of "extradition":  This individual is not being "extradited"; if he were, I would not have a problem with his being sent back to Germany (or wherever).  He has been acquitted in a Court of crimes as far as I can tell.  He's being deported for lying to get into America, and I get that.

His treatment needs to be balanced against Biden's plans to allow criminal illegal aliens (as well as illegal aliens that have not committed criminal offenses while in America) avoid deportation.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Lol, of course the anti-immigration advocates are loath to see a former Nazi get deported from this country. If you're uncomfortable with a concentration camp guard getting deported, please ask yourself why you don't extend that same empathy to illegal immigrants from Latin America that haven't participated in genocide.

https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal-hrsp/legacy/2011/01/31/holtzman-amend.pdf

This issue has been already examined by the German Court.  This individual did not participate in genocide unless you define the term to include merely being assigned to the camp this man (18 at the time, 19 when the war ended) was assigned to.  The German Court has concluded that he did not engage in conduct that would rise to the level of torture or extrajudicial killings.  As horrible as the Holocaust was, and as horrible as many of the individuals that made it happen actually are, there is no evidence that this man was one of those.  

The Holtzman Amendment states that participation in "Nazi Persecutions, genocide, or the commission of any act of torture or extrajudicial killings" is deportable.  If you're defining "Participation in Nazi Persecutions as merely being a guard, not participating in the actual killing, I suppose he'd qualify under that particular technicality.  My college history professor's words during my class "The World At War" where he explained that "washouts" would be sent to the camps as inmates keep coming back to me, and I keep thinking how this 18 year old must have felt having found himself in 1945 as over his head as he was.

Can I have empathy for illegal aliens from Latin America?  Of course I can.  Many are, in fact, coming from Failed States where there is no effective law and order and no real public safety.  It's one thing to consider situations on a case-by-case basis; it's another thing to simply stop enforcing immigration law en masse.  I don't wish to do the latter any more than I wish to repeal the Holtzman Amendment.

[Fuzzy Bear]

This isn't a case of deporting an old man, it's a case of deporting a young man who spent decades on the run from his crimes. If he's a better man now than he was then, he should accept his fate and face the consequences for his crimes. He got to live a full and free life in until the ripe old age of 95, something his victims never experienced. The US owes him nothing.

I would agree with you that the US owes him nothing.  Will you concede that the US owes illegal aliens of all kinds nothing?  (I realize that question is deeper than it seems at a number of levels.)

[Fuzzy Bear]

Where did I defend a Nazi? All I’m saying is, throwing this 95 year old in prison for something that he did 75 years ago when he poses no threat to the world today isn’t making the world a better place. He was a teenager, and teenagers make mistakes. If he had said no, he might have ended up where he was guarding.

And you calling someone a Nazi for something they did 75 years in the past, and not allowing any room for development, is rather against the whole liberal idea of “people can change, 2nd chances, etc.”- one of the ideas that has contributed the most to the development of a civil society today.

Report his post.  I already did.

People feel free to call others "racists" and "Nazis" around here.  It's actually against the ToS.  Report them.  Report them every time. 

This issue is about principles of justice, mercy, consistency, levels of guilt, and the ability to consider the totality of circumstances.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Fuzzy Bear and The Reckoning defending a literal Nazi is not surprising.

Where did I defend a Nazi? All I’m saying is, throwing this 95 year old in prison for something that he did 75 years ago when he poses no threat to the world today isn’t making the world a better place. He was a teenager, and teenagers make mistakes. If he had said no, he might have ended up where he was guarding.

And you calling someone a Nazi for something they did 75 years in the past, and not allowing any room for development, is rather against the whole liberal idea of “people can change, 2nd chances, etc.”- one of the ideas that has contributed the most to the development of a civil society today.

Getting deported to Germany is hardly the end of the world.

I don’t really care honestly, but I just think there is no point.

There is no statute of limitations on genocide.

The German courts have already ruled on the issue of genocide:

https://www.memphisflyer.com/NewsBlog/archives/2020/12/11/german-prosecutors-drop-case-against-former-nazi-guard

“Between December 26th, 1944 and March 25th, 1945, a total of 379 prisoners died in both camps and on the evacuation marches. Specific acts of intentional killing were only documented in isolated cases in the two camps, but not during the evacuation marches.

“During interrogations in the U.S., the accused admitted that he had guarded prisoners in the Meppen area for several weeks. He did not observe any mistreatment of prisoners. He was not aware of any deaths among the prisoners. He was not used to guard an evacuation march. Additional information is not to be expected when the accused is questioned in Germany.

“This admission cannot be refuted to the accused. The granted guarding of prisoners in a concentration camp, which was not used for the systematic killing of the prisoners, is not sufficient as such to prove the crime.

“The U.S. Department of Justice investigation has not linked the accused to any specific killing, in which the accused may have been an accessory.

“No further evidence is available. Surviving prisoners from the two camps are not known. The existing written material was fully evaluated.

[Fuzzy Bear]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=430716.0

Ok, TheReckoning/Fuzzy answer this question then.

I would be OK with that guy being deported.  The totality of circumstances indicate that this person is a clear and present danger.

I don't believe one can say this in the case of a 95 year old who served when he was 18 in the German military and, apparently, has lived a decent life, so far as anyone has shown.  Key words are "so far as anyone has shown".  I do understand the gravity of genocide and I can understand people advocating for his deportation, even at age 95, as a deterrent to future genocides and to those who commit future genocides from seeking refuge in foreign lands under new identities to escape criminal charges and War Crimes tribunals.  But there is a totality of circumstances in this case that ought to be given weight, and part of that is that the man has never been convicted of War Crimes.  That we would take someone who entered the military at age 18, whose involvement ended at age 19, and likely did not fully know what he was getting into until after he entered the military and treat him as if he's something he has not been proven to be ought to be questioned.

There's a difference in the two (2) cases.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Can we please stop calling this man a Nazi? It seems rather unfair to hold someone to a label which they were more or less forced into 75 years ago as a teenager. People can change and circumstances need to be taken into account.

As someone whose family was reduced to a single branch by the Nazis, no.

I agree people can change and circumstances must be taken into account. I agree this person may have atoned and felt remorse. To a Christian that's what is needed to forgive. I find that capacity to forgive admirable in most cases. This man's crime is not your crime to forgive.

Whether justice comes from society or from God - as you believe - is something each of us can decide on our own, but our country must have rules and fairness. The debt owed to my people and to others is greater than this man's retirement. He should face a fully fair trial and accept that involvement excludes him from forgiveness by some of us. When he dies, God can weigh in. That might seem unfair and cold, but that coldness might disincentivize the heat of fascist ovens.

I abhor Nazism in all its forms.  I abhor Fascism.  It's ridiculous that I would have to defend this here, but I abhor these things and condemn them unequivocally.  

To Charcolt:  I abhor what was done to your family.  Nothing justifies it.  I certainly hope that those responsible received justice.  But that doesn't give you the right to libel me.  And what you said about me is a libelous personal attack.  I haven't done that to you.  

People on the Left here feel free to libel people here.  I am certainly hoping that the Moderation Team is not going to be a party to that.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Does anyone think Fuzzy would be showing this level of compassion and mercy for a Muslim immigrant later found to have been a member of ISIS?

It would depend how much longer after the fact this happened.

If it happened today I'd be skeptical as to the person's motives.  If it happened decades from now, that would be a different story.  We crushed the Third Reich, but our problems with Radical Islamic Terror Groups (including ISIS) remains an ongoing problem.  It would not be wrong to consider the possibility that such a person still held anti-American views.

Now if this person lived in the US for decades crime free and renounced ISIS that would be different.  Again, I would suggest people consider the totality of circumstances.  

America has always restricted the entry of people whose current ideology was a threat to National Security.  We did not allow Soviet Bolsheviks to come to the US as permanent residents; we were very selective in who we let in at all.  We did not let people we knew were active Nazis come to the US after WWII; they went other places.  

Totality of circumstances is the principle I would go on, personally if the answer to the question was up to me, personally.  But, yes, I would fairly consider the whole of a person's circumstances.

I would also apply that standard to people already here illegally.  I don't see that as incompatible with continuing to build The Wall.  I would not be opposed to a large amnesty for people who are already here IF the Wall was built and there was a commitment to enforce our present immigration laws.  I'll state this before someone else chooses to libel me.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Can we please stop calling this man a Nazi? It seems rather unfair to hold someone to a label which they were more or less forced into 75 years ago as a teenager. People can change and circumstances need to be taken into account.

The Nazis knew that the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to handle being a concentration camp guard. They only assigned people who wouldn't crack - deranged sickos who would enjoy it - to that job. The idea that he was just some sweet, innocent teenager forced into a role he didn't want doesn't really square with history.

It has been a long time, and maybe he really has changed, but we shouldn't whitewash or excuse the person he was in the 1940s.

In truth, we don't know what kind of teenager this man was, or what he was told about the "job" they placed him in by the Nazis.  We definitely should not whitewash what happened here, but we don't have to present this man as worse than he was and is either.  The fact that this man was not convicted of War Crimes by the German Court is highly relevant here.  The man is not a criminal; at least not by the verdicts of Courts.  

As for what kind of person he was back in the 1940s, he was an underage teenager until 1944 when he turned 18, and then he turned 19 in 1945 when the war ended.  From 1939 to 1945 he lived in a nation waging a World War; these were his formative teenage years.  This is not a middle aged German of the time who had a hunch about what was going on in the camps and tacitly approved; this was a kid who became an 18 year old "adult" in a nation at war and a nation about to lose a war.  Think about that for a minute.