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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOne more buddy for Pat Buchanan:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140619_Drexel_Hill_man_expected_to_face_extradition_for_Nazi_war_crimes.html?c=rAn 89-year-old Northeast Philadelphia man was ordered held without bail while a U.S. court decides whether he should be extradited to Germany to face charges for his time as a guard at a Nazi prison camp during World War II.
Deputy U.S. Marshals arrested Johann "Hans" Breyer Tuesday in the driveway of his home, just hours before the unsealing of a formal request from the German government for his removal.
According to court documents, Breyer has been charged with complicity in the murder of 158 trainloads of Jewish deportees at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp between May 1944 and October 1944.
His lawyer, Dennis Boyle, said during an initial court hearing Wednesday, he would fight the request and argued that his client was to old and frail to be detained.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140619_Drexel_Hill_man_expected_to_face_extradition_for_Nazi_war_crimes.html#w25yELL8iHkw9fTv.99
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)I love it almost as much as I loath Pat Buchanan.
dilby
(2,273 posts)I highly doubt he was the ring leader.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)But after 70 years I realize that's a bit of a long shot.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)at this hell-hole is more than enough reason to put him away for the rest of his miserable existence.
dilby
(2,273 posts)An 18 year old kid was told to do a job, a crappy job and a job that was dictated by people who were a lot higher up than him. I don't hold him responsible for what happened and to prosecute this guy at 89 is just to get vengeance and nothing about justice.
PCIntern
(25,347 posts)all the poor Germans...
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)about who guarded the Concentration camps.
dilby
(2,273 posts)Do you think he was a hardened killer at 18, in 1944 where he spent 5 months working just before the War ended? He was a kid, he was what the Nazi's had left after the rest of their Army had bled out on the eastern and western fronts. This is Vengeance it's not justice and I forgive this guy.
Behind the Aegis
(53,833 posts)Vengeance would be arresting him, imprisoning him, and eventually murdering him because of who he is. And, who are you to "forgive" him?
dilby
(2,273 posts)My great uncle was in a concentration camp in Poland and I was always fascinated by his tattoo. I got to hear his stories about what it was like and he died 10 years before my Grandfather his older brother because he aged so much in just the 2 years he spent in captivity. He lost his wife and children to the War, people I would never meet.
And yes this will be Vengeance, the guy was a kid doing what he was told to do at the end of the War. He guarded the trains, he did not give the Orders and he did not flip the switch or fire the guns. They are not shipping him to Germany to give him medals, they are going arrest him, imprison him and he will die so people can put a face to the atrocities that were committed by those who were giving the orders.
Behind the Aegis
(53,833 posts)No, it is not vengeance, vengeance is what I described. Holding a trial for some accused of something is not vengeance, it is JUSTICE. There is no statute of limitations on murder or accessory to murder. Just because he was a "kid" doesn't absolve him, nor does "just following orders."
dilby
(2,273 posts)Because every man and woman who served in Iraq would face the exact same charges.
Behind the Aegis
(53,833 posts)Did EVERY German solider face trial? NO?! Do they hunt down every German who was even remotely involved with the war? No? Then asserting "this" is the reason Bush and Cheney won't face charges as an excuse for "forgiving" him is bullshit. And, for the record, they SHOULD face charges!
iamthebandfanman
(8,127 posts)the normal german army was a 'draft'/conscripted deal.. but what this man was in, THE SS, was a VOLUNTARY decision on his part.
he CHOSE to join the group with the most HARDENED anti-jewish philosophy of any group in Nazi Germany.. I think that says a lot.
we aren't asking that this man be drug thru town with his pants down...
like you say, only that he gets his day in court for the crimes he committed...
im not sure how the bush administration is comparable to this.. seeing as the Obama administration made sure that they are protected from prosecution as best they could...
bush SHOULD have his day in court and I hope one day he does.. even if hes 89.
GReedDiamond
(5,299 posts)...in order to tell you to go fuck yourself for giving a willing accomplice to the mass extermination of Jews, a pass, because he's now so old and feeble or whatever...
If this nazi fuck could do it all over again, except, this time, the nazis WON, he would.
The only problem would be, he's now too old, feeble and physically incapacitated to do anything involved in the systematic extermination of a "mongrel" subset of society -- so, he'd have to ask other "people" (such as himself in 1939) to do the dirty work for him.
Which is what this particular nazi did back in his day.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)investigation you'd find that the German Army was not in charge of guarding concentration camps. That dubious distinction was left to special units of the SS. You weren't drafted into the SS - you had to apply and pass strict racial tests, among others. So your young hero volunteered to be part of the black suited killers who were responsible for the death of more than six million Jews, as well as Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Communists and Russian POW's. And, by that stage of the war no one in Germany had any illusions about what the SS were all about. As one young SS volunteer wrote his wife while killing Jews in Russia "Everone knows what we bring".
iamthebandfanman
(8,127 posts)that he was in the SS.. you realize he VOLUNTEERED for the SS , right?
If age is an excuse, then why do we prosecute 15 year olds with adult murder charges when they commit murder?
this is not about vengeance, its about a cruel evil man who got enjoy the last 60 years of his life after helping murder thousands of people who never go their chance at an extra 60 years. he deserves punishment. period. deal with it.
yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)Breyer voluntarily enlisted, responding to a call to ethnic German youths, the documents state. He was called up a year later and deployed with the Waffen-SS Death's Head Guard Battalions to Auschwitz-Birkenau through 1944.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140619_Drexel_Hill_man_expected_to_face_extradition_for_Nazi_war_crimes.html#Jzxd1JiLd7GBH6O0.99
Did he know what he was signing up for? Hard to say. It is a tough case with no good answers which I can see. A 17 or 18 year old still should know right from wrong, but many much more mature individuals didn't seem to know at the time either. No easy answers here. I think the real question is whether the benefits of extraditing him to Germany to hopefully shed more light on what happened in one particular death camp outweighs the compassionate course of just allowing an old man to live out his few remaining days in relative peace, knowing that he may be suffering plenty of mental torment anyway. Not an easy call.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)had an uncle who died at Auschwitz. Fell out of a guard tower.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)If true, I'll refrain from laughing at the dead.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)JHB
(37,132 posts)He's certainly spoken well about every tinpot fascist dictator since 1945. And in his small way helped a few take power.
PCIntern
(25,347 posts)if you were to ask him, only about 10 Jews died in the Camps. The rest faked it...
Behind the Aegis
(53,833 posts)Now, if that isn't irony, I don't know what is!
iamthebandfanman
(8,127 posts)all the thin/dying jewish people he watched paraded around starving to death while being forced into manual labor.
fuck him and fuck all Nazis.
he was in the fucking SS for christs sake... he VOLUNTEERED. this man knew damn well what he was doing at 18 years old...
he was a fucking adult.
people making excuses for him are SICK.