Posted on 06/18/2014 6:39:36 PM PDT by re_tail20
Johann Breyer, 89, shuffled unsteadily into a federal courtroom here on Wednesday morning, using a cane for support as he sunk slowly into a chair at the defense table.
The retired toolmaker from what was then Czechoslovakia, who immigrated to the United States in 1952, was thin and pale and dressed in a green jail uniform after a night spent in lockup following his arrest at his home in Philadelphia. He looked confused at times, too, but when the judge asked him if he understood why the German authorities wanted to put him on trial there, he answered simply, “Yes.”
Nothing about his demeanor suggested the long-ago secrets that the authorities in both Germany and the United States say Mr. Breyer has carried with him for 70 years. As an armed guard at the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz and a member of the notorious SS “Death’s Head” battalion, the authorities charged Wednesday that Mr. Breyer was complicit in the gassing of 216,000 Jews brought there in 1944 from Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Germany.
The Germans, seeking to have him extradited to the Wieden district to stand trial, have charged him with 158 counts of “aiding and abetting” in murder — one count for each of the 158 trainloads of Jews brought to the killing center at Auschwitz in a six-month span. Most of the so-called deportees, including many thousands of women, children and old people, were killed in gas chambers almost immediately after arriving at Auschwitz, then cremated.
Mr. Breyer acknowledged two decades ago, when first questioned by the American authorities, that he had worked as a guard at Auschwitz, but he said that he did so “involuntarily” and that he had nothing to do with the gassings....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I now wished I had not done my homework and stumbled on this book.
Deliverance Day. The Last Hours at Dachau.
Michael Selzer.
Lippincott. 1978.
It could even be said that Breyer was lucky to have been at Auschwitz and not Dachau. For there the homicidal SS quickly decamped at the approaching advance of the Americans. 152 regular German soldiers in a barracks close by, were quickly pressed into service as camp guards. I will not dwell on the rest.
I can only quote the immortal bard.
Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.
Robert Burns.
Why not treat him like a terrorist and send him to Bermuda?
Nazi war suspect, 89, dies in Philadelphia hospital only hours before court rules he should be extradited to Germany to face trial
• Johann Breyer, 89, died in custody in the hospital he had been transferred to after a month in jail
• Breyer told The Associated Press in a 2012 interview that while he was a guard at Auschwitz, he was assigned to a part of the camp that was not involved in the slaughter of Jews and others
• German authorities issued a 2013 warrant charging Breyer with accessory to murder under the theory that the death camp's sole function was to kill people
Come on, dude! That was like, so last century.
Thanks for the update.
He's on the right side of the dirt at last.
But he did volunteer to join the SS.
perfect
good catch. thank you for the update.
Hopefully his death was painful
Thanks for the update...
A terrible era in human history...
And yet there are numbnuts who go to Auschwitz and take selfies there as if it were a day at the beach, disgusting.
Agreed.
I always love this excuse.
Even if they weren't a part of herding the Jews into the chambers, they were a part of the logistical support of the overall camp that kept it functioning.
That makes them accessories. And in American criminal law, even if you are an accessory to a crime, if someone dies then even the accessories are charged with murder for their part in helping make the situation arise that led to death.
-PJ
If Hitler told a camp to slaughter Jews, it slaughtered Jews.
Once someone volunteered for SS at all, it was the luck of the draw (from a human point of view) whether he would get involved with a death camp.
My question is how far do you want to go with this kind of accusation? Just because somebody’s human law says something makes it neither right nor moral.
I make a distinction between someone who volunteered for the SS, and someone like Demjanjuk, whose only choices were to serve as a guard, or be shot.
All will end up on that side of the dirt (short of “being caught up in the air with the Lord”). Probably you and I too.
It is larger, more important issues that dictate whether someone is going to end up in heaven or hell.
Vendettas that go on for many decades (certainly more than the number of years in a biblical jubilee period) begin to verge on the unseemly.
Unseemly? So exactly how many years should pass until everything a Nazi pig did is OK with you?
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