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Former SS Auschwitz guard apologizes at trial
The Associated Press ^ | April 29, 2016 | David Rising

Posted on 04/29/2016 5:46:09 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper

A 94-year-old former SS sergeant admitted in court Friday that he had served as an Auschwitz death camp guard, apologizing to Nazi Holocaust survivors looking on in a German courtroom that even though he was aware Jews were being gassed and their corpses burned, he did nothing to try to stop it.

Reinhold Hanning told the Detmould state court that he had never spoken about his service in Auschwitz from January 1942 to June 1944, even to his family, but wanted to use his trial as an opportunity to set the record straight.

"I want to say that it disturbs me deeply that I was part of such a criminal organization," he said as he sat in a wheelchair, talking with a weak voice into a microphone. "I am ashamed that I saw injustice and never did anything about it and I apologize for my actions. I am very, very sorry."

(Excerpt) Read more at ctvnews.ca ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Germany
KEYWORDS: auschwitz; detmould; germany; holocaust; nazis; reinholdhanning; theholocaust; warcrimes; wwii
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To: Berlin_Freeper

In this case or any other of a specific individual who worked in these places. Just what would anyone expect them to do about what they saw?

One guy says “no I won’t do it” and they would kill him immediately as a warning to the others.

There wasn’t any “transfer out” for whatever objections he may have held personally. Do what you are told or we will execute you too.

Sabotage the process....really? How did that work out for Colonel von Stauffenberg?

The machine had it’s own inertia and we, in the here and now, simply cannot imagine the circumstances of these individuals. The pressure to perform, or die. However in this case this guy probably was a willing participant. As a Sergent he had rank and was in a position to give orders, and ensure that the orders of others was completed as directed.

By the same token, what are you going to do about it now? He’s 94 years old....in a semantic sense how do you punish him, he has already lived a full life, and outlived many if not all of his compatriots. He’s the same age as my father would have been, except he’s been dead for 20 years.


41 posted on 04/29/2016 6:35:20 AM PDT by Ouderkirk (To the left, everything must evidence that this or that strand of leftist theory is true)
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To: Jan_Sobieski

[[America is headed in the same direction as Germany before WWII. Except in this case, White People (not the Jews) are the cause of all the world’s problems.]]

Believe me what the left is fermenting in America will turn on America’s Jewish population .

All you have to do is look at who the left is lining itself with to see that they are doing exactly what they did in Nazi Germany . Leftist + Islam is a very dangerous combination that always ends up turning on the Jews.


42 posted on 04/29/2016 6:37:42 AM PDT by Lera (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
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To: Sirius Lee

43 posted on 04/29/2016 6:41:38 AM PDT by Sans-Culotte ('''Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small''~ Theodore Dalrymple)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Albert Speer gets 20 years and they are going after an old man who was a guard brainwashed by the Reich?


44 posted on 04/29/2016 6:44:50 AM PDT by Gamecock ( Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul...Matthew 10:28)
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To: Sirius Lee

For what? For being a powerless kid in the wrong place? We kill people for that now?


45 posted on 04/29/2016 6:45:17 AM PDT by Romulus
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To: jalisco555
Hmm.. yes that seems to be the historians universal belief. Since I don't have proof to the contrary I would tend to believe that is most likely the case. Saying "No" German personnel is far too cut a dry for the simple fact no one person knows every case. I did find this:
However, officers such as Hornig were imprisoned, beaten, stripped of rank and prestige and threatened with death for their impertinence. Hornig, a staunch Catholic, actually ended up in a Jewish concentration camp with those he did not kill.
46 posted on 04/29/2016 6:46:33 AM PDT by No_More_Harkin
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To: Berlin_Freeper

This thread stinks of moral vanity.


47 posted on 04/29/2016 6:47:01 AM PDT by Romulus
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To: HiTech RedNeck
.....Liberals love the rationale because it opens up a whole travel agency’s worth of guilt trips they can send people on.

Well Said!

48 posted on 04/29/2016 6:49:34 AM PDT by Fiddlstix (Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: No_More_Harkin

Right, and the president is just really incompetent.


49 posted on 04/29/2016 6:51:12 AM PDT by treetopsandroofs (Had FDR been GOP, there would have been no World Wars, just "The Great War" and "Roosevelt's Wars".)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I am reminded of the last Seinfeld episode........


50 posted on 04/29/2016 6:53:18 AM PDT by originalbuckeye ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell)
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To: Jan_Sobieski

I appreciate this forward-looking post. It is grim, and perhaps very very early, but without affirmative measures ...


51 posted on 04/29/2016 6:55:22 AM PDT by Coffee... Black... No Sugar (I'm gonna' BICKER!)
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To: No_More_Harkin

I’m not familiar with the Hornig story. Did he simply say no or do something to actively impede the killing?


52 posted on 04/29/2016 6:59:24 AM PDT by jalisco555 ("In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act". George Orwell.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

What this man did openly, and now admits to, is far more than that nazi bastard Soros has ever done.

What do you do to a man who is admitted to his atrocity compared to a man who has not yet, but is continues on his path of detruction?

WHY has Soros not yet been charged with crimes against humanity?


53 posted on 04/29/2016 7:06:07 AM PDT by crz
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To: Romulus

Somehow I am reminded of Corri Ten Boom.(spelling error) After the war she met one former guard. She forgave him.


54 posted on 04/29/2016 7:06:39 AM PDT by cotton (one way, one truth, the life.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
And how far do we want to go with “inaction” crimes?

He wasn't inactive. He was a willing part of the Nazi machine. His job was to shoot unarmed Jews if they tried to flee. Stop making excuses for this piece of Nazi filth. Hang him. Hang him now.

55 posted on 04/29/2016 7:11:32 AM PDT by Sirius Lee (Crump or Lose 2016)
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To: Kozak
When do start trying all the Gulag guards and Stasi from the communist empire?

The sooner the better.

56 posted on 04/29/2016 7:11:58 AM PDT by Sirius Lee (Crump or Lose 2016)
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To: Romulus
For what? For being a powerless kid in the wrong place? We kill people for that now?

Tell me how powerless this Nazi was whose job was to shoot and kill unarmed Jews if they tried to flee death. Stop making excuses for this Nazi piece of filth. Hang him. Hang him now.

57 posted on 04/29/2016 7:15:49 AM PDT by Sirius Lee (Crump or Lose 2016)
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To: Hot Tabasco
What could a mere soldier, under orders from his superiors in the Nazi regime, do about it?

It will be bad precedent for the military when enlisted men have to make decisions about whether orders are lawful.

58 posted on 04/29/2016 7:18:03 AM PDT by Starstruck (I'm usually sarcastic. Deal with it.)
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To: Romulus

See my 44


59 posted on 04/29/2016 7:19:30 AM PDT by Gamecock ( Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul...Matthew 10:28)
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To: Starstruck

I don’t justify what they did..but I am reminded it of when our soldiers face court martial for trying to save women and boys who are beaten and raped and stoned. It disgusts me that they have to allow a boys to be chained to beds, tortured, and raped


60 posted on 04/29/2016 7:20:40 AM PDT by RummyChick
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