Former Auschwitz guard, 93, charged with accessory to 300,000 murders in Germany

[Scisca]

Aerys said:

Lawlight said:
If he was just a simple guard, what else could he have done but follow orders?

Yep, people are stupid to want to charge a simple soldier. Nobody talks about this side of the story, the soldiers were forced to do that, it was a " you are with me or against me " politic and when you have the choice of protecting your life and the life of your family, you do the logic choice.

The only thing that could be punished is unnecessary violence from some SS guards for pleasure

So now the poor Germans were forced to do what they did? Good to know. I always thought that they actually loved Hitler, they chose him in democratic elections and they wanted to follow him and bring his vision to life. Good thing you're telling me they are the nation of victims, as I've always, mistakingly as it appears, saw them as the nation of the oppressors. How foolish of me.

The article is very gentle in describing what the guy was doing. "dealing with the belongings stolen from camp victims, (...) helping collect and tally money that was found." In reality that meant shaving the dead bodies, looting them, pulling gold teeth out, etc. before the bodies were burned. You won't convince me that somebody who did that for a living doesn't deserve punishment, cause it was just his job, just orders - so it's cool. Every single German who aided this machine mass-murdering Jews, Poles and Gypsies should be punished. No way around it.