95 Year Old Auschwitz Paramedic to Stand Trial in Germany Next Month
A 95-year-old former paramedic at the Auschwitz concentration camp is set to face trial in Germany in February on charges of being an accessory to murder in the deaths of more than 3,681 people. Hubert Zafke was declared fit for trial by a court in Rostock, northern Germany, last month and his trial will take place in Neubrandenburg on February 29. While he is not accused of being directly involved in the killings of any of the estimated 1.1 million people who died at Auschwitz, Hubert Zafke was part of the camp’s organizational structure, and knew of and participated in the slaughter of thousands of people, prosecutors claim.
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Talk about beating a dead horse.
Well this is just plain cruel and utterly meaningless.
He's 95 let him die from old age already.
Around 7000 men and women in ss-totenkopfverbände worked in auschwitz, about 120 of were assigned to the gas chambers. And as long as they can't prove he was one of them or that he took part in the human experiments they should not be able to convict him for anything.
Unless he gets convicted for being in the ss and being aware about what was happening in the camp.
And considering that people that were known to be guilty of human experiments were allowed to go free, it would be a travesty to convict someone without any evidence.
In this day and age, I would say that this is unnecessary. He is 95 for Christ's sake! And besides, he was not directly involved.
A small nitpick, but any of the SS stationed at the camps could have requested to be transferred to other duties elswhere. And quite often when this request was put in, it was granted.
It takes 70 yrs to bring to an account for his actions?
He gets to live a full life, when over 3,000 people were snuffed out, due in part to his participation in their slaughter.
Really?
There's something seriously wrong with that!
I don't understand why he wasn't brought up on these charges and tried during the trials at Nuremberg?
I wanna say congratulations on this.
This thread is extremely interesting!
Much more interesting than a lot of the threads have been drummed up!
Very good!
I was not aware of that, thank you for correcting me.
Cheers. Just know that I agree with everything you said (excepting that small error).
Nuremberg was just for the highest ranking nazi officer, so the allies could make a show out of it. There was several other not so high profile trials as
well. So far as i can see there is no proof that he had a active part in the killing.
You can also thank the good old usa for that several war criminals escaped justice.
Them and the Soviet Union both. And that is not even accounting for what the U.S. did wth Unit 731 and their work after the war.
When i read about unit 731 i felt sick. The Soviet Union actually put some of those sick fuckers on trial. But both Usa and Soviet Union were chasing nazi scientist, because they wanted their skill and knowledge. So what they had done was not so important apparently.
But considering that Stalin killed between 20 and 30 milion people and the Americans terror bombing of civilians in both Germany and Japan i'm not that suprised that they were willing to forgive and forget.
It was just a matter of convenience for them. In some cases, the publicity was worth the money spent on the trials. More often than not, the scientists and their work were deemed more valuble than the publicity, Their nations had been flattened and reduced to ash, and they had nowhere else to turn other than the trials. They might as well have bunked with the enemy for some sweet immunity.
I just hate the hypocrisy of it all. Take someone like Klaus Barbie for example, how many did he torture in the service of the Americans and Bolivia. And when he was put on trial his former employers were nowhere to be seen.
This dude was an orderly (calling him a medic makes him sound more important) who worked there for a month near the end of the war. Now he's 95 with dementia. What is prosecuting him going to accomplish other than making the prosecutors feel like heroes?
Oskar Gröning
Auschwitz trial
Frankfurt Auschwitz trials
enter link description here
Phew just in the nick of time.
/s
If he does indeed have dementia, than perhaps that's punishment enough.
I as well. Unfortunately, that is politics.
To be fair, the Bolivian government that he served was toppled, thus revoking his diplomatic immunity and is the main reason he was able to be extradited and put on trial in the first place. So you can scratch Bolivia off that. Also, the U.S. (As far as we know) never had him conduct torture. But, the principle of recruiting him when he belonged on trial still stands.
In my opinion, from what I can gather, this is more a publicity stunt than it is anything else; it means to convey a sense that the German government and legal system are vehemently against Nazism (which - to be fair - they are). in this, they mean to show that they are trying to - for a lack of a better term - "make up" for what happened.
You are right again. I read a bit about it, the Americans wanted information about British interrogation techniques and about ss officers that worked for the British from him.
Wow, just... WOW. So many SS lovers here. Or maybe you have no idea what Auschwitz was. I have. I learned about it. Doesn't matter he's 95, old bastard has to pay. Justice is justice. Otherwise it's spitting on his victim's graves.
Yeah, he was on vacation there.
None of you skrublords talk about the fact that this man was an accomplice in 3.691 murders throughout his years in the SS. This man is a murderer and should stand trial for his crimes.
LMFAO
Mein kampf recently sold several 1000 copies. Maybe they felt that they need to remind everyone that national socialism is bad.
Very funny. He was but a stationed paramedic, Not Rudolf Höss, nor Ilse Koch, but a paramedic. Being a medical professional in these camps does not necessarily equate to taking direct part in the experiments or killings. Furthermore, it is even actually so that he played no direct part in the killings or experimentation. His only involvement is that he was stationed there as a medic and had knowledge of what was happening. What was he to do with this knowledge? Incite a revolt? Inform the Allies?
Also - before anyone calls me out on it - yes, he could have requested a transfer. But as a paramedic, a transfer request would likely have landed him on the front against the Russians. I, in his shoes would have chosen to stay stationed at the camp then be put on the front line,
The part about "SS lovers" is a gross over-exaggeration.
I can see where people are coming from in that because he was involved he needs to face "justice". But, as I see it, having him placed on trial simply out of association and having knowledge of what was happening is a miscarriage of justice. We might as well go ahead and imprison every last German veteran of the Eastern front. After all, they knew very well of the razings and killings of entire towns and villages and where a part of the system.
Even so, I hardly think that this is the way to reinforce this.
Yes, he was an accomplice to the deaths, but so are all other Germans that served in the war. Why not put them on trial to?
But who can say that said germans won't be put on trial?
No it's not. But Germany still suffers from some kind of collective guilt. And when there is just a sniff of nationalistic tension in the air they get scared, at least it seems so from the outside.
People have just bought the book because it has been taboo for so long, even despite that the book has never been illegal to own or sell.
And it is not like it will convert anyone, i think that there is a hole chapter about sexual positions that aryans should use.
If you believe you believe, if you don't you don't, it won't change anything.
You do realise that I am talking about ALL Germans that were stationed on the front?
Wasn't that spike in Mein Kampf sales in Germany attributed to it being a recently released annotated version?
Yes i think so. But people still reacted to it.
While yes, the holocaust was absolutely horrifying, disgusting and brutal, these people were just doing their jobs, they had no say in the matter if they wanted to keep their job. Also he's 95.
Just read about Unit 731. . . holy shit. The Japanese were fucking brutal and cruel.
Dude wasn't a big part of it at all, I mean if we're just throwing everyone under the bus who knew about it, let's put every single German who lived near the concentration camps or every german who was ever stationed near them on trial.
Was he apart of it? Yes. If there's anything we can take from the Nuremberg Trials is that this is completely pointless.
I understand the reason for it, but it seems pretty pointless.