Ex-Nazi guard's citizenship revoked

Originally posted by Murgatroyd
Yeah, unless your name is VonBraun and you know a thing or two about rocketry.

Agree with you 100%. If war criminals in the US somehow dont benefit the country, deport em.

Just ask my grandfather how those V2s, which VonBraun created, sounded like going over your head night and day.

Finally, von Braun and the 126 Peenemunders were transferred to their new home at Fort Bliss, Texas, a large Army installation just north of El Paso, under the command of Major James P. Hamill. They found themselves in a strange situation as they began their new lives in America. Because they could not leave Fort Bliss without a military escort, they sometimes referred to themselves as "PoPs", Prisoners of Peace.

While at Fort Bliss, they were tasked to train military, industrial, and university personnel in the intricacies of rockets and guided missiles and to help refurbish, assemble, and launch a number of V-2's that had been shipped from Germany to the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico. Further, they were to study the future potential of rockets for military and research applications.

I say if he lied on his application for citizenship way back when go ahead and revoke it. I don't think anyone is talking about trying him for war crimes (sounds like they aren't even going to deport him). Unless there is more to the story it looks like he was a pretty low level guy. If he can't vote, etc. that's fine with me.

Originally posted by Hunter/Killer
That one is new. Where did you get that info?

Here's what i think he was referring to...

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:YVyzuVsvirEJ:www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/fonda/fonda.html+jane+fonda&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

If he was acting under orders imo he shouldnt be punished, but if he asked for assignment to that division or training now thats a different story. But back in those days you didnt have much say in where you went unless you had some pull.

[Chacal]

Originally posted by Hunter/Killer

The Gestapo was military inelegance. Part of the armed forces. They were soldiers. The SS was a military unit. The fought on all fronts. There were even SS Panzer divisions.

All in all this guy should get a pass. It has been a long time, he was just a soldier, let it go.

No he wasn't. And you've got all your facts wrong. If you don't know what your talking about, then don't.

The Gestapo wasn't military intelligence (I presume that's what you meant by "inelegance"). It was a secret civilian police, specialized in counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism (which came to mean anything deemed dangerous to the State, such as jews, intellectuals, etc.). Gestapo is short for "Geheime Staats Polizei" which means "Secret State Police". Very few of it's members had military background.

There was a military branch of the SS: it was called Waffen-SS. Those were fighting units and were not assigned to prison camp duty.

Guards assigned to Konzentrationslagern belonged to the other branch, the Allgemeine-SS, particularly the Economic and Administrative Department which was in charge of the concentration and extermination camps. Those units were definitely not elite troops, but they were trained and indoctrinated for their work, which included routine executions and mass exterminations of prisoners.

Even accepting he committed no acts of cruelty (which is highly improbable), it is definitely NOT possible he has forgotten all about it.

Originally posted by Hunter/Killer
That one is new. Where did you get that info?

That's been around for awhile although most academic programs tend to skip "Hanoi Jane"'s involvement as a pro-communist supporter to the NVA. Giving them money,weapons,and even insulting American POWs as well as having some tortured. All Vietnam Vets have a hatred for her, and even her meaningless apology some years back couldn't truly bury the memories of the past. She was going to be charged for treason but somehow got off scott free. And now this poor man is facing these problems since he was a former soldier of the Third Reich. There were thousands of young boys who were drafted into the war, they didn't have a choice, they were ordered to adhere to the call of their leader. They too, were a band of brothers. Fighting along side one another, just like the Allies.

As for Fonda, she can rott in Hell and she can be sent back to Hanoi and exiled into it's deadly jungles.

[SavageParrot]

Originally posted by Fat Bastard
If he was acting under orders imo he shouldnt be punished, but if he asked for assignment to that division or training now thats a different story. But back in those days you didnt have much say in where you went unless you had some pull.

I am tired of this acting under orders shit. Hitler wasn't the one who had to look those human beings in the eye as he pushed them in to the gas chambers, what they did there goes against everything that we know in our souls to be right and good, with or without orders I don't care, you did it and you are gonna pay in this life or the next! So yes he deserves to have his citizenship revoked, without a doubt.

[RCglider]

The devil made me do it defense.

During the Nuremburg trials, the common claim of the defendants was "we were only taking orders". Based on that notion, the only individual responsible was Adolf Hitler himself.

Chacal detailed the specifics well. Although the Waffen SS principle duties weren't death camps, many Totenkopf officers later served in the Waffen SS.

. Reading the accounts of survivors, these guards not only took orders, but did so with much enthusiasm and extremity. Guards and prison officials captured in the camps at end of the war acted as if they had done the world a favor; arrogant and unrepentent. My uncle was at one of the camps during that time and according to my dad, was shocked at the attitude of them. Kuras remembers, he just hopes nobody remembers him.


A few more examples of those "only taking orders"
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2002/May/02_crm_303.htm
http://www.latefinal.com/archives/000437.html
http://www.jafi.org.il/agenda/2001/english/wk3-14/9.asp
http://journals.aol.com/rappcom/HERTABOTHEherlifeasafemaleNaziSS/entries/197


WIESENTHAL REPORT ON YOM HASHOAH:
US HEADS LIST OF COUNTRIES TO PROSECUTE NAZIS

A report on the investigation and prosecution of Nazi war criminals released last week by the Simon Wiesenthal Center revealed that from January 1, 2001 to March 31, 2002, 14 convictions were obtained against former Nazis residing in various countries. The report, which was published on Yom Ha-Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel) noted that, with one exception, every court victory was won in countries that established special units or agencies for this purpose.

The following convictions were obtained:

In the US: The deportation of Bronislaw Hajda, who was an armed guard at SS training camp at Trawniki and Treblinka and Juozas Naujalis, who was a squad leader in the (12th) Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalion; the denaturalization of Mykola Wasylyk, who was an armed guard at Trawniki and Budzyn SS slave labor camps, Wasyl Krysa, an armed guard at Mauthausen concentration camp, Theodor Szehinskyj, who was an armed guard at Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, and Warsaw concentration camps; John (Ivan) Demjanjuk, who was a guard at Sobibor and Majdanek death camps, Sachsenhausen and Flossenburg concentration camps, and SS training camp at Trawniki.

In Canada: The denaturalization of Wasyl Odynsky,formerly a guard at Trawninki and Poniatowa SS forced labor camps; Helmut Oberlander, who served in mobile killing unit Einsatzgruppe D; and Michael Baumgartner, who was a guard at Stutthof and Sachsenhausen concentration camps.

In Germany: Julius Viel, who was an SS officer at Theresienstadt ghetto/concentration camp, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment and Anton Malloth, an SS guard at Theresienstadt ghetto/concentration camp was sentenced to life imprisonment

In Poland: Henryk Mania, who served in Chelmno death camp, was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment.

In France: Alois Brunner, who ordered the deportation of 350 children from France to Auschwitz, was sentenced (in absentia) to life imprisonment.

In Lithuania, Kazys Gimzauskas, the deputy commander of the Lithuanian Security Police in the Vilnius district, received no punishment due to his medical condition

During this period, 221 new investigations of Nazi war criminals were initiated - 100 in Lithuania, 48 in Poland, 46 in the US, 10 in Austria, 9 in Germany, 6 in Great Britain, and 2 in Estonia.

Furthermore, as of March 31, a total of 454 continuing investigations was underway - 175 in the US; 110 in Lithuania, 78 in Canada, 48 in Poland, 27 in Germany, and several in Great Britain, Croatia, Austria, Latvia, Estonia, and Costa Rica.

On a Prosecution Report Card given by the Wiesenthal Center, the US was the only country to score an "A" for highly successful investigation and prosecution. Germany, Canada, and Poland received a "B," followed by Lithuania, France, and Italy with a "C," and Great Britain, Croatia, Estonia, Costa Rica, Austria, Australia, Denmark, Latvia, Norway, Finland, and the Czech Republic with a "D." Syria, Sweden, Venezuela, and Columbia received an "F" for refusing in principle to even investigate suspected Nazi war criminals living in their countries.

Originally posted by Fat Bastard
Yes it is, if that is you assignment you do it. Cause in times of war, treason, desertion, cowardice infront of the enemy(I like this one) etc... are punishable by death. That is from the US UCMJ handbook I can just imagine how many other offensives are death penalities back in those days.

Any person subject to this chapter who--

...
(2) willfully disobeys a lawful command of his superior commissioned officer;

shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct...

An order to guard a concentration camp is not a lawful command.

Originally posted by NGame
Giving [The NVA] money,weapons,... as well as having some [American POWs] tortured.

Where did you get this from? It's not accurate.

[Hunter/Killer]

Originally posted by Chacal
No he wasn't. And you've got all your facts wrong. If you don't know what your talking about, then don't.

The Gestapo wasn't military intelligence (I presume that's what you meant by "inelegance"). It was a secret civilian police, specialized in counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism (which came to mean anything deemed dangerous to the State, such as jews, intellectuals, etc.). Gestapo is short for "Geheime Staats Polizei" which means "Secret State Police". Very few of it's members had military background.

There was a military branch of the SS: it was called Waffen-SS. Those were fighting units and were not assigned to prison camp duty.

Guards assigned to Konzentrationslagern belonged to the other branch, the Allgemeine-SS, particularly the Economic and Administrative Department which was in charge of the concentration and extermination camps. Those units were definitely not elite troops, but they were trained and indoctrinated for their work, which included routine executions and mass exterminations of prisoners.

Even accepting he committed no acts of cruelty (which is highly improbable), it is definitely NOT possible he has forgotten all about it.

I stand corrected.

thanks

[Hunter/Killer]

Originally posted by LordX
Where did you get this from? It's not accurate.

Thats what I was questioning also. I have not seen this in print before and was wondering what the source was.