Should the octogenarian German Oskar Groening be on trial for accessory to murder 300,000 Jews? He WAS there at Auschwitz. He was in the SS. He was twenty-one at the end of the war and he did keep the books tabulating the money stolen from victims. He has freely admitted being witness to brutality and murder and claims that he repeatedly asked to be transferred to other duties away from being in the bureaucracy of an SS death camp........ How morally responsible is he?
Well, let's think about this.... He was twelve years old when the Nazis came to power in Germany and throughout his formative years he was steeped in Nazi propaganda. He was a member of the Hitler Youth and joined the SS at the age of nineteen or twenty. By 1942 he was sent to work at Auschwitz and almost immediately asked for a transfer to other duties which was refused, He asked for the transfer on witnessing the murder and abuse of inmates. His duties were entirely clerical in nature. After repeated requests to perform service elsewhere he was transferred to front line fighting duties and was eventually captured.
In his postwar life he openly criticised Holocaust Denial explaining that, 'I was there and I saw what was done,'
I wonder how many of us, brought up in liberal democracies would have stood out against the mores of the Nazi tyranny at the age of twenty-one? Remember that throughout his formative years Nazism was the creed of the nation and was propagated like a religious cult. Do any of us really think that under the same perverted tutelage we would not have joined the SS and sworn an oath to uphold the values of those who had taught us since we were able to learn what is expected of us?
None of my remarks supports the outrages and monstrous actions of those days in Europe under Nazism. Neither does Oskar Groening. On the contrary, he has spoken out against what happened and has published arguments against those who deny that the Third Reich exterminated millions. He has made no secret of having been there in doing so, on the contrary publicising his presence and saying, "I saw everything," he writes. "The gas chambers, the cremations, the
selection process. One and a half million Jews were murdered in
Auschwitz. I was there
For me, putting this man on trial serves no purpose other than self righteous revenge, We can not try the central figures of the Nazi regime, so let us try a minor minion, propagandised and indoctrinated since he started secondary education. Time after time psychological research has demonstrated the fallibility of conscience and judgement in matters of morality when authority figures instruct obedience and reserve to themselves the role of national conscience.
Would you or I in Oscar Groning's shoes have done the same? Probably we would. To deny this is to turn one's back on reality and empirical research.
"I have seen the crematoria, I have seen the burning pits and I want you
to believe me that these atrocities happened. I was there.[5]"
Saturday, April 25, 2015
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