Accused Nazi Guard Awaits Trial in Germany

This is an 89 year old man that is already near death. If he did what he is accused of so be it, War is Hell. I'm sure he was following orders and fighting for what his country believed in at the time. Now that same country wants to try him after ordering him to do these things if the claims prove true. Sixty six years ago he fought and killed for his country and now they want to kill him for doing so. I really do not understand this.............

He is forgiven by GOD.

Woody wrote:

This is an 89 year old man that is already near death. If he did what he is accused of so be it, War is Hell. I'm sure he was following orders and fighting for what his country believed in at the time. Now that same country wants to try him after ordering him to do these things if the claims prove true. Sixty six years ago he fought and killed for his country and now they want to kill him for doing so. I really do not understand this..........

So be it?!? He was not on a battlefield! He's accused of pushing men, women, and children into gas chambers! You think that's patriotism? Sorry, you're not only nuts, you're morally bankrupt.

Louisa wrote:

<quoted text>
So be it?!? He was not on a battlefield! He's accused of pushing men, women, and children into gas chambers! You think that's patriotism? Sorry, you're not only nuts, you're morally bankrupt.

Being accused is not the same as being guilty.

Accusations have been made for decades and have all been denied.

Remember the Dreyfus affair.

Dr Lecter wrote:

<quoted text>
Being accused is not the same as being guilty.
Accusations have been made for decades and have all been denied.
Remember the Dreyfus affair.

You're absolutely right. But I'd at least like to see him tried. I think we can both agree that whether or not he's responsible for those crimes, the crimes themselves were reprehensible, and whoever perpetrated them should face justice.

Louisa wrote:

<quoted text>
You're absolutely right. But I'd at least like to see him tried. I think we can both agree that whether or not he's responsible for those crimes, the crimes themselves were reprehensible, and whoever perpetrated them should face justice.

There is no question that the crimes of Nazi Germany were reprehensible.

John Demjanjuk himself accuses Germany of war crimes and considers himself a victim of Nazi Germany's war crimes and modern Germany's political motivations to find a scapegoat for German war crimes guilt --preferably someone not from Germany and not German.

The case against Demjanjuk is at best a tenuous and a vague theory of accessory complicity by virtue of being there and acting as a guard.

The former case in Israel collapsed on the substantive merits ensuing upon prosecutorial misconduct.

Many believe that hounding Demjanjuk at this point is disporportionate to anything he can be reasonably and articulably be suspected of doing.

The Israeli court refused on double jeopardy grounds to let the second case proceed.

The Israeli court wisely abode by the principle of moderation.

The Israeli court understood what all decent people with a sense of due process understand -- the State has to finally show some decency in a prosecution that has now lasted close to 20 years, of which 7 were spent by Demjanjuk in solitary confinement.

The case against Demjanjuk was garbage then and is garbage now.

John Demjanjuk has served more time behind bars in solitary fighting this case than most real Nazi Germans in Germany have.

Germany needs this case to go forward to create the false impression that Germany has been diligent in the prosecution of war criminals --but that is a bald lie.

Germany has been the safest place on earth for Nazi German war criminals that Germany protects from prosecution and from extradition.

Prepare for a "show trial."

Many real German Nazi war criminals in retirement homes around Germany, if not totally demented, will probably watch amusement and smug sense of irony as a fanatical German prosecutor incomprehensibly goes after the despised and detestable Ukrainian "untermensch."

Louisa wrote:

<quoted text>
You're absolutely right. But I'd at least like to see him tried. I think we can both agree that whether or not he's responsible for those crimes, the crimes themselves were reprehensible, and whoever perpetrated them should face justice.

Hello Louisa,

You may find this article interesting....

Demjanjuk's former lawyer says Germany's case is weak

CLEVELAND -- The Cleveland attorney who once represented John Demjanjuk says he has not seen any evidence that would win a conviction in Germany against his former client.

John Gill was part of Demjanjuk's defense team in Israel in the 1980's, when Demjanjuk was convicted of being Ivan the Terrible, but later had his conviction overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.

"I haven't seen anything that would show any new evidence that he was guilty of any new crimes," Gill told Channel 3 News in an interview in his law offices in downtown Cleveland where he still practices.

Gill says more than 30 years ago prosecutors originally wanted to charge Demjanjuk with being a guard at Sobibor, a hellish Nazi concentration camp, the same charges he faces today in Germany. But back then, says Gill, there was no evidence.

"At that time they had 25 witnesses who were still alive in Israel, none of whom could identify John Demjanjuk," says Gill.

"When they had that kind of result with eyewitness identification, that nobody could identify him, they switched from Sobibor to Treblinka," Gill remembered.

Treblinka was a notorious Nazi death camp where a sadistic Ukrainian guard known as Ivan the Terrible tortured and murdered countless Jews.

Demjanjuk was accused of being that Ivan the Terrible, but the conviction was overturned when it became clear another man, since deceased, was the feared Ivan.

"It seems preposterous and almost idiotic to me to say they started at Sobibor, had no evidence at Sobibor, and now they're saying it's Sobibor, and it's based on a card that's not Demjanjuk's card," Gill said....

http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.a...

Yes, I agree they should try him for unspecified crimes to keep the jews happy, after all what use is he, he just built autos in Detroit, unlike Werner von Braun who shot for the moon and hit London instead, if he was a rocket sicentist, or involved in chemical weapons or nuclear he would be retired liveing off a U.S. government pension, but he only built cars. What do they say about throwing stones.

This would be an interesting case to defend, as in Germany it is illegal to dispute the official version of the holocaust in any way, they are even going to such vicious extremes that they have started prosecuting defense lawyers.
I believe a German judge once stated in regards to the holocaust " it matters not one bit if you have evidence to back up your claims, it is the law here that one cannot question the holocaust "

I agree that is it can be proven someone was involved in atrocities they should pay the price. But how can we honestly worry about this little old man when nobody involved in the soviet slaughter of millions of Europeans has been brought to justice ?

well, Ukran national hero the one and only demjanko will finally stand a trial !
old, young or deranged if guilty, he should rot in jail !

pesky the real deal wrote:

well, Ukran national hero the one and only demjanko will finally stand a trial !
old, young or deranged if guilty, he should rot in jail !

Oh come on slovak. Your hero is Jozef Tiso. Scumbag slovaks with your leader Jozef Tiso helped Hitler and Konrad Henlein to destroy and take down Edvard Benes and Emil Hacha.

hahahah and your little Slovak National Uprising against your german masters ended with both Jan Golian and Rudolf Viest being killed by the germans.

You got the wrong man-the real killer is livng in fort wayne

that chap in fort, is he another ukrainian jewel too ?

pesky the real deal wrote:

that chap in fort, is he another ukrainian jewel too ?

No. But perhaps a racist heal --and a schlamazl and schlemiel--like yourself?

Why are they putting this guy on trial ? Just put him in a cold, dank wooden rail car with a few hundred of his former colleagues and drag them around Germany for a few years.

Martin wrote:

Why are they putting this guy on trial ? Just put him in a cold, dank wooden rail car with a few hundred of his former colleagues and drag them around Germany for a few years.

No, because he is innocent until proven guilty. He was acquitted in Israel and there is every reason to believe that he could be exonerated again.

Germany needs a show trial to deflect attention away from Germany's protection of its own war criminals --and John Demjanjuk is the perfect non-German, aging, and vulnerable target.

Doing what you suggest would just be acting like a Nazi, something civilized people find abhorrent.

H

One wonders why Bolshevik Russia's war crimes have gotten so little media coverage. Fortunately, movies like "Katyn", are provoking discussion about Bolshevik Russia's war criminality.

The genocide Britain hushed up: A new film tells the terrible story of Stalin's own Final Solution - and Churchill's shameful complicity
By JASPER REES
Last updated at 12:43 AM on 25th June 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11953...

The Demjanjuk deportation
June 29, 2009

Professor Harry Reicher is wrong about John Demjanjuk and wrong about the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (which he mistakenly calls the Office of Special Prosecutions).["Demjanjuk deportation: a milestone," NLJ, June 8.]

The U.S. government has indeed pursued John Demjanjuk for more than three decades.

The old adage "justice must be seen to be done" is a good starting point.
For the first decade and one-half, that pursuit consisted of the DOJ committing fraud on the courts of the United States and Israel.

This fraud, documented by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, consisted of the DOJ failing to disclose documents that showed that Demjanjuk was not "Ivan the Terrible," a brutal Treblinka guard.

Based on the fraudulent evidence, Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel and sentenced to death. His family uncovered the truth, and the Israel Supreme Court acquitted him. Israel's attorney general said that the acquittal barred prosecution for other offenses, including the ones now being pressed in Germany.

Ironically, at that time, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) allowed Jacob Tannenbaum, a 77-year-old admitted brutal Jewish kapo, to live out his life at home in the United States due to age and health reasons.

Despite the Israeli result, and two independent U.S. court findings of fraud, the OSI has never apologized to anyone, let alone Demjanjuk and his family, nor offered compensation.

Nor were the perpetrators of the fraud punished or even reprimanded.

Today, with a blind eye to the case history, Professor Reicher hails these perpetrators of fraud as heroes.

Turning to the German prosecution, one irony is that, in the earlier prosecution, one fraudulent act of the U.S. government consisted of inducing a German citizen who had worked in the death camps to give false testimony implicating Demjanjuk.

In the meantime, the allegations now being made against Demjanjuk have been reviewed in Poland, the site of the death camps, and that government has pronounced the evidence insufficient and closed the investigation.

Demjanjuk, now 89 years old, has always and continues to maintain his innocence.

Professor Reicher cites a civil judgment against Demjanjuk as somehow showing that he is guilty in Germany (he refers to Demjanjuk as "the perpetrator").

That judgment does not establish the elements of a criminal violation of German law, did not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt and did not respect the presumption of innocence.

It is understandable that journalists might misunderstand basic legal principles. It is not excusable for law professors to do so.

The German prosecution is being pressed by political and journalistic elements in Germany who want to shift the blame for the Holocaust from the Nazi government to Ukrainians, Poles and Czechs.

In the case of Ukrainians, this was a people who less than a decade before had suffered Stalin's forced famine genocide of more than 10 million innocent lives.

This was Demjanjuk's childhood trauma just eight years before he was conscripted into the Red Army and sent to battle, where he was hit by German artillery fire and nearly killed....

SEE
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp...

Any word about this farce recently? I'd like to put the US officials invilved in this crap in a Mongolian prison where the thugs belong and the German ones in a Siberian gulag. Both groups are filthy and rotten to the core,

Its interesting how hypocritical Germany extradites John Demjanjuk, against whom the evidence is dubious or flimsy, but protects its own ethnic German nazi war criminal suspects from extradition to Italy --forcing Italy to try German Nazi war criminals in absentia.

Prosecutor: Lock up ex-Nazi officer, 90, for life
German allegedly ordered World War II massacre of 14 Italian civilians
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31425834/ns/world...