Again, he was 12 when Hitler came to power. If you can't appreciate how that might fuck up someone's moral compass growing up, perhaps you aren't too aware of what society in Nazi Germany was like. That's not to detract from the fucking merciless scumbags the majority of them were, but people like this guy? He knew no other life, probably had no other influences: it was his world, and from I read about the case he seems to have taken steps to make genuine amends, even if someone tainted like this can never be truly redeemed.
Problem is though that it's very difficult to discuss issues like this without being branded as a Nazi apologist, etc, which is just fucking ridiculous, but that's the end result of the extent to which we've dehumanised the Nazis and made them seem like incarnations of pure evil. They're not, they were human, they were repugnant, but painting them as some sort of mirthless demons is far more dangerous than discussing the ethics of incarcarating this guy now, and risks something similar happening again. How can anyone now be a Nazi when they were just pure evil and not human?
