I'm really confused by the "but he was a nazi!" logic some display that regardless of if he killed or did anything other than be a glorified booker keeper/admin assistant, the simple fact he was a Nazi he is by association a murderer and deserves everything coming to him and more because his victims didn't get 94 years;
The German people as a whole weer slowly manipulated over decades into the belief that non Arians were sub humans and that jews were the lowest of all - en mass they were indoctrinated into a belief system - they all truely believed they were right and just
the old adage of the victors write history applies here, we won so we are indoctrinated to believe that all Nazi's are evil of the highest order - Imagine that America lost the Vietnam war, and right now we were all Vietnamese, all the people that believe that being a nazi alone was a crime, would be the same be claiming the American soldiers should all be put to the sword, regardless of role, regardless of orders and regardless of obvious personal feelings.
As a different example should everyone who works at Guantanmo Bay be charge with war crimes? accomplices to murder and torture? even those in admin roles away from prisoners? I suspect a lot of people who think a nazi in the same role should, wouldn't agree to that
As victors of a war its very difficult to judge the enemy troops solely on your beliefs, they may have joined their national army, but orders and national policy are not something they are individually responsible for, you can only judge them on their individual actions, so;
this man was at Auschwitz from October 1944 to June 1945, around 9 months, in that time he despite his indoctrination he learned the horrors of Auschwitz and realised what was going on there was barbaric and requested to leave on numerous occasions, to go to the front and fight and potentially die over have to witness the horrors and internally question that indoctrination that jews should die vs his obvious humanity that made him feel that it wasn't right, and that IF they should die, it should not be like that.
So during the time he worked there he sat at a desk and catalogued possessions taken from captives and filled paper work, and requested to leave.
After the war that internal fight over morality changed his 20 something years of indoctrination and he realised everything he knew was wrong, and despite his shame came out to fight holocaust deniers, helped investigations both as part of documentaries and trials, and until the case in 2011 nobody wanted to or legally could try him in a court of law in the absence of evidence of him actually committing or aiding in the murders - now we know otherwise, people consider merely being there and/or being a member of the Nazi party is enough to be held an accomplice now
The trial was a sham as is the sentence, which is effectively a death sentence for this man
My only question now is where will the vengence stop, if association needs no evidence now and simply being an SS/Nazi party member is all that requires conviction, where will it end? will they target civilian nazi members? every single SS member regardless of post? it seems some people in here think that acceptable - i just hope their nation doesn't loose a war and receive the same courtesy
