Poll: Would you harbor a nazi?

[ultimateownage]

He was forced to do it, so I'd give him a chance. If he was a Neo Nazi and hated Jews, then hell no.
"I was only carrying out my orders."

 

[klakkat]

I would normally say it is a complicated problem, but I'm not exactly an altruistic or hospitable person. "Find other residence" is a phrase likely to come from my lips, though I would refuse to talk to the police if I believed the former nazi was not responsible for the crimes attributed to him. Hell, I would likely refuse anyway if I felt he was no longer a threat (which, coincidentally, would be the only way I could tolerate his acquaintance in the first place).

I'm not inclined to illegal acts, moral or not; I will usually only commit such if I feel the law is pointless and relatively unenforced. So, harboring a criminal of any kind is right out, though I may offer them what advice and connections I can, if I prefer they successfully evade the law.

 

[Psychedeliasmith]

It might help if the question was not as meaningless as "Would you harbor a conservative?"

Also lol, the answers in this thread are a bit scary. History as taught by computer games - there is no nazi that didn't wield a gun in a combat situation or have a personal hand in the holocaust.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe

"Rabe was elected as its leader, in part because of his status as a member of the Nazi party... It is said Rabe rescued between 200,000 ? 250,000 Chinese people."

 

[bz316]

So what if he's repentant? So what if he's sad about what he's done? Where was his remorse, his humanity when it counted? Where was his kindness when a child was begging not to die just because he/she had been deemed "undesirable"? Where was his generosity and philanthropy as he stood by and watched (or even aided in) human beings being herded to their death? There can never be any real justice, never any punishment to fit the scope of such crimes, but I will not shield him when some small measure of retribution finds him...

 

[jamesworkshop]

turn him in but really only because lying to the police might come and bite me in the arse

 

[similar.squirrel]

Considering the fact that he has had since the mid-1940s to live a normal life, I would turn him in. You need to answer for crimes of that magnitude, and I'm sure the jury aren't entirely heartless when it comes to seeing genuine regret and several decades of philanthropy.

 

[jawakiller]

If she was a chick (Read: Hot chick), definitely. If he was a dude, prolly not. A hot chick would be safe with me and only for a few sexual favors too! what a deal.

 

[jamesworkshop]

I know for a fact that my great grandfather sheltered a Nazi soldier in WW2 because the soldier was barely 18 years old and frightened to death. Took the kids gun and stashed him in the roof of his barn and gave him food and some clothes.

I'm not sure what happened to the guy after that. I think he fled and... did something that a Nazi soldier incapable of speaking English does in the middle of WW2 behind enemy lines.

I respect my great grandfather for that. It couldn't have been an easy thing to do during wartime and was most certainly illegal, but it showed compassion and humanity.

I reckon I'd do the same thing if some frightened kid showed up in the same circumstances. Mind you, I'd slit his throat from ear to ear if I thought he posed a threat to my family.

Oh Compassion, Custard be thy name.

being a german soldier and being a nazi aren't really the same thing, being a US marines doesn't make you a democrat because the president happens to be

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

You want to know what I would do?

Absolute fucking nothing.

Even if he wasn't sorry for what he did...I refuse to turn in this man. Hollywood, Israel, and the Jewish people have villianized these people just for the sole sake that their ancestors were killed and it makes me sick.

Has the man apologized to God? Has he confessed his sins to Him alone? Has he said "God, Jesus...forgive me?". Even then, what right are you to judge in the midst of warfare?

Guess what world? The instance he does that...all the tears have been WIPED away...

We allow black people leniency on a sociological level towards crimes in the United States because of "historical discrimination and inequality", we allow the Mexicans to walk onto land which they take resources from because they are "starving" and "can't maintain anything in their own land", we make up excuses left and right for everyone to lay claim that Israel has a right to Palestinian land for a racial ideology that is insultingly masqueraded as a religion...but nooooo...the German people have absolutely no right whatsoever to ever lay the claim that they had their land usurped by foreign powers and that their country is in actuality BLAMELESS for what happened.

The man is innocent until death in my eyes.

It's only because we've been force-fed that image so many times in our lives, via movies, via war films, via Hollywood...that we actually believe this shit that we're often told. Was it bad? Yes. But it's been overstated as to how "horrible" it really was. I see their deaths as no different than the deaths of soldiers.

Signed.
A man with German ancestry and other "untermenscht" mixings.

two things
1. the two commits about afro americans and mexicans are realy out of place and racist
the one about israel thats a tough one im myself an israely and i dont like what our goverment and "rigt" (as in left and rigt not correct)pollititions do to the arabs lets just put that one a side for a moment

2. what are you talking about demonising? you dont have to demonise a demon those nazis of ww2 were monsters they butcherd 6 million jews just for not being part of the arian race (look it up if you dont know) theyr next targets were black people homosexuals everyone who wasnt part of the "supirior race" was pllaned to be wiped out eventualy the jews were just the first and easyest to kill!
you say that movies and hollywood and everyone are demonising the nazies and yes sometimes they are but the nazis of ww2 (not the old men they became who are sorry for theyr crimes like the one in question) were indeed demons and if you dont belive me search the net for a "josef mengele" also known as the angel of death and tell me this man is inossent and yes this is the worst this gets but belive me the nazis were all evil back then and no one is making that up...

I hate to rain on your parade, but the Jews weren't the only groups of people sent to death by Nazi Germany. They also put to the sword; homosexuals, mentally ill, Gypsy/Roma, political dissidents (party member or no), and basically anyone the S.S. didn't like. All in all, death toll (of the Nazi camps) was about 13 million last I checked. It's also worth noting that Stalin then proceeded to, completely unchecked by the Allies, make Hitler look like a rank amateur in the genocide department.

And what makes a Nazi a Nazi? I seriously doubt some young pup, spurred on by the propaganda of his nation, joins the army and goes to fight for his country as a tank operator is a Nazi, he's just a young idiot with dreams of glory in battle. By now most of the truly evil people, the genuine died in the wool Nazi's who I'd be happy to swinging from a tree doing a last breath quick step, are long dead and good riddance to them.

I have no idea, what I'd do. Guards and officers at the concentration camps are the most difficult of all people to judge: some stayed because it was their duty (no matter how balls out wrong it seems), others because they enjoyed it (see: Aemon Goth) and some because they were terrified of being killed, their families killed and replaced by someone worse.

I don't know, I really am at a loss to answer this question.

 

[thiosk]

YAY ROLE REVERSAL!

Anne Frank is a nazi, and she's hiding out in my attic because the vicious British Imperialists and their American Cronies want to drag her off for detention.

 

[Bobbity]

An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth isn't exactly the best way to approach things in life, but in some cases, it's easy to overlook that.

Personally, I'd shelter him. It's easy to see all Germans around the 1940s as evil, but the truth was that they were normal people following orders, just like any other army in the world today.

The SS, on the other hand...

/edit
Oh wait, for him to have been guarding the prison camp means that more than likely, he was a part of the SS :S
Fuck 'im then. Unless by some mischance he was just a random soldier, conscripted into working at the encampment.
Also:

2. what are you talking about demonising? you dont have to demonise a demon those nazis of ww2 were monsters they butcherd 6 million jews just for not being part of the arian race (look it up if you dont know) theyr next targets were black people homosexuals everyone who wasnt part of the "supirior race" was pllaned to be wiped out eventualy the jews were just the first and easyest to kill!
you say that movies and hollywood and everyone are demonising the nazies and yes sometimes they are but the nazis of ww2 (not the old men they became who are sorry for theyr crimes like the one in question) were indeed demons and if you dont belive me search the net for a "josef mengele" also known as the angel of death and tell me this man is inossent and yes this is the worst this gets but belive me the nazis were all evil back then and no one is making that up...

Please, don't look at the issue from such a simplistic viewpoint.

Granted, everyone in the higher echelons of the government, the army and society were totally evil fucks, and I think I'd take pleasure in killing them myself, but once you get down to the lower ranks, it was a question of following orders. It takes a good deal of courage to stand up to a superior, more than I'd expect someone like you[footnote]Oh ouch, yes he went there![/footnote], or indeed even myself to possess.

Nazi Germany contained many people who revelled in the violence and slaughter, but many more who despised it, but were powerless to act. The guy you were quoting wasn't defending the monsters, but the followers. Besides which, the majority of the army did no more than fight; it was the SS and special government branches that was responsible for many of the horrors of the war. In that regard, the majority of the German Army was no worse than any other major power in European history.

 

[Azrael the Cat]

There's no merit to the 'he might not have had a choice' argument: no-one was coerced or conscripted into the SS or other security at the concentration camps. If anything it was the exact opposite - the push was for people to join the military (as in the 'conventional army'), which was a different organisation entirely. No-one in the nuremburg trials blamed the conventional army soldiers who were fighting for their country - they were the least likely to know what was going on, as they were at the front fighting. Joining the SS was a way to avoid entering actual combat - let's be very clear about this, the guys running the concentration camps were NOT soldiers fighting for their country, they were not a division of the army, they were not staffed by people who had joined the army. They were the SS, a specifically fascist organisation (as opposed to the army, which predated fascism) who you joined out of political allegiance or to avoid having to go to battle. There's no positive spin you can put on that.

The conflict is the old consequentialism v deontology argument from moral philosophy. If we view morality in terms of 'the best choice is the one that leads to the best consequences', then we have no reason to punish him - his days of harming people are over, he is now helping people, punishing him at this point will have neglible deterrant effect on future atrocities, so we'd be causing more harm than good by punishing him. If we look at morality in terms of reflecting what people deserve, as in their intentions, motivations, obligations and duties, then the sheer villainy of his actions and intentions means that we are strongly motivated to punish him. Both types of reasoning have intuitive appeal to most people, and a great deal of moral debate comes down to the extent to which we should adopt consequentialist or deontological reasoning on individual moral questions.

 

[suitepee7]

i would protect.

quite honestly, in nazi germany, you didn't have much choice. if you didn't want to join the forces under Hitler's regime, life was difficult, and so many people joined because of this. there's also the fact that we have the benefit of hindsight. we can look back and see what we did was wrong, but if you are having years and years of an agenda pushed on you, at some point it's going to start sinking in. you may argue and say "no i'd never cave under something like that" but in context, you have no idea.

germany was recovering from a HUGE recession, a recession that makes the one we're in now look like a walk in the park. not only were they in financial troubles anyway from losing the war, they were also forced into the treaty or Versailles, which made them even poorer. hitler changed things around. he provided jobs and just cut payments for the treaty of versailles. now, if your hero/best friend or someone did something wrong, wouldn't you want to overlook it so you can keep their status as it was? i imagine the same goes for a lot of germany.

important to note, I AM NOT DEFENDING WHAT THE NAZIS DID, it was a truly disgusting act, but the amount of pressure in those times was unbelievable, and if somebody is really feeling guilty enough, that is punishment enough in my eyes, they don't deserve to be constantly reminded of something they wish they never did.

 

[Bobbity]

Crap, double post. Kinda.

 

[Ben Agar]

as many people have said if he was truly repentant he'd turn himself in.

Also if he tried to excuse it by saying "I was only following orders," crap that's a cowardly excuse which would piss me off even more than if he wasn't sorry and turn him in immediately

If he didn't

"Sorry, but that's life mr ex Nazi officer, people have to face up to the consequences of their actions, you can be as repentant and cry all you like to me. But if you were again truly repentant you would turn yourself in."

I'd say that and give him a chance to turn himself in, if he doesn't, turn him in, if he does I'd be a character witness like allot of people said.

If he didn't I'd do what I could to make sure he paid.

So no.

 

[BonsaiK]

READ BEFORE VOTING!

You live in a small town. In it, there is a man.

He is a generous man, kind to all and very into philanthropy. He is by any definition a good neighbour and friend.

One day he asks you to house him for a while. He tells you he was an officer in a concentration camp. He cries for a long time. He is very sorry for what he's done (which happens to be a lot). He knows he will never be able to fix what he has done, but is afraid of what will happen to him if he is incarcerated.

Police soon come to your door asking for him. What do you do?

I was talking about something similar with my english teacher. We are both very convinced that rehabilitation is the best solution to crime, but for very severe crimes there is an instant desire to make someone pay. Usually harshly. This is that internal debate at its logical extreme.

Edit: Crimes against humanity, in case you were wondering.

If he was an officer in a Nazi concentration camp in any sort of position of power to actually carry out genocidal actions, he would have to be (at the youngest) about 15 years old by (at the latest) 1945. This means that today, he'd be 81 years old at the absolute youngest but far more likely to be over 90. In other words, he's already lived the large majority of his life in freedom, having essentially gotten away with it. I don't think repentance and turning himself in at that age after such a long stretch of freedom would even mean anything much. What's the point of turning someone in who doesn't have much life left in the word and has pretty much seen and done all he is ever going to see and do. The punishment, no matter what it is, will be too little, too late. Life in prison? He might last a few years, pretty short sentence for all that genocide, right? Death penalty? He'll probably die of natural causes in his cell before the death row machine even gets to him. In other words, I wouldn't turn him in, not because he "had changed" or not (like I even care) but just because punishment that late in the game seems, well... daft. So I couldn't vote in your poll. The "yes" and the "other" options both have qualifiers that don't really describe how I feel about it.

I probably wouldn't let him live in my cellar, only because I don't like people living in my cellar period (I wouldn't even let my girlfriend live there), but I wouldn't tell the police anything I didn't have to either. If it was likely that I'd end up in jail for witholding information then I might talk, but apart from that, no. It's not my job to do redundant police work.

 

[Bobbity]

as many people have said if he was truly repentant he'd turn himself in.

Also if he tried to excuse it by saying "I was only following orders," crap that's a cowardly excuse which would piss me off even more than if he wasn't sorry and turn him in immediately

If he didn't

"Sorry, but that's life mr ex Nazi officer, people have to face up to the consequences of their actions, you can be as repentant and cry all you like to me. But if you were again truly repentant you would turn yourself in."

I'd say that and give him a chance to turn himself in, if he doesn't, turn him in, if he does I'd be a character witness like allot of people said, if he didn't I'd do what I could to make sure he paid.

So no.

Would he? Would he feel that his role in the monstrosity was enough to warrant his inevitable execution? Courage and regret are not necessarily the same thing.

Anyway, this argument is kind of pointless. The chances are that if he was working at the encampments, then he joined the SS voluntarily. If that's the case, then hand the fucker over. If he was simply a random soldier conscripted into working at the camp, then it's difficult to condemn him for lacking the courage to stand up to his superiors and very possibly risk execution, especially as his actions would have been to little effect.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

The legal system will imprison him, but nothing harsher.

What legal system are you governed by? Because if I ever do something particularly distasteful, I am definitely moving there.

In most places, I would be incredibly surprised if an actual living nazi from a concentration camp survived his sentence.

 

[Dogstile]

They couldn't do anything about it. They were fools, and have changed. One exception. If the words or phrase "I was just following orders." come out of their mouth, I'm turning them in. To quote The 9th Doctor: "And with that sentence, you just lost the right to even talk to me."

In the example, "he was an officer".

This isn't a grunt, he has responsibilty.

And to my mind you can't be reabilitated until you have paid for your crimes. After that we can talk.

And let me say I'm disgusted by the 10 people so far that would protect him. You obviously have never talked to someone with a number tattoed on their arm.

What was he meant to do, rebel and get killed?

I'm disgusted by anyone who would turn him in. I could understand someone turning him away, but turning him in. He's truly sorry, he did what he was told to do. None of us can imagine what it was like being an officer in WWII and i'm not going to pretend to know.

OP: I'd turn him away, and I wouldn't say i'd seen him. If he's someone I know and he's truly a nice guy who was caught up in the wrong thing, i'd say let him go.

 

[Azrael the Cat]

i would protect.

quite honestly, in nazi germany, you didn't have much choice. if you didn't want to join the forces under Hitler's regime, life was difficult, and so many people joined because of this. there's also the fact that we have the benefit of hindsight. we can look back and see what we did was wrong, but if you are having years and years of an agenda pushed on you, at some point it's going to start sinking in. you may argue and say "no i'd never cave under something like that" but in context, you have no idea.

germany was recovering from a HUGE recession, a recession that makes the one we're in now look like a walk in the park. not only were they in financial troubles anyway from losing the war, they were also forced into the treaty or Versailles, which made them even poorer. hitler changed things around. he provided jobs and just cut payments for the treaty of versailles. now, if your hero/best friend or someone did something wrong, wouldn't you want to overlook it so you can keep their status as it was? i imagine the same goes for a lot of germany.

important to note, I AM NOT DEFENDING WHAT THE NAZIS DID, it was a truly disgusting act, but the amount of pressure in those times was unbelievable, and if somebody is really feeling guilty enough, that is punishment enough in my eyes, they don't deserve to be constantly reminded of something they wish they never did.

I'm not saying he should be turned in, but the bit about not having any choice if you lived in German society is bollocks. Hell, you could even be an active and successful member of the nazi party without partaking in the concentration camps. The concentration camps were not staffed by the conventional army - any pressure upon Germans to 'join up for the cause' was directed to their joining the conventional army and fighting on the front lines. The concentration camp spots were held by the SS, a different organisation altogether. They were not jobs you were coerced into - quite the opposite, they were seen as 'cushy' positions to be given to loyal party members, as it guaranteed that you would never have to join the army and face combat.

The conventional German army was not involved in the atrocities of the Holocaust. In fact, the POW camps - largely delegated to the SS but, unlike the concentration camps, under the supervision of the conventional army - had a reputation for extreme leniency (not to the Hogan's Heroes extent, but it was true that escape attempts were rarely punished). When the conventional army discovered that the re-captured escapees in 'the great escape' were executed, they came down hard on the SS, imprisoning and expelling the officers involved.

The idea that every German, or even every nazi, was DIRECTLY involved in the holocaust (whether they bear indirect responsibility for supporting it is a different matter) comes from history as told by video-games and movies, where you need an expendable villain but poorly trained combatless SS guards aren't particularly tough so they have to portray the conventional army as executing Jews themselves.


The guys who 'didn't have a choice', or 'were just serving their country' were in the military. Joining the SS and staffing the concentration camps was a different choice altogether.