UN Former SS soldier will not face charges for participating in massacre, only for hate speech while talking about it. - Words are literal violence. Actual violence? Consequence free.

Former SS soldier is charged with hate speech for saying victims of the massacre he participated in deserved it.

Prosecutors in the German state of Lower Saxony said Wednesday that they have charged an ex-SS guard for questioning the extent of the Holocaust and offensive comments he made about the victims of a massacre of civilians in France during World War II.

Karl M. admitted last year in an interview with German TV broadcaster ARD to being part of an SS troop that massacred 86 villagers in the town of Ascq in northern France in April 1944. He denied shooting at the victims, some of whom were as young as 15.

But prosecutors charged him with hate speech and slandering the memory of the deceased by claiming that the Ascq victims were responsible for their own deaths and separately questioning whether the Nazis had killed six million Jews during the Holocaust.

Denying or belittling the Holocaust is a crime in Germany.




Karl M. was one of the SS soldiers involved in the massacre of 86 people in Villeneuve-d'Ascq in North France

Karl M. will not be charged for his participation in the massacre of Ascq villagers, after it was ruled he could not be found guilty of the same crime twice. The former soldier was sentenced to death in abstentia by a French court in 1949 for his role in the mass slaughter.

He could face five years in jail if convicted. Multiple ex-SS soldiers have faced trial in recent years over their actions during the Nazi era.

It’s illegal in Germany to deny or belittle the holocaust.

The really disturbing thing here is that he’s previously been tried for the actual massacre. He was sentenced to death in absentia by a court in France after the war and can’t be charged twice with the same crime. So for the actual crime and killings he won’t ever be punished.!

While I can see why they’re trying to lock him up any way they can, and he’s clearly a Very Bad Person, there seems to be something horribly wrong in a world where you can get off Scot free for killing a bunch of people, but jailed for words.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-former-ss-soldier-charged-with-hate-speech/a-49729998

http://archive.is/DhgwZ

Another case of using a horrible person to put in place laws which are actually rather sinister.

 

[Eryngium]

Is there even any point of charging him? The dudes like 90 or something and just a sad sack of skin and bones, I don't think he's gonna go out and kill any more people or suddenly change his beliefs after being tossed in prison, just let him die from old age in a few years knowing that he participated in genocide.

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

He could be any one of us. He could be YOU. He could be ME.

But who are we kidding, we all already know everyone here is a Nazi.

Deep down inside, he's all of us.

 

[Mrs Paul]

Maybe it's kind of an Al Capone thing?

 

[Billy_Sama]

Its sad it took a 21th century atrocity to punish a 20th century atrocity.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Yeah, World War II atrocities tend to get over-politicized but for a good fucking reason considering all the utterly sick shit that was done by both the Axis (Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan) and the Allies (Soviet Union) and considering the person in question took part in a massacre of unarmed prisoners in France, which was considered a war crime even before the war, I'd say he should be deported to France and stand trial in a French court instead of being brought in on a bullshit charge just so Germany can virtue signal some more.

What? No they don't, most people have no ideas of the various massacres that occurred. All anyone knows about is Nazis were bad and evil and bad. Which, yeah, they were pretty bad. But the Japanese were fucking awful too. The Russians weren't exactly cool...

 

[Syaoran Li]

Emphasis mine. One word: Katyn.

I already acknowledged the fact that the Soviets were guilty of horrific war crimes as well, dipshit.

Yes, I know the Soviets were part of the Allied Forces but that does not absolve them of committing horrifying crimes against humanity during World War II, to say nothing of the sick shit they did before the war and after the war as well.

No need to go full edgelord /pol/tard and start defending a literal Nazi just because the Red Army were sick animals just like their Waffen SS counterparts.

 

[UQ 770]

What? No they don't, most people have no ideas of the various massacres that occurred. All anyone knows about is Nazis were bad and evil and bad. Which, yeah, they were pretty bad. But the Japanese were fucking awful too. The Russians weren't exactly cool...

Generally, every massacre that has ever taken place in history had been committed for a reason. Regardless of how fucked up people can be, its difficult to order your troops to obliterate a group of people because most humans are generally opposed to killing on such a scale. The Holocaust has a specific place in people's minds because it was really a very corporatized, organized system designed to plunder. Its ironic considering hatred had little to do with it and most of it was just an excuse for the Nazis to seize resources, but the scale on which it operated was impressive. Most of the time you kill off an ethnic group just to take their stuff but the Nazis put paperwork to it. Its probably the combination of the death toll and most people's crippling fear of bureaucracy that elevates the Holocaust above all else.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

I already acknowledged the fact that the Soviets were guilty of horrific war crimes as well, dipshit.

Yes, I know the Soviets were part of the Allied Forces but that does not absolve them of committing horrifying crimes against humanity during World War II, to say nothing of the sick shit they did before the war and after the war as well.

No need to go full edgelord /pol/tard and start defending a literal Nazi just because the Red Army were sick animals just like their Waffen SS counterparts.

My point is that they weren't punished for it. So the objective standards of what is and isn't a war crime aren't objective and/or aren't standard. Which is what I was saying: the actual crime was losing, since only the losers went on the dock regardless of who did what.

 

[Stoneheart]

Seriously, this guy was in the Western Front, not the Eastern Front, so he wasn't fighting communists. And he was part of the Waffen SS, not the Wehrmacht, so he wasn't some hapless conscript just following orders. The SS was comprised entirely of volunteers and you had to be committed to Nazi ideology or you would be booted from service.

And his unit was fighting Terrorist who would bomb Railways, assasinate Officers, etc.

Then again, Fascist Italy didn't really commit the same level of war crimes that Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan did.

they werent a major power. Romania was a way more usefull axis member than italy.

 

[UQ 770]

My point is that they weren't punished for it. So the objective standards of what is and isn't a war crime aren't objective and/or aren't standard. Which is what I was saying: the actual crime was losing, since only the losers went on the dock regardless of who did what.

Admittedly if the Nazis kept their murderdick in their pants with regards to places like Ukraine they could have probably won the war or at least kept it going a lot longer than they did. They massacred a lot of potential allies who were sick to death of the USSR's shit with the Holomdor and the purges. Its pretty exceptional that they managed to fuck up being liberators in that situation.

they werent a major power. Romania was a way more usefull axis member than italy.

That is easily one of the funniest fucking things I have ever heard.

 

[Syaoran Li]

What? No they don't, most people have no ideas of the various massacres that occurred. All anyone knows about is Nazis were bad and evil and bad. Which, yeah, they were pretty bad. But the Japanese were fucking awful too. The Russians weren't exactly cool...

Most people don't know about the war crimes committed by Imperial Japan or the Soviet Union during World War II, and part of this is because of how your average Millennial doesn't think critically, attended school in a failing educational system, and doesn't read anything that isn't a Harry Potter book.

But I'm a history sperg who reads and studies historical information for fun, so I'm well aware of the crimes committed by both the Axis Powers and the Soviet component of the Allied Forces.

Another reason why Nazi atrocities get focused on while Japanese and Soviet atrocities tend to get glossed over is due to the fact that the American G.I.'s were utterly shocked when they discovered the concentration camps and saw with their own eyes just how bad the Nazi atrocities truly were.

While it was widely known that the Nazis were racist and had a policy of antisemitism and eugenics, nobody in the Allied Forces really knew about the concentration camps or the Holocaust (or at least the severity and extent of it) until the war was over and they either discovered the camps firsthand or they uncovered captured documents from the Waffen SS and Nazi Party offices. There were rumors during the war, but a lot of it was initially dismissed as wartime propaganda akin to the anti-German hysteria of World War I.

Consequently, when this information reached the American public, it was all over the news and became burned into our cultural consciousness.

Soviet atrocities were downplayed during the war and then after the war, a lot of information was sealed off due to the Cold War and the infamous secrecy of the Soviet government and most of what we did know either came from the statements of defectors (which was often kept from the general public) or stuff we had access to after the USSR fell in the early 90's.

Japan's war crimes get glossed over due to three reasons. The first is that Japan itself tends to look the other way and act like it never happened. The second is that Japan became one of our closest East Asian allies in the post-war era, and the third reason is the anti-Japanese hysteria America went through during World War II with the internment camps and all that.

 

[UQ 770]

The Soviets have the mitigating factor that the Americans characterized them as being just as bad as the Nazis when in reality their system, while fucking horrible, was partially influenced by the sheer level of damage the Nazis managed to do to their demographics. This is compounded by the fact that they purged their own people and created famines either via ineptitude or malice but the point is once your society is sufficently fucked you leaders start resorting to really sociopathic methods. The Nazi plan to colonize the East was based on really outdated info and they were just unwilling to coexist on a reasonable level with their subjects. They figured they could just plow them out and colonize the place like some kind of American Western, except with assault rifles. The whole idea was total insanity and ignored the fact that their enemy was smart enough to improvise explosives, flamethrowers and hilarious armored cars out of trash.

Japan escaped their crimes by bowing down to what is essentially American colonization. In exchange for their cooperation, a lot of warcrimes were swept under the rug. Primarily because China was now the enemy.

This has nothing to do with ideology or nationality. Its pure power dynamics.

 

[Arctic Fox]

And his unit was fighting Terrorist who would bomb Railways, assasinate Officers, etc.



they werent a major power. Romania was a way more usefull axis member than italy.

Germany is objectively in the wrong in every incidence here. They were not keeping the peace, they were violently murdering people in the country Germany invaded for resistence.
And Italy used chemical weapons, killing tens of thousands in Abyssinia. Before invading and killing a shitload more people for literally no reason.
The Axis was nothing but retards.

 

[Otterly]

He's not "getting off scot free for killing", he was sentenced, but the punishment was impossible to be carried out.

I may be missing something, but why couldn't he be extradited to France? Presumably his death sentence would be commuted to life in prison, since the death penalty was abolished.

Yes this is my point. He IS getting off for the killings. A sentence that’s not enforced is. Or a punishment.
I understand and agree with the double jeopardy rule - but why isn’t he being dealt with by the country who sentenced him? Why was nothing done when he was found? Is there a time limit? Are all death sentences commuted after the death penalty is removed or are they just let go? How does the law proceed in these cases?
I think this article could have done with a lot more detail in it to explain the technicalities of what’s happened.

This stuff is within living memory for some in Europe and it still affects families today. He needs to be punished for the crime he was tried and sentenced for. To sentence him for speech is to make a mockery of everyone who died fighting for freedom, as cliched as that sounds. It’s the very opposite of what should be happening.

 

[Haramburger]

This sounds similar to busting O.J. Simpson on the armed robbery charges and throwing the fucking book at him after he got off on murder charges. You missed the strike, so go for the spare.

 

[Stoneheart]

And Italy used chemical weapons, killing tens of thousands in Abyssinia. Before invading and killing a shitload more people for literally no reason.

Thats was before WW2, and they were fighting savages. they needed gas and a shitton of weapons for it.

This stuff is within living memory for some in Europe and it still affects families today. He needs to be punished for the crime he was tried and sentenced for.

He only followed orders, that not a crime...

 

[Arctic Fox]

Thats was before WW2, and they were fighting savages. they needed gas and a shitton of weapons for it.


He only followed orders, that not a crime...

They were attacking a member state of the League of Nations and gas bombed them in an unprovoked invasion.

 

[CaesarCzech]

They probably sprout cults of Neo-Nazi punks around them. Germany's Department of Cultural Guilt spawns disaffected kids on a regular basis who idolize people like the SS as honorable nationalists who were just trying to do their jobs when in reality the SS were total narcissistic gangsters who lived lives of debauchery and luxury. Even in their old age they're back to gathering orbiters and talking their shit up even though they lost the war and sucked every time they engaged an enemy not armed with sticks and rocks. Skorzeny not withstanding.

Skorzeny is what SS thugs claim they were. Skorzeny was actual badass to be honest.

 

[UQ 770]

Skorzeny is what SS thugs claim they were. Skorzeny was actual badass to be honest.

Takes serious skill to have fucking Israel use you as a filibuster when you personally assisted in the escape of hundreds of Nazis who were guilty as hell. Man was a legend even if he was a fucking monster.

 

[Stoneheart]

They were attacking a member state of the League of Nations and gas bombed them in an unprovoked invasion.

yes, and they almost failed.