Should Eichmann Have Been Executed?

[ronburgundy]

War is an atrocity against humanity participated in by both the victor and the vanquished. Unfortunately, war is sometimes preferable to the alternative. War crime trials are a method for the victor to kill some of the vanquished that they were unable to kill during the war.

I don't think you understand the engineering that need to be performed to pull off the Holocaust and that the Jewish and Gypsies weren't Axis or Allies, they were civilians who were murdered while millions were tortured to 'purify' the human race's genetics so everyone had blonde hair and blue eyes like Hitler.

The Germans and Japanese civilians died in large part because their leaders didn't surrender when the writing was on the wall... and poetically suffered in kind with those tortured and murdered by their armies.

^^THIS^^

The Holocaust was not part of war efforts against foreign enemies. It was the deliberate torture and execution on their own citizens. It began before WWII even started and was not a consequence of military battle, but rather a cause of it (or more accurately, should have been the cause of the US attacking Germany about 8 years before we entered the War). They weren't "War crimes", they were crimes against humanity. They should have been treated like what they were, acts of torture and mass murder unrelated to any military strategy. IOW, treated just like one would civilian mass murders during peacetime. Everyone in a position of authority who oversaw and played a role in those camps and had the ability to have acted differently without being executed themselves was guilty of crimes against humanity punishable by death. That would include even many lower level soldiers who went well beyond what they were directly ordered to do.

 

[steve_bank]

At first the Nazis used Zycklgn B gas with trucks as mobile killing stations. It was not efficient enough. Then came the 'final solution', efficient mechanistic genocide.

Unless there is new evidence there were no records or notes from the initial meeting. Post war there was not much of a clear paper trail that led to the leadership. It is impossible to believe anyone in the SS did not know what was going on.

Speer who oversaw all construction projects claimed ignorance.

There have been recent new documentaries on the Nazis. When you dig down it joust gets more ugly and disgusting. Utter depravity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon_B

Zyklon B (German: [tsyˈkloːn ˈbeː] (About this soundlisten); translated Cyclone B) was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in Germany in the early 1920s. It consisted of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid), as well as a cautionary eye irritant and one of several adsorbents such as diatomaceous earth. The product is infamous for its use by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust to murder approximately one million people in gas chambers installed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, and other extermination camps.

Hydrogen cyanide is a poisonous gas that interferes with cellular respiration, first used as a pesticide in California in the 1880s. Research at Degesch of Germany led to the development of Zyklon (later known as Zyklon A), a pesticide which released hydrogen cyanide upon exposure to water and heat. It was banned after World War I because Germany used a similar product as a chemical weapon. Degussa purchased Degesech in 1922, and they had a team of chemists that included Walter Heerdt [de] and Bruno Tesch, and they devised a method of packaging hydrogen cyanide in sealed canisters. The new product was also named Zyklon, but it became known as Zyklon B to distinguish it from the earlier version. Uses included delousing clothing and fumigating ships, warehouses, and trains.

The Nazis began using Zyklon B in extermination camps in early 1942 to murder humans, and around a million people were killed using this method, mostly at Auschwitz. Tesch was executed in 1946 for knowingly selling the product to the SS for use on humans. Hydrogen cyanide is now rarely used as a pesticide, but it still has industrial applications. Firms in several countries continue to produce Zyklon B under alternative brand names, including Detia-Degesch, the successor to Degesch, who renamed the product Cyanosil in 1974.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

War is an atrocity against humanity participated in by both the victor and the vanquished. Unfortunately, war is sometimes preferable to the alternative. War crime trials are a method for the victor to kill some of the vanquished that they were unable to kill during the war. Had the Axis powers been the winners, could Truman, Churchill, FDR (posthumously), the generals of bomber command, etc. have been tried for war crimes for the millions of civilians killed in the fire bombing, saturation bombing, and atomic bombs dropped on civilian population centers?

Some of the things under discussion might be called war crimes technically, but it's a misnomer in the sense that much of what happened to the Jews was a domestic issue. That genocide attempt was an independent thing, even if many foreigners and others ended up in death camps as well. An argument for or against genocide of which this was certainly a goal by Hitler, if you read Mein Kampf, is an independent thing from war. And "both sides."

Wow, and now that I am catching up on this thread, I see this:

... both sides ....

You can't be serious.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Granted he was an evil dude. He was responsible for organizing the trains to pick up and take Jews to Auschwitz and other camps.

He claimed he was just a low level functionary. His highest rank was as a Lieutenant Colonel in the SS. He never participated in any killings although he may have witnessed one.

So if he had been tried at Munich, would he have received the death penalty? I’m thinking not. Many others who were far more involved in the holocaust didn’t receive the death penalty. Maybe life in Prison that would have been commuted.

Some examples:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udo_von_Woyrsch (in charge of Einsatzgruppen in Poland)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottlob_Berger
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Walther_Darré (developed racial policy)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josias,_Hereditary_Prince_of_Waldeck_and_Pyrmont (Commandant of Buchenwald)


All of whom were Obergruppenfuhrer's, or Lieutenant General rank. There were of course many others. I think if he’d stuck around Germany, Eichmann would eventually have been brought to trial, but given a relatively light sentence.

SLD

Here are my general thoughts on the death penalty, first. I think the death penalty, at least in the US, is used way too frequently, but I am not 100% opposed to it in principle. I think there are extreme circumstances where a person is a threat to future society (i.e. individuals) whereby they ought to be executed. In order to fit into this category, to me, a person has to have demonstrated beyond a doubt, we have to be absolutely 100% sure they did some of these crimes against humans in the past and we have to be very certain there is immense RISK to humans in the future. To me, a person doesn't lose their rights NOT to be analyzed as a risk, except by violating the sacred fundamentals of society by murdering or similar crimes to others. After such, they lose certain rights and we can treat them like a risk, but we have to be 100% sure they did the things in question and then we can look at what could happen in the future. So, in Ted Bundy's case, I'd have been for his execution because he showed time and again he could escape and be a continued threat to society. In someone like Hitler's case, I would definitely think he was a threat to future society. Even if jailed, he could command others, or a resurgence of Nazism could one day break him out and the horrible acts could again occur. I do not normally ascribe to ideas of punishment, but instead rehabilitation.

To at least some extent, legal consequences such as the death penalty are also a deterrent to others to do such crimes. In the case of what we're talking about...a rogue nation committing genocide, I think consequences as a deterrent are also important. This means that some international human rights law violations in the extreme and future risk to others, but also that OTHER governments that could potentially go rogue have to observe what happens when attempting to commit genocide or other such horrific murders or similar against their own people. That is, a nation may make killing off the Jews or Muslims or Mexicans or whomever legal domestically. The world has to show all such nations that cannot be a thing to get away with--that there will still be consequences.

So, in the case of the Nazis, most major players of the Nazi regime ought to have been put to death because of the future risk to society, provided that their connection to the genocidal plans and actions were certain...as both a deterrent to their coming to power again to repeat such crimes and as a deterrent to others who might want to do the same. But the crimes of the Nazis were not limited to only the major top brass. Guards at the death camps and "cogs in the machine" like Eichmann were also involved in the murders, directly or indirectly. Any such low-ranking person who we could be sure of having been involved in mass murders directly and posing a future risk to the world also should have been executed. That means guards at the concentration camps.

I don't believe every single Nazi would need to be executed including those not directly shooting people in the head, but enough middle men and low-ranking persons ought to have been executed for two of the same reasons as above: to destroy the chances of Nazism coming back as the government of Germany and to act as a deterrent to other movements and countries considering similar crimes against humanity. Many hard core Nazi criminals could also alternatively be imprisoned for decades under the occupation and for some number that I cannot quantify, this could act as both a deterrent for future Nazi Germany and against other countries going rogue, and this is especially true if the leadership is extinct because those risks would be gone.

So this brings me to Eichmann now. If Eichmann were not a major player in the genocide or it could not be proven 100% that he was, then I would conclude that it is ambiguous. To me, as I described above, some sufficient number of Eichmann-like individuals ought to have been executed to act as a deterrent but once so many are executed, the benefit of executing individuals is decreased significantly. Some individuals who are not a future threat to society because there would be no resurgence of a Nazi regime need only act as a deterrent by imprisoning them. Likewise, some individuals according to their crimes, could have less consequences and be rehabilitated also showing the world that people CAN be rehabilitated in such situations.

 

[skepticalbip]

Wow, and now that I am catching up on this thread, I see this:

... both sides ....

You can't be serious.

Real cute editing there. Do you disagree with the full statement...

And I disagree with you about leaders of "good regimes". The leadership of both sides think they are fighting for 'righteousness causes' or they wouldn't be fighting.

Then it is the winner that writes the history and it is that history that defines which was the "good regime".

This was in response to a post that implied that the leadership on one side did not believe their cause was righteous.

ETA:
I just re-read the post you quoted there and saw that I uses 'both sides' earlier in the post too saying that both sides oversaw the mass slaughter of innocent civilians. If you disagree, did you miss in your reading of history that the allies killed millions of innocent civilians in their saturation bombing, fire bombing, and nuclear bombing of large civilian population centers? This is a violation of the Geneva convention as targeting civilians is defined as a war crime by that convention.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Real cute editing there.

No, the editing is not cute. There should be NO RESPONSE that contains "...both sides..."

Do you disagree with the full statement...

OF COURSE! Didn't you read my previous response in the same post?

 

[skepticalbip]

Real cute editing there.

No, the editing is not cute. There should be NO RESPONSE that contains "...both sides..."

Do you disagree with the full statement...

OF COURSE! Didn't you read my previous response in the same post?

That is the kind of thinking that is used to justify atrocities. "Our cause is righteous so whatever we do is necessary because the other side is evil." It should be noted that the NAZIs saw themselves as righteous and Jews as evil.

The allies' propaganda painted "Krauts" and "Nips" as evil making targeting and killing millions of civilians a "righteous" act.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No, the editing is not cute. There should be NO RESPONSE that contains "...both sides..."



OF COURSE! Didn't you read my previous response in the same post?

That is the kind of thinking that is used to justify atrocities. "Our cause is righteous so whatever we do is necessary because the other side is evil." It should be noted that the NAZIs saw themselves as righteous and Jews as evil.

The allies' propaganda painted "Krauts" and "Nips" as evil making targeting and killing millions of civilians a "righteous" act.

You are making a "both sides" argument again but don't like it when someone says you are making a "both sides" argument. You are even using the words.

No one on the Allied side was saying we need to kill every last German because of their DNA but instead it was understood that Germany needed to fall.

Even Chomsky and Zinn admit the war was necessary, though that has nothing to do with giving Eichmann the death penalty or NOT because of his involvement in genocide.

 

[skepticalbip]

No, the editing is not cute. There should be NO RESPONSE that contains "...both sides..."



OF COURSE! Didn't you read my previous response in the same post?

That is the kind of thinking that is used to justify atrocities. "Our cause is righteous so whatever we do is necessary because the other side is evil." It should be noted that the NAZIs saw themselves as righteous and Jews as evil.

The allies' propaganda painted "Krauts" and "Nips" as evil making targeting and killing millions of civilians a "righteous" act.

You are making a "both sides" argument again but don't like it when someone says you are making a "both sides" argument. You are even using the words.

No one on the Allied side was saying we need to kill every last German because of their DNA but instead it was understood that Germany needed to fall.

Bull shit... I thought that I had made it quite clear that I am saying that both sides committed war crimes. They were not necessarily the same crimes or for the same reason but they were war crimes nonetheless.

Even Chomsky and Zinn admit the war was necessary, though that has nothing to do with giving Eichmann the death penalty or NOT because of his involvement in genocide.

I never claimed that engaging in the war was was not a better option than allowing Germany and Japan to rule the world. But if the Allies had lost then it would have been the Allies' military leadership that was tried for war crimes rather than those that were.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

You are making a "both sides" argument again but don't like it when someone says you are making a "both sides" argument. You are even using the words.

No one on the Allied side was saying we need to kill every last German because of their DNA but instead it was understood that Germany needed to fall.

Bull shit... I thought that I had made it quite clear that I am saying that both sides committed war crimes. They were not necessarily the same crimes or for the same reason but they were war crimes nonetheless.

Even Chomsky and Zinn admit the war was necessary, though that has nothing to do with giving Eichmann the death penalty or NOT because of his involvement in genocide.

I never claimed that engaging in the war was was not a better option than allowing Germany and Japan to rule the world. But if the Allies had lost then it would have been the Allies' military leadership that was tried for war crimes rather than those that were.

No, they'd be executed for supporting the Jews and being race traitors.

The activities of the White Rose started in the autumn of 1942. This was a time that was particularly critical for the Nazi regime; after initial victories in World War II, the German population became increasingly aware of the losses and damages of the war. In Summer 1942, the German Wehrmacht was preparing a new military campaign in the southern part of the East front to regain the initiative after their earlier defeat close to Moscow. This German offensive was initially very successful, but came to a standstill in the autumn of 1942. In February 1943, the German army had faced a major defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad. During this time, the authors of the pamphlets could neither be discovered, nor could the campaign be stopped by the Nazi authorities. When Hans and Sophie Scholl were discovered and arrested whilst distributing leaflets at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich,[1] the regime reacted brutally. As the "Volksgerichtshof" was not bound to the law, but led by Nazi ideology, its actions were declared unlawful in post-war Germany. Thus, the execution of the White Rose group members, among many others, is considered as judicial murder.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose

Nazi Germany executed Jews for being Jewish, not because of a WAR.

Nazi Germany executed PACIFISTS as well for opposing them.

This is not about War.

 

[skepticalbip]

Bull shit... I thought that I had made it quite clear that I am saying that both sides committed war crimes. They were not necessarily the same crimes or for the same reason but they were war crimes nonetheless.

I never claimed that engaging in the war was was not a better option than allowing Germany and Japan to rule the world. But if the Allies had lost then it would have been the Allies' military leadership that was tried for war crimes rather than those that were.

No, they'd be executed for supporting the Jews and being race traitors.

Targeting and killing civilians are war crimes according to the Geneva Convention.

Just one example:
The only militarily significant target in Tokyo was the Emperor's palace. The palace was on the list of places that were not to be hit. The fire bombing of Tokyo was intended and planned to kill as many civilians as possible... but certainly not the emperor (the ultimate leader in the war). This is a war crime according to the Geneva Convention.

The activities of the White Rose started in the autumn of 1942. This was a time that was particularly critical for the Nazi regime; after initial victories in World War II, the German population became increasingly aware of the losses and damages of the war. In Summer 1942, the German Wehrmacht was preparing a new military campaign in the southern part of the East front to regain the initiative after their earlier defeat close to Moscow. This German offensive was initially very successful, but came to a standstill in the autumn of 1942. In February 1943, the German army had faced a major defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad. During this time, the authors of the pamphlets could neither be discovered, nor could the campaign be stopped by the Nazi authorities. When Hans and Sophie Scholl were discovered and arrested whilst distributing leaflets at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich,[1] the regime reacted brutally. As the "Volksgerichtshof" was not bound to the law, but led by Nazi ideology, its actions were declared unlawful in post-war Germany. Thus, the execution of the White Rose group members, among many others, is considered as judicial murder.[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose

Nazi Germany executed Jews for being Jewish, not because of a WAR.

Nazi Germany executed PACIFISTS as well for opposing them.

This is not about War.

In that case if that is your position then it should be a trial about a civil criminal act rather than as a war crime. Those conducting the trials saw it differently than you.

 

[steve_bank]

Calling it a domestic issue is certainly callous. It was not limited to Germany proper. Slave labor was imported to work at Von Braun's rocket factory. Lifespan maybe 6 moths. Von Braun also calmed ignorance and became an American space hero. Atoner Nazi who escaped prosecution. He and his fellow scientists had value to the US military.

The genocide was a crime against humanity. Less well known was the Janise holocaust in China. Chemical and biological weapons testing on Chinese civilians.

A war crime, by the Geneva Conventions, would be the Battani Death March and summary execution of prisoners. Intentional targeting of civilians would be another example. V1 and V2 rocket attacks on British cities.

The British Dam Buster raid that breached dams on the Ruhr River to flood an industrial area targeting the civilian workforce in an industrial area could be considered a war crime.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Bip,

The op question was about what should be done to Eichmann, not if winning sides in a war execute the generals of the other side. Note the word: should.

 

[steve_bank]

The question encompasses a lot.

I believe anyone who had a hand in organizing and implementing the 'final solution' should have been executed. A paper trail was intentionally minimized. They all knew what was going on.

Early on Hitler's Brown Shirts were beating and killing Jews. The Warsaw ghetto. A long list other than the death camps.

Geobles and wife committed suicide and killed their children for a reason, he knew it would come to light.

I visited the Missouri when it was tied up in Bremerton Wa. There was a picture of the surrender ceremony and audio was playing.

I said to my friend it was remarkable that the Americans especially MacArthur mainlined composure. His friend Wainwright who survived Battani was there. Senior staff in the Pacific lost friends and family.

My friend replied that it was the way they wanted to be remembered in history. Not as vengeful conquerors.

It was the same in Europe. A court of law and due process prevailed over summary executions.

Many who should have been executed were not.

Eichmann should have been executed, he ran for a reason.

So, end of discussion?

 

[J842P]

Yes, of course Eichmann should have been killed. I would have just taken the Russian approach and simply summarily executed Nazis. Maybe not the rank-and-file Wehrmacht, but all SS for sure, and definitely the leaders.