Vengeance?

[peternotbaldyet]

I've just finished reading an extraordinary book by Gitta Sereny called 'Albert Speer - His Battle With Truth'. Speer was Hitlers armaments minister who finally turned against Hitler in the last months of WW2. He was tried at Nuremberg and narrowly (and probably unfairly considering the sentence given to Sauckel, one of his underlings) avoided the death penalty. He spoke out against Hitler and the National Socialist regime at his trial and continued to do so for the rest of his life. He served 20 years in Spandau and was released in 1966.

During his prison sentence, he wrote down his reminiscences, which were later published as 'Inside The Third Reich'. It is a very good book and although he accepts his share of the blame for the regime, he denies knowledge of the death camps. The book became a world wide bestseller. Reading Sereny's book, you find that he donated most of the profits of all of his writings after the war to various charities, anonymously, including charities that helped survivors of the camps.

From his own writings, it is not possible to ascertain the depth of guilt he felt. From Sereny ' s writing, it is all too clear that he could barely live with it. The last two chapters of Sereny ' s book deal directly with the self torture that Speer lived with to the end of his life. The fact is that he had to have known about the death camps. The closest he comes to acknowledging this is that he, 'looked the other way', a confession that would probably have seen him hanged at Nuremberg.

The point of this is that he tried to be a different person after the war to the person that he was in the 1930's and 1940's. He opened himself up to all communities, he forged links with various Jewish communities worldwide and donated huge sums of money to try to help alleviate some of the suffering the regime he had been part of had caused.

Had he hanged at Nuremberg, that 'good' would never have happened. There is also the point that his continued feelings of almost unbearable guilt were a life sentence.

In the light of the lyrics of NMA's most controversial song, I would be interested to know what people on here think. Certainly, if you have an interest in 20th century history, or guilt and the search for redemption, read Gita's book.

[Anna Woman von NRW]

Very interesting topic albeit a difficult, emotive and complicated one. It comes a bit close to a discussion we had here a while back regarding the recent trial of a frail old man for WWII crimes.

As you say, if he had been hanged then the good things he subsequently did with his life would not have happened and perhaps atonement is a far greater result than a judicial death. However those who died never had the chance to do good (or otherwise) as their existence was arbitrarily terminated and although good may have come from his post war years no doubt he also enjoyed happiness and pleasure which was denied those who died.

I would posit a more modern parallel in the case of the demon Jimmy Saville - his charitable work had a massive positive effect at Stoke Mandeville hospital and many other places yet all the time he was committing vile, horrific crimes against innocents. Had his despicable acts been brought before the courts prior to  his death then there is no way the good works he had done could have been contemplated as mitigating factors and without doubt they could not have excused his behaviour.

The question of where lines are drawn in regard to inexcusable and irredeemable wrong are drawn is one to which an entire legal industry has been  devoted too over the course of centuries upon centuries. If it was easy then the questions would have been settled years ago.  Ultimately I suspect that the only answer to this question is the personal answer we all arrive at. Whichever way we fall is up to us and contrary to what some people believe - nobody made us god  I fall on the side of eye for an eye and if you do evil then you should pay the price.

[Pol]

Did his good out weigh his evil - well far from it , the scales of justice are heavily against him.
Anna makes a excellent point, what about the people he helped kill what about all the good that they would have done.
Anna has mentioned Jimmy sav , what about all those at the beeb who helped cover his crimes, yet they still send out there threatening letters - guilty until proven innocent - modern day mobsters with extortion, sending the salesperson to your door disguised as officers asking to invade your private space uninvited, demanding money with menace to Gary liniker his 1.6m for a hours work a week.
Apologies for a off topic rant

[Master Ray]

I once read an interesting idea that everything bad you do in your life is made out of stones and everything good is made out of feathers... and at the end of your life, you will see what the balance is...

I have to say that somebody deeply involved in the Nazi party claiming to have no knowledge of 'the death camps'... sorry, not buying that.  I admit, I haven't read the book in question.

Someone with a shitload of guilt weighing him down... that I will accept.  People going along with the Nazi thing after how Germany were treated between WW1 and WW2?  Getting some pride and passion and being swept along in the face of little else, no matter how wrong it was? Yeah.

Turning against Hitler?  We could argue whether that was true belief or realising that the tide was turning.  Again, I should read the book if I want a finer opinion.

I still maintain that this guy should bear the scars of what he did on his very soul into death and beyond.  But I will check out the book and reserve my right to change my opinion.

[peternotbaldyet]

I read his own book and found it fairly self serving, even though he was the only defendant at Nuremberg to take blame for the regime. I also thought that it was a ploy to win favor with the prosecution. He was aware before the end of the war that there would be trials. At the end of that book, even though from an historical perspective it would have been a loss, I was not convinced that he should have escaped the death penalty. Having read Sereny's book, there is a much better picture painted of the man himself, but I have to admit I am still not convinced that he didn't deserve to be hanged.

[Stephanie]

This Gitta Sereny, who wrote the book about him - do you know in what the relation to Speer was?

I have to admit I haven't read those 2 books (but am now very curious and think I will) - and you sure have brought up an interesting topic.

The question I keep asking myself - not least in the light of recent affairs here in Germany and elsewhere - is what I would have done had I lived back then? Would I have been one of those swept along? Because it is certainly quite easy to understand why so many were. And if I had - at some point - realised what was going on, would I have been brave enough to try and do something about it, risking torture and death? Or would I have been too afraid? Because, honestly, I think I can't even begin to understand how much courage it must have taken to try and fight that regime. So I often find it very difficult to judge - although part of me realy wants to believe that I would NOT have been able to help, in whatever way, kill so many inncocent people in the most horrible ways, maybe even people that I know.

But I guess at the end of the day you have to pay for your crimes, no matter why you have committed them.

[andydrbeard]

On a similar vein I just finished reading a book called "The Vanquished" about the aftermath of WW1. Superbly written and gives so much food for thought.

I, like Stephanie, would like to think that if I had been alive in those times that I would have been able to resist the various extreme nationalist and ideological regimes that took over most of Europe and Japan between the two World Wars. Please do not think that I am an apologist for any of the abhorrent regimes like Nazi Germany, Stalin's USSSR and the many others from Greece through to Japan that did terrible, unpardonable things during this period. But when you see what the times were like it's really not difficult at all to see why people followed these regimes.

It's easy with hindsight (especially from our privileged position in the West) to look with a superior eye upon the people of the time and think we would not have let it all happen. However, when you look at the things that are happening in the world now it seems little really changes and we are in real danger of making all the same mistakes. The author makes the point that, especially in the case of the Middle East a conflict is still raging that began over 100 years ago and is still no closer to a true, peaceful resolution.

Back to the original post - anyone with decision making responsibility and those who could be proven to have committed atrocities should all have been executed. I agree with the sentiment that regardless of what "good" they may have subsequent done, the fact that they may have had a moment's pleasure which they denied their many victims should have been denied them.

[Anna Woman von NRW]

The question I keep asking myself - not least in the light of recent affairs here in Germany and elsewhere - is what I would have done had I lived back then? Would I have been one of those swept along? Because it is certainly quite easy to understand why so many were. And if I had - at some point - realised what was going on, would I have been brave enough to try and do something about it, risking torture and death? Or would I have been too afraid? Because, honestly, I think I can't even begin to understand how much courage it must have taken to try and fight that regime.

Crux of the problem if we try and sit in judgement - impossible to put yourself in that situation and just as difficult to sit and say what form Vengeance should take.

 

[Master Ray]

True that, Anna.  I doubt anyone here has ever had the choice of going along with something awful or willingly getting on their knees to accept a bullet in the back of the head.

It's a deeply ingrained part of humanity to want to survive.  And the human mind has ways of twisting what is around them to suit that same mindset.

I'm not excusing it, not for a second... but some sympathy must be owed to those in, shall we say, 'lower level positions', faced with the absolute mindfuck of The Holocaust.  The ones who never shot anyone, who never saw a death camp (even if they knew about them) and were just trying to get by in the face of one of the greatest evils that the world ever knew?

Puts Brexit into context, eh?

[Shush]

Interesting topic. Similar issue raised in Pol's topic last year, "Oskar Groening". ---

http://board.newmodelarmy.org/index.php?topic=8859.0

[peternotbaldyet]

Gitta was no relation to Speer, she was a journalist and writer. She was a nurse in France at the outbreak of WW2. She was very interested in what shaped seemingly ordinary people into becoming what most of us might consider 'monsters'.

I also wonder what I would have done had I lived in that country during that time.

The Speer book is the most insightful biography I have ever read. He wanted to become a different and better man, but he could not admit even to himself that he knew about the death camps and so I don't think he ever really found the redemption he was so actively seeking.

I've just bought another of Gitta's books called 'Into That Darkness' which is a record of her interviews with Franz Stangl who commanded the camp at Treblinka. She is trying to ascertain what made ordinary people perform these utterly abhorrent acts.

Stangl was only given a life sentence even though he oversaw the murders of at least 900,000 people.