[lobo221]

A former guard at the Auschwitz-Birkenau German concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland has been sentenced to five years in jail by a German court.

The court in the western German city of Detmold found 94-year-old Reinhold Hanning, who served in the camp in 1942-44, guilty of 170,000 counts of accessory to murder of prisoners.

Hanning admitted to knowing about the mass murder perpetrated at the camp and said that he was sorry, but insisted that he had not killed anyone personally.

He was sentenced on Friday.

Over 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, as well as non-Jewish Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet POWs and people of many other nationalities, were killed at Auschwitz at the hands of Poland’s Nazi German occupiers during World War II.

Source

[mmeroyale]

Bye bitch

[Steve]

No sympathy at all, his age has no bearing on anything. At least he made it to old age, those 170,000 he helped murder had no such luxury. Fucking NAZI'S SHOULD HANG OLD AND NEW.

[vanillabuzz]

Auschwitz-Birkenau and he only gets five years? What the hell?! What if he lives to be 100 and walks out? Kill the fucker.

[subhuman]

What only five years!? They should have given him 6 million years - one for every murder he's responsible for.

All those people that were murdered with automatic skull crushers and deadly masturbation machines... all those women they used as kindling (because according to Nuremberg testimony Jewish women are flammable)... all those lampshades made of human skin... just unbelievably horrendous.

I hope his last breath is spent thinking, 'damn I shouldn't have listened to my government and tried to provide a living for my family. I deserve this.'

[niknik]

He likely will do no jail time. You guys talking about 5 years, i bet he doesn't do 5 days.

He gets to stay out until his appeals are heard. If its anything like America that could take years. With his age, i doubt he'll see one day.

Its bullshit. He should be strung up immediately. What he was a part of was the absolute worst thing ever to happen in the history of the world in my opinion.

[bob351]

Guy probably met my grandfather, Id like to spend some time with him.

[kellyhound]

Until 2011, prosecutions for involvement in the Holocaust were only considered possible if it could be proved the individual was directly responsible for murder or torture.

The Hanning case has concentrated on the Hungary Operation, which took place over three months, from May to July 1944, when about 425,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz, in Nazi-occupied Poland; 300,000 of them were gassed to death immediately on arrival.

Prosecutors argue that the episode serves to underline the industrialised nature of the Nazi slaughter machine that depended on the participation of a massive network of people carrying out orders, however large or small. They have produced evidence that Hanning was in Auschwitz during the Hungary operation and is therefore directly implicated.

Initially, Hanning refused to speak, provoking frustration and anger among the survivors in the courtroom and those following the trial around the world.

Hanning did not divulge any of the details of his working life at the camp but he made a surprise statement in April asking for forgiveness.

“I was silent my whole life,” he told a hushed court, which strained to hear his quiet, rasping, voice.

“I want to say to you that I’m deeply regretful at having belonged to a criminal organisation that was responsible for the death of vast numbers of people, for the destruction of countless numbers of families, for misery, torture and suffering on the part of the victims and their relatives.

I am ashamed to have stood by and watch those injustices happen and to have done nothing to prevent them.”

In an earlier statement read by his lawyer, Johannes Salmen, Hanning insisted he had been sent to Auschwitz after he was injured in the head by a grenade in Kiev.

“The head of my unit said ‘Hanning, you can’t even wear a helmet’, so he thought it a good idea to send me to Auschwitz for internal service,” he said.

In his closing statement, Salmen argued that his client’s age when he joined the SS – he was 18 when he joined the Totenkopf (Death’s Head) division – should be considered to be a mitigating factor. “You can’t act today as if the defendant was a fully-grown man back then who knew just what he was doing,” he said.

Hanning’s trial followed that of Oskar Gröning, an SS recruit known as the book-keeper of Auschwitz, who in 2015 received a four-year prison sentence for his role as an Auschwitz guard. He has appealed against the sentence and is unlikely ever to serve any time.

The Hanning verdict is especially noteworthy because due to the age of those who worked in Nazi camps, this trial may be one of the last of its kind. In recent years, many similar cases were closed because the defendants were not fit to stand trial, according to NBC News. Five cases remain active.

Another case being heard by a German court is that of a former SS medic, Hubert Zafke, although it has already been adjourned twice on health grounds, putting the proceedings in doubt.

A trial of a 92-year-old female radio operator, identified only as Helma M, is expected to open shortly.

[mmeroyale]

Oskar Groning getting the same sentence truly is unfair BUT nazis are nazis at this point only one sentence would be fair if y'all know what I mean

But if we're PC and human rights'ing ip in here then lock them all together and wait for them to die . Geriatric SS.

[Geemonster]

Originally Posted by niknik ↗

He likely will do no jail time. You guys talking about 5 years, i bet he doesn't do 5 days.

He gets to stay out until his appeals are heard. If its anything like America that could take years. With his age, i doubt he'll see one day.

Its bullshit. He should be strung up immediately. What he was a part of was the absolute worst thing ever to happen in the history of the world in my opinion.

I'm not excusing him but 1 he might've been one of dozens there, and wasn't as bad as Amon Goeth, if he tried to help, Hitler would've had his family all shot.
2 I'm betting through the ages there were worse people than him.
Ghengis Khan, Vlad the impaler and they're the ones we know of.
Did you know that 14,000,000 Asian Men carry Ghengis's Gene to this day?