Auschwitz Guard Dies Before Trial Starts

Another one escapes earthly justice.
"A 83-year-old former Auschwitz guard has died only days before going on trial accused of being an accessory to the murder of more than 1,000 people.
Ernst Tremmel was a member of the Nazi SS guard team at the death camp in occupied Poland from November 1942 to June 1943.
The trial was to have started next Wednesday in the western German city of Hanau, near Frankfurt, with plans to hear the testimony of Auschwitz survivors.
All the appointments related to these proceedings have now been cancelled,' the regional court in Hanau said in a brief statement. No cause of death was released.
Tremmel served with an SS Totenkopf unit processing the arrival of prisoners and was allegedly directly involved in three transports, from Berlin, the French city of Drancy and Westerbork in the Netherlands.
'Among the deportees, at least 1,075 people were cruelly murdered immediately after their arrival at Auschwitz,' the Hanau court said when it announced the trial in February.
Because Tremmel was aged 19 to 20 at the time of his alleged crimes, he was to have been tried under juvenile criminal law despite his advanced age.
Due to his frail health, the court had ordered hearings to be limited to four hours per day.
The legal foundation for prosecuting ex-Nazis changed in 2011 with the German conviction of former death camp guard John Demjanjuk, solely on the basis of his having worked at the Sobibor camp in occupied Poland.
Tremmel was initially one of 14 suspects targeted in coordinated raids by German authorities in February 2014 in a twilight bid to bring the last living perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3528760/Former-Auschwitz-guard-93-dies-just-days-trial-murder-1-000-people-Holocaust.html#ixzz45AgXZ4eP

 

let's assume he was assigned to transport inmates to auswitz. to be accessory to murder, it must be proven that he assisted in the transport of a segment straight to the birkenau extermination section of auswitz, shouldn't he? the report says he was involved in transport from source areas berlin, drancy, and westerbork.

 

yes mac_bolan.....just like in the other thread, weren't there many more involved, that were not directly in the line of killing ??...this is very murky.....so long ago....as stated before, I don't see how they get convictions on just paperwork, documents, etc...because the ages of witnesses is so old
they limited hearings to 4 hours a day because of his age....and then he dies.....there comes a time when it just needs to stop.....not stop remembering, or finding the truth.......but just stop......

 

But for me a much more sensitive area is, did he have any realistic choice. 19 to 20 years of age, the order do as you are told or possibly be shot, how many of us would take a stand at that age? and possibly given his position in this with little knowledge of what was happening.

While I am sure some reveled in the opportunities provided others perhaps found themselves between a rock and a hard place. We forgave deserters a long time ago, now perhaps time to consider the position of those who followed orders.

 

that's what I was thinking, also......plus we've had a thread on some similar ideas.....'oath to hitler' thread is into this

 

Exactly!

 

Hans brooding on the Auschwitz ramp in 1944: "Well, I've got orders and I could get myself into troubles! Hey who cares about a few million Jews and Gypsies anyhow! I will just do my job! Follow the orders! And I'm sure that in seventy years there will be retards who will be willing to forgive!"

 

who are the ''retards'' ?

 

Don't quote me but I think he means us.

Tunnel vision and totally misses the point of the conversation.

 

well if that's the case,1. it's always immature and not conducive for good discussion
2. it's hard to convict people that are tried within a few years of the crime with solid evidence nowadays. I think convictions for Holocaust crimes are based on emotion more than evidence.
now they want to convict people of answering phones, filing papers, transporting, of what? murder? how many years ago?
3. here we go again....''I would've strangled hitler myself, if I was there''.....''I would've burned the camps down'' ''I would've refused'' ''I would've punched the car jacker,robber,etc""
un-realists
just like protesters against police 'brutality''--BS....they would do the same thing if a criminal is resisting arrest....they act like they are 'not-human'........they think they are better, above 'the others''...when in reality, they are worse

 

4. Using the word retard tells me a lot about him.

 

remember--a huge factor is Germany was not a free country like the US was...not even close.......you couldn't go to the press....you weren't 'free'......you can't try to think of what they did, from an American or British, etc, citizen's view.......you couldn't even give a bad opinion on the war without fearing retribution

'''White Rose survivor Jürgen Wittenstein described what it was like to live in Hitler's Germany: "The government – or rather, the party – controlled everything: the news media, arms, police, the armed forces, the judiciary system, communications, travel, all levels of education from kindergarten to universities, all cultural and religious institutions. Political indoctrination started at a very early age, and continued by means of the Hitler Youth with the ultimate goal of complete mind control. Children were exhorted in school to denounce even their own parents for derogatory remarks about Hitler or Nazi ideology."'

seriously now---let's get some realistic ideas on the German guards for these camps.......
did they volunteer to guard/transport/etc? because they wanted Jews killed? what options did they have
what were they all supposed to do--ask for transfers? protests? ?
they just guarded,? ''herded' the Jews to the chambers? transported?

what crimes were they/he accused of? accessory to murder?? if you're just guarding/etc, .murder? very murky here,no?...as mac-bolan correctly brings up, how far up the trail can you go, to accuse people of this?
most importantly what could the guards have done different??

this is nothing like My Lai where you are directly murdering .....they are giving orders to do what? drive this vehicle? take these people here or there?

actually, if this should be a new thread, please advise...or if there was one already on it....sounds like a good one