Nazi Guard found in Atlanta

[kateyes]

Nazi hunters have tracked a suspected World War II concentration camp guard to Lawrenceville.


Members of the Justice Department's elite Nazi tracking force said Paul Henss, 85, served as a prison guard and attack dog handler at the notorious Dachau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany.

On Monday, in his driveway in a tidy, middle-class neighborhood where the streets are named after tennis stars, Henss said he had been an SS soldier and had trained German shepherds and Rottweilers during World War II, but he angrily denied being a war criminal.


"It is not 100 percent true, what they charge me," said Henss Monday afternoon. Henss appeared confused as he tried to answer a barrage of questions from reporters.

"I didn't commit no crimes," Henss said in a thick German accent. "I didn't hurt nobody. Otherwise I wouldn't have come to the United States."

Henss called the Holocaust "a catastrophe" and said: "Everybody in Germany knows that wasn't right."


The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security have asked an immigration judge in Atlanta to deport Henss. Officials said Henss entered the United States in 1955 after concealing his concentration camp service.

The document says Henss admitted on March 13 that he served as an SS guard at Dachau and Buchenwald for two to three months each as a dog handler................

The rest of the story is here:

Lawrenceville Man Admits Training Concentration Camp Attack Dogs - News Story - WSB Atlanta


What do you think--should he be deported? Should he be tried as a war criminal?
Has enough time passed we should just let this go?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

We have a statute of limitations....
There is no chance he would even be charged here... and nor should he.

 

[ALifetimeToWaitFor....]

what is the statue of limitations on trying war criminals? some crimes dont have a statue of limitations such as murder. He shouldn't be tried though. He has a family most likely and has been a upstanding citizen since in all probability. The past should be kept in the past. In my opinion all lower level "war criminals" should have been prosecuted or pardoned by now. The healing process requires closure.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

What do you think--should he be deported? Should he be tried as a war criminal?
Has enough time passed we should just let this go?

I don't think that article provides enough information for me to make a judgment about him. It's unfortunate that people are still having to hunt Nazi's. It's been more than 50 years.

The real travesty of the article is the sentence about the USA not being a haven for human rights violators. The guy who trained gaurd dogs for Nazi's in 1942 is small potatoes as far as human rights violators in the USA.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

what is the statue of limitations on trying war criminals? some crimes dont have a statue of limitations such as murder. He shouldn't be tried though. He has a family most likely and has been a upstanding citizen since in all probability. The past should be kept in the past. In my opinion all lower level "war criminals" should have been prosecuted or pardoned by now. The healing process requires closure.

It's good that he admits now that the Nazi's were wrong and the Halocaust was evil.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't want this guy over for dinner in my home.

 

[kateyes]

When I was about 11 or 12 my parents had a friend who had been a German soldier during WWII. Before the Battle of the Bulge--they took members of Hitler's Youth who were 16 and up, gave them a uniform and a gun, and assigned them to units. Wolf ended up in a Panzer division, and at 16 took part in the Battle of the Bulge and the retreat back to Germany. He was captured, and eventually came to the US. I remember being surprised because he was nothing like, I had always pictured a Nazi (based primarily on movies and Combat TV episodes). He had a heart attack and died when I was 12 or 13, which was about the time I was coming up with alot of questions I never got to ask. I certainly wouldn't have expected him to be deported or tried as a war criminal.


So the question I have to ask myself is, does it make a difference that Hesse was actively stationed at a concentration camp. Is he guilty of a great crime just because he was there, and "following orders".

 

[ALifetimeToWaitFor....]

It's good that he admits now that the Nazi's were wrong and the Halocaust was evil.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't want this guy over for dinner in my home.

Me either, but I'd like to take him out for coffee. =P

 

[gnomon]

The rest of the story is here:

Lawrenceville Man Admits Training Concentration Camp Attack Dogs - News Story - WSB Atlanta


What do you think--should he be deported? Should he be tried as a war criminal?
Has enough time passed we should just let this go?

I find their case to be weak and a monumental waste of time.

We don't even treat government employees who clearly violate the human rights of our citizens in this manner.

the Justice Department continues to make good on its pledge to ensure that the United States does not become a sanctuary for human rights violators.

They failed on that point long ago, miserably so.

 

[Smoke]

He's 85, he was a low-level kind of guy, and the article doesn't give enough information to know whether he really did anything worth prosecuting him over. All in all, I'd be willing to let 100 like Henss go free if we could prosecute one Cheney, Bush, or Erik Prince instead.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

He's 85, he was a low-level kind of guy, and the article doesn't give enough information to know whether he really did anything worth prosecuting him over. All in all, I'd be willing to let 100 like Henss go free if we could prosecute one Cheney, Bush, or Erik Prince instead.

I was thinking something along those lines.

 

[Zephyr]

Why bother going after this guy? My grandpa probably did more than him, and he got off free all his life. It just seems like a waste of time. If you find a top official, then maybe you'll have something, but there's no sense in hunting for the grunts.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Why bother going after this guy? My grandpa probably did more than him, and he got off free all his life. It just seems like a waste of time. If you find a top official, then maybe you'll have something, but there's no sense in hunting for the grunts.

Yes, there is. If you ignore the people who are actually responsible for carrying out illegal and immoral orders in favour of the "big fish", then you send a message to all soldiers who don't want to be subject to the law and to basic human decency that they're free to act without conscience or thought of morality.

The top officials were only dangerous because they had lots of grunts to put their plans into action. If you take away the "I was just following orders" excuse, then you seriously hinder the ability of evil people to carry out evil deeds through others.

 

[Zephyr]

Yes, there is. If you ignore the people who are actually responsible for carrying out illegal and immoral orders in favour of the "big fish", then you send a message to all soldiers who don't want to be subject to the law and to basic human decency that they're free to act without conscience or thought of morality.

The top officials were only dangerous because they had lots of grunts to put their plans into action. If you take away the "I was just following orders" excuse, then you seriously hinder the ability of evil people to carry out evil deeds through others.

When nazi hunters consider that I suppose it was probably a good thing that grandpa died before he was ever caught (rest in peace).

 

[tcprowling]

Having checked out the link and also having a bit of experience on How the military ( Most Military organisation) operates I am left to wonder just how far people are taking this Nazi hunting.
Now, I am pretty sure Most military units work like this once you have finished your basic training you are posted to a unit, you have very little say In Which unit you get posted.
I don't see that the WW2 german army was any differant to that, be it the regular army or the SS.
Once you are posted to that unit you are assigned duties, If you do not carry out those duties then you are in trouble.
I am not a Nazi supporter, what they did was horrifying and Criminal, And THOSE IN CONTROL should be held accountable for the crimes committed
But the rank and file? Are we going to hold Hitler's gardener as equally responsible as Hilter?
Let's put this in another light
If a person was wrongly excuted in the States would they hold the prison Guards or warders responsible for his excution?

 

[kadzbiz]

Personally I think that going after someone like this after all this time only serves to appease vengence. When a person is punished, sentenced, whatever, one is supposed to look at the likelihood of not re-offending and what remorse has been shown. Can those things be shown in this case? Most likely. Has he contributed positively to society since? Most likely. Has he made a good impression to his current acquaintences in his life? Most likely. What would it achieve to deal with him legally in this stage of his life? Who would it benefit? He has probably lived with guilt his whole life since and been a good role model. Leave it alone I say.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Let's put this in another light
If a person was wrongly excuted in the States would they hold the prison Guards or warders responsible for his excution?

If the guards knew that the prisoner was innocent and deliberately kept him confined anyway so he could be executed, then yes, they should be held responsible. Depending on level of involvement, each person who knowingly ensured an innocent man was executed would be guilty of either murder, conspiracy to commit murder, or accessory to murder, IMO.

 

[Smoke]

If the guards knew that the prisoner was innocent and deliberately kept him confined anyway so he could be executed, then yes, they should be held responsible. Depending on level of involvement, each person who knowingly ensured an innocent man was executed would be guilty of either murder, conspiracy to commit murder, or accessory to murder, IMO.

Should be and would be are not the same thing.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Should be and would be are not the same thing.

A prison guard who merely ensures that a person who has received due process of law has his sentence carried out would never be convicted of anything for doing that.

For a guard to actually know that a death row inmate was innocent, he'd have to stumble onto some sort of exonorating evidence himself (and not just listening to the inmate say "I'm innocent", "I was framed" or that sort of thing... I don't think that by itself is any sort of evidence), and then to ensure that the inmate was executed, he'd have to hide it. I believe THAT course of action would be criminal in every jurisdiction that I know of, and it's something that a guard could be convicted for.

If a guard knew full well that the death row inmate was there only for because he committed the crime of being Jewish, then he bears his share of the responsiblity for the inmate's murder.

 

[Smoke]

If a guard knew full well that the death row inmate was there only for because he committed the crime of being Jewish, then he bears his share of the responsiblity for the inmate's murder.

I agree that he bears his share of moral responsibility. But I don't think the people who helped to intern Japanese-Americans during World War II were ever prosecuted, despite the fact that many of them were native born citizens and none of them ever had any due process. I don't think the guards at Guantanamo will ever be prosecuted, either. Hell, we can't even figure out a way (so far) to make Blackwater employees in Iraq accountable to any law or authority at all.