Why Should Former Nazi Guards Face Trial Today?

Suspected Nazi war criminal Bruins gestures before the start of his trial in Hagen

It must have been a surprise for the Nazi party to find out that they have lost the war. Even the thought of that happening would have been subject of a joke for the cold hearted murderers. This is the only logical explanation for the existence of so many records describing the most disturbing crimes that took place at Auschwitz and beyond.

Kurt Schrimm, a special German prosecutor, presented this year his intention of pressing charges on 49 of the men and women who took part in the mass murder scene at Auschwitz.

Whether or not these people will live to even see a courtroom it’s not something to strongly be considered by Germans and the rest of the people who seem to crave justice just like once before the Nazi party would have craved for their own justice.

Many questions, however, are left unanswered. Why would people want to re-open this case when we all know it’s been closed decades ago? The murder story ended the day the war ended and the day we all knew that none of those who were killed, will ever be faced with their murderers again and that nothing could ever bring them back, The Daily Beast reports.

Why paying millions on trails and prosecution instead of making use of that money to teach children not to be like that and to help them recognize those bad guys and the bad influences and ideas of fascism?

The Nazi Archive, located in what used to be a women’s prison in Ludwigsburg, Germany contains stashes of records and files of crimes that would horrify even the strong hearted ones. Among them there is a document unfolding the story of soldier who preferred killing Russian prisoners by simply shooting them in the neck. And all these kind of files didn’t mean anything other than to glorify and worship Nazis for freeing the world of Jews and Slaves.

It seems ironic to think that these documents are now used against those who once wrote them with the pride and hope that their actions have created a better world for their nation.

Elie Wiesel and others seem yet to disagree with letting the accused die in peace. For them, each Jewish person killed represents an individual, just like every Nazi who killed, did it as an individual. There wasn’t a machine that killed them all, but individuals who carried their won identity, who lived their own lives in their own ways and this is the way they should be prosecuted.

It makes no difference if these people, now aged between 80 and 90 years old, will ever know what a prison cell looks like, as long as they receive at least a fraction of the punishment they deserve.

Ian Harvey

Ian Harvey is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE