Nazi Crime
Nazi crime or Hitlerite crime (Polish: Zbrodnia nazistowska or zbrodnia hitlerowska) is a legal concept used in some legal systems (for example in Polish law).
In the Polish legal system a Nazi crime is an action carried out by, inspired by or tolerated by public functionaries of the Third Reich (1933-1945) that also classifies as a crime against humanity (in particular, genocide) or other persecutions of people due to their belonging to a particular national, political, social, ethnic or religious group.
Physical Crimes edit
First, crimes during the Holocaust included physical crimes. In the Ukraine, an estimated 400,000 Jewish people were killed in concentration camps during the Holocaust. On average per day about 1,864 Jewish people died [1]. Most of the people that were murdered during the Holocaust never had proper burials [2]. In Ukraine they have over 750 mass graves where Jewish people marched into mass pits and were shot in the back; this would happen in groups of five or more. 5,000 Jews marched from Ukraine into these pits [3]. To save bullets children would be thrown into pits of fire and be burned alive.
Physical crimes also included “criminal assault on innocent and helpless victims” [4]. Nazi Crimes that were committed against people included being “beaten, drowned, whipped, shot, ran over, strangled, gassed, and hung [5]. These crimes also included sexual crimes or crimes that “were directed at women’s genitalia” [6]. Another ‘popular’ way the Nazis murdered people was to have them euthanized [7]. The Nazi crimes also included genocide [8].
Property Crimes edit
Second, the Nazis permitted different crimes included property crimes and crimes against classes of people. Nazis took away all of a Jew’s possessions and their incomes to make it harder for the Jewish people to live elsewhere before the strike of the Holocaust [9]. The victims of the Holocaust were described by the Nazis by saying the victims were “criminals who endangered public safety” [10]. The central Nazi camp for Jews between 1940 and 1945 was Auschwitz; where “at least ten thousand POWs were murdered” [11]. Gypsies, as well as Jews and gays were murdered in this concentration camp [12]. “Most of those who entered the Nazi camp system, whether gay, Jewish, Roma, or Sinti, did not survive” [13].
Third, there were some individuals who excelled at carrying out Nazi crimes. Oswald Kaduk was famous for his extermination practices because of the torture he committed on prisoners in Auschwitz. One of the torture techniques he used was to “put a cane over a prisoner’s neck and stood on it until the prisoner died.” He also would randomly shoot into a group of prisoners “killing whoever got in the way” [14]. Oswald Kaduk represented sadism and had a yearning for murder [15]. Many people in order to keep their families alive would do what the Nazi soldiers said to do. One Jewish man became a policeman in the ghetto and par took in the destroying the ghetto where he lived because he was told his wife and daughter would live. His wife and daughter later died because they were forced into a gas chamber [16].
Nazi Hearing edit
The Nazi who committed the crimes were later charged during many different hearings [17]. Important changes were made to the Control Council Law No. 10 by the Allies because “German jurists exerted pressure on the Allies to prevent national or district courts from using Control Council Law No. 10 [18]” The changes allowed the Allies to deal with “war crimes, conspiracy to commit war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity” [19].
German law provided for crimes resulting in death other than murder. “Most mass killings in the Political Department at Auschwitz followed some sort of regulated procedure. The murder and torture of children would get a murder conviction due to ‘malicious intent’” [20]. For a case to be a ‘murder case’ the only criteria that needed to be present was “thirst for blood, base motives, maliciousness, and brutality which come into question in connection with the prosecuting of Nazi war crimes” [21]. Along with the criteria “lust for killing and sadism” were also needed for prosecuting. To charge a person who was assumed as the person responsible for the murder, a common question the courts asked first was “was the maltreatment of prisoners and excessive cruelty leading to death?” if not “the punishment of these people would not have a high priority” for the case to be perused publicly [22].
“Defendants who had acted on their own initiative or shown base motives or excessive cruelty were murderers: many who had not exhibited such behavior (or against whom sufficient evidence of such behavior was lacking) were judged guilty of manslaughter according to the German Penal Code. Many people who murdered a Jew or Gypsy’s during the Holocaust were charged with “merely aiding and abetting murder” [23].
Summary edit
In summary, “Nazi Crimes” included physical crimes to a person such as beating, gassing and being drowned [24]. Also there were property crimes of people losing property and income [25]. Nazi crimes also were aimed at specific types of people i.e., “gay, Jewish, Roma, or Sinti” [26]. Nazi crimes were carried out by individuals, an example of whom was Oswald Kaduk,a person who inflicted experiments on the prisoners [27].
Notes edit
- ^ Walt
- ^ Walt
- ^ Walt
- ^ Margalit, 227
- ^ Wittmann, 530
- ^ Wittmann, 531
- ^ Breitman, 12
- ^ Wittmann, 506
- ^ Breitman, 11
- ^ Margalit, 222
- ^ Whittmann, 524
- ^ Margalit, 223
- ^ Bluntinger, 274
- ^ Wittmann, 530
- ^ Wittmann, 531
- ^ Blutinger, 275
- ^ Breitman, 13
- ^ Whittmann, 508
- ^ Whittmann, 508
- ^ Whittmann, 525
- ^ Whittmann, 511
- ^ Wittmann, 512
- ^ Breitman, 13
- ^ Wittmann, 530
- ^ Breitman, 11
- ^ Bluntinger, 274
- ^ Wittmann, 530
References edit
Blutinger, Jeffrey C. "Bearing Witness: Teaching the Holocaust from a Victim-Centered Perspective." History Teacher 42.3 (2009): 269-279. History Reference Center. Web. 13 Oct. 2012
Breitman, Richard. “Lasting Effects of the Holocaust.” History: Reviews of New Books 38.1 (2010): 1114. History Reference Center. Web. 10 Oct. 2012.
Margalit, Gilad. "The Representation of the Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies in German Discourse after 1945." German History 17.2 (1999): 221-240. History Reference Center. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.
Walt, Vinenne.” Genocide’s Ghosts.”Time.com. Time Inc, 16 Jan.2008. Web. 10 Oct. 2012
Wittmann, Rebecca Elizabeth. “Indicting Auschwitz? The Paradox of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial.” German History 21.4 (203): 505. History Reference Center. Web. 10 Oct. 2012