The Neo Nazi trial ,postponed ,begins on 14 May,2013.
Zschäpe, 38, dubbed the “Nazi bride” in the German media, is believed to be the sole surviving member of theNational Socialist Undergroundterrorist group that claimed responsibility in 2011 for murdering nine immigrants, eight of them of Turkish descent and one Greek man, as well as a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007.
Zschäpe, 38, the “Nazi bride”
The other two members, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, committed suicide in November 2011 after a botched bank robbery. Only after that did their involvement in the killings come to light.
Shortly after the trial started, Zschäpe’s lawyers filed a motion claiming that judge Manfred Götzl was unfit to run proceedings because the weapons searches placed them under suspicion of “being involved in forbidden and criminal actions.”
The judge then ordered the adjournment to consider their motion, along with another motion brought by a co-defendant.
The case has alarmed the country’s 3 million people of Turkish descent and has been a huge embarrassment to Germany because of the catalogue of errors made by the police and security authorities that exposed them to accusations of institutional racism and of having been blind to the threat of right-wing extremism.
Victims of Neo Nazi attacks.
Last month, Germany apologized for those errors at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, describing the murders as “without a doubt one of the worst human rights violations in Germany in the last decade.”
The accused remained silent but defiant.
Authorities Botched Investigation,
rosecutors investigating German neo-Nazi Beate Zschäpe, arrested last November for alleged membership of a terror cell that killed nine mostly Turkish immigrants and a policewoman, may extend their charges against her to include abetment to murder, SPIEGEL has learned.
Zschäpe was initially accused of founding and being a member of a terrorist group in addition to being charged with first-degree arson. Those charges still apply, but the Federal Prosecutor‘s Office will likely also charge the 37-year-old with complicity in the 10 murders and in 14 bank robberies, as well as with attempted murder for setting on fire the apartment in Zwickau where she and the two other members of the terrorist trio, which called itself theNational Socialist Underground, had lived.
Adolf Hitler salutes troops of the Condor Legion who fought alongside Spanish Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, during a rally upon their return to Germany, 1939.Nazi Rally 1937Crowds Cheering HitlerAdolf Hitler at the swearing-in of SS standard bearers at the Reich Party Congress, NurembergReich Party Congress, Nuremburg, Germany, 1938League of German Girls dancing during the 1938 Reich Party Congress, Nuremberg, GermanyBerlin illuminated at midnight in honor of Hitler’s 50th birthday, April 1939Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels (in box) at Charlottenburg Theatre, Berlin, 1939Adolf Hitler makes keynote address at Reichstag session, Kroll Opera House, Berlin, 1939Reich Party Congress, Nuremberg, Germany, 1938.
It is difficult to believe, after viewing this, that none of the Germans had anything to do with Hitler and they were ‘just following orders!’
I am posting some accounts of the Concentration Camps run by The Nazis during The Second Word War to remind people of the cruelty Man is capable of and the need to guard against such evil.
Oral Depositions.
A war crimes investigation photo of the disfigured leg of a survivor from Ravensbrueck, Polish political prisoner Helena Hegier (Rafalska), who was subjected to medical experiments in 1942. This photograph was entered as evidence for the prosecution at the Medical Trial in Nuremberg. The disfiguring scars resulted from incisions made by medical personnel that were purposely infected with bacteria, dirt, and slivers of glass. — DIZ Muenchen GMBH, Sueddeutscher Verlag Bilderdiens
During World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands ofconcentration camp prisoners without their consent.
Unethical medical experimentation carried out during the Third Reich may be divided into three categories. The first category consists of experiments aimed at facilitating the survival of Axis military personnel. In Dachau, physicians from the German air force and from the German Experimental Institution for Aviation conducted high-altitude experiments, using a low-pressure chamber, to determine the maximum altitude from which crews of damaged aircraft could parachute to safety. Scientists there carried out so-called freezing experiments using prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia. They also used prisoners to test various methods of making seawater potable.
The second category of experimentation aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel encountered in the field. At the German concentration camps of Sachsenhausen,Dachau, Natzweiler, Buchenwald, andNeuengamme, scientists tested immunization compounds and sera for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases, including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis.
“I, of course, have, um, unfortunately a lot of memories of, um, of the hospital and, um, the doctor’s office. It, I seem to recall spending a great deal of time, um, there. And also being in the hospital and being very sick. And, um, I know one time, when I went to the doctor’s office, that they took blood from me and, it was extremely painful because it was from the left side of my neck. That’s a strange thing to remember. I also remember having blood taken out of my finger, but that wasn’t quite so bad. And I also remember having to sit, um, very still for long periods to be measured and, or weighed, or in X rays. I rem…I remember X rays, X rays. Um…and injections. I remember injections. And then I’d be sick. Because then I, I’d be in this hospital. And I remember having a high fever, because I know they were taking my temperature, somebody was. Um, I really got to hate doctors. I, I got to be afraid. I used, I was terribly scared of doctors, I still am. They’re a nightmare. Hospitals are out of the question and illness is unacceptable.”
Irene and her twin brother Rene were born Renate and Rene Guttmann. The family moved to Prague shortly after the twins’ birth, where they were living when the Germans occupied Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939. A few months later, uniformed Germans arrested their father. Decades later, Irene and Rene learned that he was killed at the Auschwitz camp in December 1941. Irene, Rene, and their mother were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, and later to the Auschwitz camp. At Auschwitz, the twins were separated and subjected to medical experiments. Irene and Rene remained separated for some time after their liberation from Auschwitz. The group Rescue Children brought Irene to the United States in 1947, where she was reunited with Rene in 1950.
— US Holocaust Memorial Museum – Collections
During World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands ofconcentration camp prisoners without their consent.
Unethical medical experimentation carried out during the Third Reich may be divided into three categories. The first category consists of experiments aimed at facilitating the survival of Axis military personnel. In Dachau, physicians from the German air force and from the German Experimental Institution for Aviation conducted high-altitude experiments, using a low-pressure chamber, to determine the maximum altitude from which crews of damaged aircraft could parachute to safety. Scientists there carried out so-called freezing experiments using prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia. They also used prisoners to test various methods of making seawater potable.
The second category of experimentation aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel encountered in the field. At the German concentration camps of Sachsenhausen,Dachau, Natzweiler, Buchenwald, andNeuengamme, scientists tested immunization compounds and sera for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases, including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis. The Ravensbrueckcamp was the site of bone-grafting experiments and experiments to test the efficacy of newly developed sulfa (sulfanilamide) drugs. At Natzweiler and Sachsenhausen, prisoners were subjected to phosgene and mustard gas in order to test possible antidotes.
The third category of medical experimentation sought to advance the racial and ideological tenets of the Nazi worldview. The most infamous were the experiments of Josef Mengele atAuschwitz. Mengele conducted medical experiments on twins. He also directed serological experiments on Roma (Gypsies), as did Werner Fischer at Sachsenhausen, in order to determine how different “races” withstood various contagious diseases. The research of August Hirt at Strasbourg University also intended to establish “Jewish racial inferiority.”
Other gruesome experiments meant to further Nazi racial goals were a series of sterilization experiments, undertaken primarily at Auschwitz and Ravensbrueck. There, scientists tested a number of methods in their effort to develop an efficient and inexpensive procedure for the mass sterilization of Jews, Roma, and other groups Nazi leaders considered to be racially or genetically undesirable.
Any criticism of Israel whenever it indulges in activities which may be termed as ‘terrorist’, is attacked with the inundation that it is ‘Anti Semitic’
The investigative reporter who did that article is immediately snubbed as Anti Semitic .
DPA German journalist Jakob Augstein.
“Given the rising trends of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel resentments in German society, it’s probably helpful to focus on the effects of this new quality and tone of Israel criticism in the public discourse. Even Günter Grass may wholeheartedly believe it’s his life’s last mission to communicate Israel’s danger to the world out of love and friendship for the Jewish people and their state. The effect of this trend on media consumers, however, is more important than the motives of more or less relevant individual authors.“
“Last June’s cover story in SPIEGEL on the German-Israeli submarine deal is an example: ‘Should Germany, the country of the perpetrators, be allowed to assist Israel, the land of the victims, in the development of a nuclear weapons arsenal capable of extinguishing hundreds of thousands of human lives?’ … ‘Should Germany, as its historic obligation stemming from the crimes of the Nazis, assume a responsibility that has become ‘part of Germany’s reason of state?” The subtext is clear: 1. Israel plans to wipe out the Iranian people and thus is equal to the Third Reich. 2. Germany is pressured into this because of the Holocaust.”
“The systematic and subtle manipulation of this sort in reports about Israel — whether skillfully staged or unintentional, to a large extent explains why, according to a study on anti-Semitism in German society recently commissioned by the Bundestag (the federal parliament), almost 40 percent of Germans claim that ‘Jews try to take an advantage out of the Third Reich History;’ why 44 percent say they ‘understand that one dislikes Jews, when looking at Israel’s policies.’”
The point in italics is 100 % true.
Israel seems to believe that their sufferings entitle them to indulge in the crimes they have accused of others!
To avenge the sufferings, as it were, the Israelis have a made People with out motherland(Palestinians) , who(Arabs) were the people throughout the History of the persecution of the Jews were the most tolerant in comparison.
The common belief that the Jews are/were Lily white is erroneous.
If they were why is it they were singled out by nearly all the cultures?
Referring to Mythologies might soothe their conscience.
Gaza is a place out of the end of times,” Augstein writes in one of the lines quoted by the Wiesenthal Center. “1.7 million people live there on 360 square kilometers. Israel incubates its own opponents there.” Other lines chosen to illustrate the journalist’s alleged anti-Semitism state that US presidents “must secure the support of Jewish lobby groups” and that “the Netanyahu government keeps the world on a leash with an ever-swelling war chant.” Augstein writes that “Jews also have their fundamentalists, the ultra-orthodox Hareidim,” who are “cut from the same cloth as their Islamic fundamentalist opponents.” And he calls “the US Republicans and the Israeli government” insane and unscrupulous.
Perhaps predictably, the inclusion of Augstein, son of SPIEGEL’s founding editor in chief Rudolf Augstein, on the list has launched yet another national debate in Germany about the contours of anti-Semitism and how far one can go when criticizing Israel before being labelled a racist.Germany’s history, after all, has long informed the country’s deep official support of Israel, but its center-left majority displays an almost reflexive affinity for the Palestinians.(Der Spiegel)
Throughout the war, almost all Allied nations carried out air raids on non-military, civilian targets. A tactic used by both sides primarily to destroy morale – most notably as part of Nazi Blitzkrieg – most air raids on civilian populations were little more then revenge attacks. During the last years of the war it started to posses a tactical purpose, when the Germans began to fortify and hold up within cities as they fell back. This does not forgive the indiscriminate murder of civilians earlier in the war, however.Having received intelligence that a fleet of German U-Boats armed with V-1 Flying Bombs were heading towards Eastern coast of America, the U.S. and Canada sent out a large anti-submarine task force comprised of some 42 destroyers and four aircraft carriers to neutralise the threat. Over the course of a month, the fleet sank five German submarines and captured two others, while suffering the loss of one destroyer. But this entry concerns the treatment of five crew-members from the U-546, who were brutally interrogated in order to quickly extract information concerning a possible missile attack on the eastern coast. One officer who was tortured committed suicide whilst in custody. Were the American torture methods justified? You decide – but bear in mind that the fears later turned out to be unfounded.Housing the London Cage, Kensington Palace Gardens in London witnessed its fair share of war crimes during the Second World War. The Cage was essentially a set of cells and rooms used to hold and interrogate captured members of the Schutzstaffel and Gestapo. Everything from starvation and sleep deprivation to brutal beatings was practiced within its walls. to extract information and, in some cases, confessions. Though undeniably a war crime, no participants were ever prosecuted. The British government, for the most part, turned a blind eye to the abuse – despite multiple complaints from various parties – arguing that it was justifiable given the situation.
Kocevski Rog Massacre Murder of POWs and Non-Combatants Committed during May of 1945, the Kocevski Rog Massacre describes the systematic murder of members of the repatriated Slovene Home Guard and their families by Allied Yugoslaw Partisans. During this period, up to 12,000 people were thrown into pits, caves and crevices which were subsequently sealed using explosives. No one ever faced prosecution for this atrocity.Dachau Massacre Murder of POWs As American soldiers approached Dachau concentration camp, they bore witness to thousands of highly decomposed bodies sitting in open top freight carriages. Because of this, it can hardly come as a surprise when American soldiers summarily executed captured – and unarmed – SS guards, purely out of rage. Prisoners, too, were said to have beaten as many as 50 guards to death in retaliation for their treatment. Unfortunately, the guards who operated the camp and carried out most of the atrocities for the majority of the war had fled many days beforehand, and were replaced with members of the Waffen-SS, whose sole purpose was to surrender the camp to the Allied force without resistance. Thus, the men were unjustly executed for crimes they did not commit. No one was ever court-martialed for the massacre.
Rheinwiesenlager Death-by-Neglect of POWs. The Prisoners of War Temporary Enclosures, or Rheinwiesenlager, were a collection of 19 U.S.-built prisoner of war camps constructed to hold German POWs during the Allied occupation of Germany. At the program’s height, the camps held up to two million prisoners, although the precise number of individuals imprisoned is unknown due to poor record keeping. Due to the sheer size of these camps, the Allies struggled to provide enough supplies for all the prisoners, which resulted in thousands of deaths. Typical estimates put the number of deaths from starvation, exposure and dehydration at up to 10,000. This figure has been heavily debated, however, with some researchers placing the death toll in the hundreds of thousands. Regardless, these deaths would have been classed as a war crime under the 1929 Geneva Convention if it wasn’t for the fact that Eisenhower ordered the prisoners to be classed as Disarmed Enemy Forces, in order to circumvent the treaty.Operation Overlord Massacres Murder of POWs. Once the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy and began to capture large swathes of occupied land, they had a problem: what to do with the thousands of captured POWs? Instead of shipping them off to camps, many were simply executed where they stood to save time and resources which were much needed on the western front. For many of the dead, their only crime was being German. There is much worse, however. Although the veracity of the testaments is highly debated amongst historians, there were reports of the Allies using captured German soldiers as human shields – forcing them to walk through minefields to clear the way for advancing allied forces, and marching them headfirst into German encampments to avoid defensive gunfire. The exact number of soldiers executed or killed after surrender is unknown, as the fatalities for the most part resemble normal war-time deaths.
Nuclear Weapons Murder of Non-Combatants Though born out of desperation and perhaps necessity, the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is, arguably, a war crime. It is claimed that such drastic measures prevented the need for a land invasion of Japan, and the potential deaths of millions of individuals. But this ignores the fact that the majority of deaths arising from an invasion would have been military combatants, rather then civilians. The Geneva Convention (and in particular the 1977 amendment: Protocol I) explicitly declares that the indiscriminate targeting of non-combatants, such as civilians, is a war crime. Given that the use of nuclear weapons on civilians populations today would be considered a war crime, as well as a crime against humanity, I can see no reason why one would not consider the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a war crime.Prussian Rape Mass Rape. After the fall of Berlin, Germany was in ruins. Occupied by millions of foreign troops, none of whom had complete control over any given entity, Germany quickly descended into anarchic lawlessness. It is believed that the Soviet Army alone was responsible for the rape of up to two million women and children, as well as the subsequent death of 240,000. Claimed to be the largest mass rape in history, many unfortunate victims were assaulted up to a hundred times, and often could not resist in the face of overwhelming Soviet numbers. For the most part, these atrocities were driven by the lust for revenge, although in many cases it was simply because the Soviets saw themselves as conquers, not liberators. Stalin himself was reputed to have said that people should be understanding, “if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometres through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle.” It wasn’t just the Soviets who were accused of this crime, however: it is believed that the US was responsible for over 11,000 rapes, while the French have been accused of over 1,500. This is clearly not on the same scale as the Soviets – but it doesn’t make it any less terrible.
Chinese War Crimes Murder of POWs and Non-combatants, Torture, Looting, Rape, Mutilation. It’s widely accepted that the Second Sino-Japanese war was perhaps one of the most brutal conflicts ever to have occurred in human history. With a history of intense rivalry and conflict, little mercy was shown from either belligerent during this eight year long war. Although the Japanese were guilty of crimes that bordered on genocide, the Chinese, too, are reputed to have committed their fair share of war crimes. Unfortunately, due to the volatile and vicious nature of the war, there was practically zero press on the ground to provide concrete evidence of atrocities (the photograph above, taken by Tom Simmen, is one of the few to have surfaced). Survivors, however, reported mass looting and pillaging, summary execution, and torture of POWs and Chinese civilians believed to have been collaborating with Imperial Japan – as well as mass rape within occupied settlements – to name but a few.
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