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Social impacts of world war 2
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Social impacts of world war 2
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Nazis Imagine an elderly man, sitting hunched in his chair, his face wrinkled and sad, while his sweet-faced wife sits behind him, surrounded by their children. This man has lived in Cleveland, Ohio most of his adult life, and he has worked hard, raised a family, and contributed to his community in various ways. In his youth, however, he committed multiple counts of murder, including the execution of human rights activists, under direct orders of his military supervisor. Is this man, now 90, worth the time and considerable money it has taken to find him and prosecute him? Should he be prosecuted in a foreign land, and sentenced to prison for the rest of his life for crimes he committed over 50 years ago? This is a complex issue to consider, yet the answer is clear: yes, absolutely, this man must be prosecuted, and so must others like him. …show more content…
We either should seek to prosecute each and every person that has committed such terrible crime, or we should not convict any at all. Nazi criminals committed some of the most hideous crimes in human history, and age and time do not soften their crimes. As Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi-hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said, “the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of those who participated in the Holocaust. Had these criminals been prosecuted decades ago, when they were far younger, the importance of the effort to bring them to justice would not have been questioned. They are just as guilty today as the day they committed their crime—and they do not deserve a prize for eluding justice for so long” (Source
I believe that the majority of the German people as a whole were guilty for the Holocaust. Ideally, during the Second World War (WWII) the huge majority of citizens in Germany as well as the overpowered European states took no risks. They were spectators, attempting to get going with their living the best they could. However, they failed protest against Nazi domination or endanger their welfare attempting to overcome their novel rulers by assisting the person in need. Nevertheless, after the end of WWII, many asserted not to have recognized the right nature of Nazi maltreatments as well as the Holocaust. Or they asserted that they were just being directed (Rensmann 170). This is
Unfortunately, only a few could be found, and put on trial. Others went on with their lives, enjoying what they had deprived so many others of. Some even continued their profession of being family doctors all around Germany, and many still have the same Anti-Semitic views they had before when they were professional killers. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Henson, Cary “Medical ethics and nazi legacy” Jonathan Mann, Volume 8, Page 332-358 January 1, 1993 Gutman Israel, “Encyclopedia of the Holocaust” New York, Simon and Schuster, 1995 Microsoft Encarta 1998, Nuremberg Trials Snyder, Dr. Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich.
If you have been in a History class you have probably heard of an event that happened after World War Two called the Nuremberg Trials. These trials were conducted by the United States. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was appointed to lead the trials (Berenbaum). During these trials they charged with Crimes against the Peace, War crimes and Crimes against Humanity (Berenbaum). Many major Nazi leaders committed suicide before officials could hang them or before even being caught. The famous Doctor Goebbels killed his children then him and his wife committed suicide (Berenbaum). Only twelve out of the twenty-two who stood trial were hanged, twelve, while the rest just got prison time. Besides major Nazi officials, Physicians were put on trial, the people who were part of the mobile killing squads, Concentration camp officials, Judges and Executives who sold concentration camps Zyklon B. You can expect that they had many excuses, but m...
Some will say that the Jewish people cannot be held responsible for the crimes committed, because they are the victims. This is not the case, however; the Jewish people could have prevented a great deal of pain and suffering that they experienced. Elie wrote “And thus my elders concerned themselves with all manners of things - strategy, diplomacy,politics, and Zionism - but not with their own fate” (8). The Jewish people had heard of what the Nazis had done to the foreign Jews of Sighet, their town; a Jew had returned and told them, but they refused to listen; they ignored his warnings. Furthermore, the Jewish people had many chances at this time to escape; most notably emigration to another country. The Jewish people ignored the warnings they had received, and their chance to escape; for this reason, they bear a certain degree of responsibility for what
Synopsis – Hitler’s Willing Executioners is a work that may change our understanding of the Holocaust and of Germany during the Nazi period. Daniel Goldhagen has revisited a question that history has come to treat as settled, and his researches have led him to the inescapable conclusion that none of the established answers holds true. Drawing on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen presents new evidence to show that many beliefs about the killers are fallacies. They were not primarily SS men or Nazi Party members, but perfectly ordinary Germans from all walks of life, men who brutalized and murdered Jews both willingly and zealously. “They acted as they did because of a widespread, profound, unquestioned, and virulent anti-Semitism that led them to regard the Jews as a demonic enemy whose extermination was not only necessary but also just.”1 The author proposes to show that the phenomenon of German anti-Semitism was already deep-rooted and pervasive in German society before Hitler came to power, and that there was a widely shared view that the Jews ought to be eliminated in some way from German society. When Hitler chose mass extermination as the only final solution, he was easily able to enlist vast numbers of Germans to carry it out.
I realize the German people’s complicity. was required in order to enact an efficient system of genocide, but I cannot not. agree with the notion that the Nazis simply provided an outlet by which ordinary Germans were allowed to act on their evil desires. The vast majority of the German people were not willing executioners. However, these people were guilty for failing to protest Hitler’s murderous intentions and policies while there. was still time, and for this, they should be ashamed.
"While fighting for victory the German soldier will observe the rules for chivalrous warfare. Cruelties and senseless destruction are below his standard" , or so the commandment printed in every German Soldiers paybook would have us believe. Yet during the Second World War thousands of Jews were victims of war crimes committed by Nazi's, whose actions subverted the code of conduct they claimed to uphold and contravened legislation outlined in the Geneva Convention. It is this legislature that has paved the way for the Jewish community and political leaders to attempt to redress the Nazi's violation, by prosecuting individuals allegedly responsible. Convicting Nazi criminals is an implicit declaration by post-World War II society that the Nazi regime's extermination of over five million Jews won't go unnoticed.
“The Holocaust is the most investigated crime in history, as has often been pointed out in response to deniers. Eichmann may be that crime’s most investigated criminal” (Sells, Michael A.). Adolf Eichmann was one of the head Nazis. He had a lot of authority in enacting what Hitler had told the Nazis to do. He was just about as responsible as Hitler was for killing all of those innocent
Even if a suspected Nazi were to be found alive and tried, it would be difficult to come to a conviction. After seventy years, virtually all eyewitnesses have passed away, and most of the documentation destroyed or lost. Additionally, proving that an individual was guilty of a greater crime would be nearly impossible. It is safe to assume that those still alive would have been in their early 20’s during the war and had only been simple guards and low ranking officers, likely guilty of no greater crime. Considering all of these facts, it can be concluded that of the 4,000 names available, a fraction of them can be located, a fraction of those are still alive, and an even smaller fraction deserves to be tried. However, there are some who believe that those affiliated with the third reich in any way should continue to be hunted down. Those who desire most for the Nazi’s to face justice are the survivors of the holocaust. Martin Greenfield describes how he vowed to, “return and kill the [Nazi’s] wife”, after he escaped. This evidence of hatred, among the countless other cases, show the rightful feelings the
Commonsense justice and jury instructions are placed together to exemplify the informative and the response between the two; like the “analytic and beneficial”. Conjoining these two objectives, gives them “instructive potential for the law;” with the verdicts of not guilty, or hung juries, and jury nullification. These two objectives are “more likely the failure of jury instructions,” [slightly] than the “failings of jurors.”” (Norman J. Finkel, 2000).
Imagine if one were in the Holocaust, surrounded by hundreds of dead bodies. One could feel the ashes fall on top of their bare head, and they had no way to get out. This is what millions of Jews had to go through. The Holocaust was a horrible period in time in which 6 million jews were killed by Adolf Hitler and his troops. Hitler wanted revenge because of the Treaty of Versailles since he believed it punished his country and put them into a depression. After Hitler became the prime minister of Germany he got his revenge and was determined to eliminated all of the Jews. The three categories of people most responsible for the Holocaust would be Hitler, SS Officers, and world leaders
In a general sense, The Nuremberg Trials were established to end the horrible period of the Holocaust and attempt to provide even a hint of justice to the Jewish community. Beyond that, the trials were established on the idea of deterrence and retribution. Deterrence on a macro level, as were the Nuremberg Trials, allows a society to move on in peace because it constitutes punishing individuals for their actions and further preventing those individuals to commit any wrongful actions again. There is even further deterrence because it may prevent any other individuals from committing the same crimes. Deterrence also aids in providing an overall sense of safety to a community or in this case, to an entire nation. The retribution aspect comes from
The guilt of being apart of the Holocaust can have a great effect on the lives of the survivors.“I dunno…maybe everyone has to feel guilty. Everyone! Forever!”. By saying this people
There’s a lot to know about the holocaust. The biggest DISCREPENCY was what happened to the Nazi soldiers who were involved in the holocaust? “It was entitled the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, which tried the most important leaders of Nazi Germany,” ("Nuremberg Trials Project -- Introduction"). The Nuremberg Trials had a huge effect on the aftermath of World War II. This was the solution to punish the war criminals for what they’ve done. While it didn't get everyone tried, it got a very large portion of the higher ups of the Nazi regime. The Nuremberg Trials was a great precedent to be looked at and has created a bond between the Great Nations of the United States, the British, Soviet Union and the French.
But why do we still consider the Holocaust murder? The answer is that we hold the Nazis to a higher law. When the Nazis were tried in Nuremberg for their war crimes, they were not accused of "crimes against Germans" or even "crimes against Jews." Instead, they were charged with "crimes against humanity." The reason is because there was no legal basis to charge them otherwise. The massacre of Jews was legal under German law. So in order to punish the German leaders for clearly wrong behavior, the Allies had to evoke a higher law, a law of humanity. (1) The Holocaust was condemned as illegal, and therefore murder, because it violated this law.