HansMustermann
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2009
- Messages
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1. TBH, I'd be more worried if a country started retroactively revoking citizenships by whatever looks good at the moment. After all, since we're already talking SS and the Nazis, the Nuremberg laws are the best example of what can go wrong with taking citizenship as something that can be revoked later.
Besides, I always was a firm believer in the idea that all obligations go both ways. Citizenship comes with a series of obligations, including that if push comes to shove you can be called to go get killed or crippled for your country. But in exchange you get certain rights and guarantees from that country. If those can be revoked at any time, by whatever the current rationale may be, then essentially you don't have rights, you have some potentially empty promises.
Conceptually a state is not unlike the medieval communes. I.e., cities whose citizens swore to stand together and defend each other against attacks from the outside, including from nobles with delusions of grandeur, but really anything else. Such a situation is only worth anything if it's really unconditional. If we can decide post-facto that, nah, in Karl's case we're not coming to his defense 'cause most of us don't even like him, then essentially the whole arrangement is one in which most likely we're all shafted in the long run.
Don't get me wrong, _if_ someone is guilty of war crimes then they should pay for it. If there is evidence against them, then they should be brought to trial for it. But revoking someone's citizenship just because we don't like who gave it to them, seems to me like not the way to go.
2. Also, it seems to me like "membership in a criminal organization" may be a bit pushing it. Is there evidence that he personally committed any crime?
Just having been a member of the SS doesn't actually mean much. Probably most of the SS rank and file basically served as soldiers on both fronts. It's not the same thing as joining Don Guido The Kneecapper to collect protection money, or like joining directly as some concentration camp guard, or anything of the sort. While it was a screwed up paramilitary organization, and the upper echelon were really screwed up in the head, it doesn't mean that every recruit was rounding up Jews for fun. Whole divisions were really just the only kind of "army" that could recruit non-citizens from the occupied zones, and used as essentially army divisions.
Since the Nuremberg trials are mentioned, even there "membership in a criminal organization" was only used for those also accused of other actual crimes. E.g., someone may have been tried for experimenting on prisoners _and_ being a member on the SS, but AFAIK nobody was tried for the latter alone. In effect, it really was an aggravating circumstance, rather than a hanging offense by itself.
Basically if there is evidence that these guys personally actually committed any war crimes, by all means let's put them on trial already. But doing some act of spite just because someone was a member of the SS some 65 years ago... I would hope we're past that stage already.
Of course, that's just a personal opinion, so don't take it as legal advice or anything.
Besides, I always was a firm believer in the idea that all obligations go both ways. Citizenship comes with a series of obligations, including that if push comes to shove you can be called to go get killed or crippled for your country. But in exchange you get certain rights and guarantees from that country. If those can be revoked at any time, by whatever the current rationale may be, then essentially you don't have rights, you have some potentially empty promises.
Conceptually a state is not unlike the medieval communes. I.e., cities whose citizens swore to stand together and defend each other against attacks from the outside, including from nobles with delusions of grandeur, but really anything else. Such a situation is only worth anything if it's really unconditional. If we can decide post-facto that, nah, in Karl's case we're not coming to his defense 'cause most of us don't even like him, then essentially the whole arrangement is one in which most likely we're all shafted in the long run.
Don't get me wrong, _if_ someone is guilty of war crimes then they should pay for it. If there is evidence against them, then they should be brought to trial for it. But revoking someone's citizenship just because we don't like who gave it to them, seems to me like not the way to go.
2. Also, it seems to me like "membership in a criminal organization" may be a bit pushing it. Is there evidence that he personally committed any crime?
Just having been a member of the SS doesn't actually mean much. Probably most of the SS rank and file basically served as soldiers on both fronts. It's not the same thing as joining Don Guido The Kneecapper to collect protection money, or like joining directly as some concentration camp guard, or anything of the sort. While it was a screwed up paramilitary organization, and the upper echelon were really screwed up in the head, it doesn't mean that every recruit was rounding up Jews for fun. Whole divisions were really just the only kind of "army" that could recruit non-citizens from the occupied zones, and used as essentially army divisions.
Since the Nuremberg trials are mentioned, even there "membership in a criminal organization" was only used for those also accused of other actual crimes. E.g., someone may have been tried for experimenting on prisoners _and_ being a member on the SS, but AFAIK nobody was tried for the latter alone. In effect, it really was an aggravating circumstance, rather than a hanging offense by itself.
Basically if there is evidence that these guys personally actually committed any war crimes, by all means let's put them on trial already. But doing some act of spite just because someone was a member of the SS some 65 years ago... I would hope we're past that stage already.
Of course, that's just a personal opinion, so don't take it as legal advice or anything.
Holland never made any attempts of stripping these 20,000 volunteers of their Dutch citizenship for enlisting in a foreign army (as it had done with the volunteers in the Spanish civil war).