Is it unethical to summarily execute a war-criminal?

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BornInMarch

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In the end of WWII, Allied and Soviet armies rushed to liberate the Concentration Camps and the Death Camps in Central Europe.

Upon seeing the horrors of the holocaust -the stacked piles of corpses, the nearly-dead prisoners, the crematorium ovens- many soldiers were overwhelmed by it all. Some of them reacted by summarily executing Death Camp Guards.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_liberation_reprisals

Upon learning of this, Patton refused to punish said soldiers.

Do you think it was right, justifiable, or ethical to execute the Death Camp Guards without trials? This isn’t a question of legality, it is a question of ethicacy.

Personally, I believe it WAS justified on the basis that many Death Camp Guards got light sentences or no punishment at all for their mass murders. But what do you think?
 
It is wrong to execute without due-process. However obvious the connection between someone and hideous wrongdoing, ending their being is the worst thing that can be done to them, and the most irreversible, and deserves the full application of the legal system.

That said, it is certainly understandable, if not excusable, what was done by some soldiers in the “fog of war.”

ICXC NIKA
 
It is not justified. The soldiers did not have the authority to take the lives of the guards. They should be given proper trials and their sentences determined by the appropriate state authority, even if their sentences would have been light.
 
If the guards were actively engaging in deadly (to someone else) criminal activity, it could be justified to retaliate against such a thing…

Of course, context is key, and in this case I don’t think it is. The value of the human being must be held up.
 
I think it was unethical, yes, but I can also understand Patton not punishing the soldiers for doing this.

During WWII there was also a directive put out by the U.S. Army that any enemy solider found to be operating behind friendly lines using fake U.S. or Allied uniforms was to be summarily shot. I actually think that this would be a bit more of a moral gray area than the above example due to the fact that they were technically combatants and spies and would be given prior warning of the consequences.
 
Evil must be punished, no compromises. Those guards were complicit in some the greatest crimes ever. Death was the appropriate punishment.
 
starshiptrooper said:
Evil must be punished, no compromises. Those guards were complicit in some the greatest crimes ever. Death was the appropriate punishment.
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The Pope is against the Death Penalty, no exceptions.

Thou shalt not kill is one of the 10 commandments

thus, saying “Death was the appropriate punishment” is ironic and completely in opposition to the above statements.
 
Strydersroom said:
The Pope is against the Death Penalty, no exceptions.

Thou shalt not kill is one of the 10 commandments

thus, saying “Death was the appropriate punishment” is ironic and completely in opposition to the above statements.
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The Church itself allows the Death Penalty in some circumstances.
 
BornInMarch said:
The Church itself allows the Death Penalty in some circumstances.
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Not according to the pope. And who would decide those circumstances, which human? It is a complete hypocrisy in every way to consider oneself pro life but allowing the death penalty in any circumstance, in my opinion.
 
Strydersroom said:
The Pope is against the Death Penalty, no exceptions.
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The Pope is entitled to his opinion as am I.
Thou shalt not kill is one of the 10 commandments
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thus, saying “Death was the appropriate punishment” is ironic and completely in opposition to the above statements.
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That command appears in Exodus. In the very next chapter, God mandates the death penalty for murder. Now we have 2 options.
  1. God contradicts Himself.
  2. You interpreted the verse incorrectly.
Take your pick. :cool:
 
Strydersroom said:
Not according to the pope. And who would decide those circumstances, which human? It is a complete hypocrisy in every way to consider oneself pro life but allowing the death penalty in any circumstance, in my opinion.
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The Pope isn’t The Church.

There are lots of instances where the Pope says something, and a Church Spokesperson has to tell the public “What his Holiness *really *meant was …”

Here’s the Catechism:

“2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor”

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm

And it is not hypocrisy to be anti-abortion and pro-execution: the people killed in abortions are innocent 100% of the time, and the people killed in executions are guilty 96% of the time (about 4% have been exonerated via DNA evidence).

Killing the innocent is always heinous, but killing the guilty clearly isn’t.

Also from the Catechism:

“2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.”

Most legitimate states grant citizens the right to kill dangerous individuals when the situation arises, and in this case the US Soldiers who executed Dachau’s Guards were given the authority to carry it out after the fact (Patton refused to punish them). They were defending the community, as killing those Nazis ensured they couldn’t go on to kill others in the future.
 
Even if death was the “appropriate” (somewhat a useless word) punishment, it must be meted by a competent authority. Merely being part of a conquering army does not a competent authority make.

ICXC NIKA
 
My father was involved in the liberation of the Ohrdruf camp on April 4, 1945. He didn’t talk about it, except to say words to the effect of “That was when you saw GIs really start to hate the Germans.” I have a feeling that he probably witnessed summary executions.

Executions of this kind (i.e., outside the “due process of law,” whatever that might have entailed in Ohrdruf) are certainly illegal, both under American law and under the Geneva Conventions, which establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment in war (a strange concept if ever there was one). However, under those circumstances I, like Gen. Patton, will not stand in judgment of anyone who was involved.
 
GEddie said:
Even if death was the “appropriate” (somewhat a useless word) punishment, it must be meted by a competent authority. Merely being part of a conquering army does not a competent authority make.

ICXC NIKA
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The thing about “authority” is that it’s not rigid or eternal. Most governments began because someone said “I’m the strongest person here so you all have to do what I say!”.

In some instances there is no competent authority, and the only alternative to taking matters into ones own hand would be to let a mass-murderer go free to potentially kill others. In Mexico, the Cartels are so powerful that the government is unable to root them out even when using it’s entire military! So some civilians, tired of children watching Cartel Thugs publicly decapitate their children, have taken up arms to fight the Cartels themselves.

In other instances, the authority is arguably incompetent. After WWII, many Nazis who mass-murdered their way through the 1940s were simply not tried or were given slaps on the wrist. This not only was a slap in the face to the victims of the Holocaust, but also a message to all future dictators that their actions will be tolerated (plus those Nazis are free to murder again if they so wish). This prompted Nazi-Hunters and liberating allies to hunt down and kill the Nazis.

“You should just let the dangerous murderer go scot-free!” will never be a good enough answer as far as I am concerned.
 
BornInMarch said:
After WWII, many Nazis who mass-murdered their way through the 1940s were simply not tried or were given slaps on the wrist. This not only was a slap in the face to the victims of the Holocaust, but also a message to all future dictators that their actions will be tolerated (plus those Nazis are free to murder again if they so wish).
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:confused: Um, Armenian genocide, Lenin and Stalin in Russia, King Leopold in the Congo, the Herero and Namaqua genocide, ad nauseam, and the Holocaust was THE message to all future dictators etc.?
 
StudentMI said:
:confused: Um, Armenian genocide, Lenin and Stalin in Russia, King Leopold in the Congo, the Herero and Namaqua genocide, ad nauseam, and the Holocaust was THE message to all future dictators etc.?
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We cannot execute them all, but that does not mean we should let them all get away.
 
It’s all well to be armchair critics in front of a computer screen. It would be another thing entirely to be a soldier, shot at for months by the Germans, to be confronted by the concentration camps, and the guards who kept sadistic order there.

I think there were many, many enemy combatants shot by allied troops during World War II, after they’d surrendered.

Australia had one of the highest World War I fatality rates per nation (we only had about 5 million people back then), and the ANZACS gained a reputation for valour.

I remember however my father saying Australian troops in France had a reputation for not bringing back prisoners. He said the British intelligence were always complaining the Australians didn’t bring enough prisoners back. Not because they were claiming the moral high ground, but because they wanted to interrogate them.

And he heard that from his father, who fought in France, and was gassed for his trouble. Apparently it was so deadly none of them thought they would be going home agan.

Its immoral, but in the heat of battle, and confronted by scenes like the concentration camps, men will do things they would never have countenanced in normal life.
 
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