Accused Nazi guard says he's no war criminal

[CatWoman]

An 85-year-old Gwinnett County man accused of guarding people in concentration camps in Nazi Germany said Monday that the U.S. should not deport him.

Paul Henss addressed a throng of reporters at his home near Lawrenceville just hours after the federal government announced plans to expel him from the United States. The government says Henss trained attack dogs to kill people who tried to escape from two concentration camps during World War II.



Kimberly Smith/Staff
Paul Henss, 85, is accused of war crimes during the time he served in the German army during World War II. U.S. authorities want to deport him.


"That was in 1942," the former SS member said on Monday afternoon. "I didn't know what they were doing with the people."

The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security allege that the German citizen guarded prisoners "at the notorious Dachau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany."

The government says Henss "entered the United States in 1955 after concealing his concentration camp service."

Henss spoke over the occasional wailing of his wife, Else, after the two returned home from lunch at the Golden Corral. They seemed confused by the media attention and took turns sitting in a nearby chair to regroup.

"I was 19 years old," Henss said. "Everybody was with the Hitler youth."

Henss said he trained German Shepherds and Rottweilers to attack those who tried to escape the concentration camps. But he said he didn't know what was going on at the camps and had joined the SS primarily to fight on the front lines in World War II.

"I am not a war criminal," he said.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2007/10/01/nazi_1002_web.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab

[Squatch]

1. Buh bye, asshole.

My uncle was in the Hitler Youth, as well. The only difference, he was forced into it. Otherwise, my family (which consisted of my Oma, mom, and uncle...since my Opa was already dead in Stalingrad) would have suffered even more.

Thankfully, the war ended pretty much as soon as he was conscripted.

[Kingshakabobo]

8. Are you saying your uncle is a better person because he was lucky enough to .....

......join up as the war was ending?

I'm pretty torn on this issue but I find it silly for you to jump in a thread to condemn this "asshole" and then, in the same breath, defend your uncle due to his "lucky" timing.

[Squatch]

9. Reread my post.

My uncle did not "join". He was conscripted, forcefully. There was nothing "lucky" about that.

The Nazis fucked my family over and I loathe people who willfuly joined their ranks.

[Kingshakabobo]

12. I guess I read... "Otherwise, my family would have suffered more"....

........as some sort of coercion that your uncle gave in to. I'm assuming there was a lot of that going on.

I don't know how you draw the line between people that were coerced and people that were forcefully conscripted. Sure, there were people that joined happily and with enthusiasm..... but I would guess a whole lot more joined because they knew they had to. I suppose there IS a line but I'm guessing it's not as clear cut, in most cases, as you are making it out to be.

Like I said, I'm torn on this...........but I lean toward deporting him. I've always been for "the long arm of the law" theory when it comes to nazis. ...But the wishy-washy liberal in me sees an 85 year old man, not long for this world, being dragged away from his family.......but then the other side of me considers the people he guarded and how THEY were dragged away from THEIR families.

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. In 50 years, how will the world see US guards at Guantanamo?

What about guards from Abu Graib and other "detention facilities" in Iraq, Afghanistan and soon Iran if the Junta gets its way?

"I was only wiring batteries," he told reporters. "I had no idea how they would be used."

[cali]

4. I deplore Guantanamo. I condemn Abu Gharib

in the strongest of terms, and the secret detention facilities, but they aren't death camps the way Buchenwald was, or the way camps in Pol Pot's Cambodia were.

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. A hundred years earlier, the US did worse with the Native Americans

During the first part of the 19th century, the United States government had an official policy of exterminating indigenous peoples. In the latter half of the 1800s, this changed to a policy of cultural genocide. The people responsible were not only not condemned as enemies of humanity, but remain American folk heroes.

What is acceptable today has tended to become tomorrow's hate crime. I want desperately to think that this trend in civilization will continue. Such a trend would have consequences, however, for those who might very well be guilty tomorrow of crimes against humanity for actions they comit today.

[cali]

11. No doubt, the U.S. Government's

policy of the indiginous peoples was terrible and on a par with the Nazi policies- though not as efficient.

But I have seen no evidence that Gitmo or Abu Gharib are facilities dedicated to the extermination of any group. Should we find out differently, than those soldiers involved, would indeed be war criminals.

[CatWoman]

5. you know, that's a very good question.

how "profound" :)

[truebrit71]

3. If he was just a guard then he isn't a war criminal....

If he took part in the atrocities visited upon those in his charge then he IS a war criminal...if he trained dogs then he isn't...

Flame away...

[cali]

6. I won't flame,

though I find his protestation that he didn't know what was going on in the camps he worked in, laughable. And I think it's unlikely that he simply trained dogs. He knew what the purpose of the training was for.

[CatWoman]

7. sounds a lot like some of the local townspeople who Ike made

visit the camps after they were liberated.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. Maybe the Vatican can make him a cardinal or something.

[11cents]

14. These were concentration camps in Germany, not extermination camps in Poland

And all Germans knew what was going on in the concentration camps, because the Nazis made no secret of it. They wanted Germans to know and to be terrified of them. Early in the regime they would sometimes incarcerate people for a while and then, if they survived, release them so that they would tell others what the camps were like.

And this guy was IN THE SSS (by his own admission). The fact that "everybody was in the Hitler Youth" is neither here nor there. Hitler Youth were not guarding the concentration camps.