The Extermination of Justice

Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the camp continues to insult human reason

Some readers may recall the trial of Oskar Gröning, the man dubbed the “Book-keeper of Auschwitz”, on 15 July 2015. He was sentenced to four years imprisonment for his complicity in the brutal murder of over 300,000 Jews between the years 1942 and 1944. He was 94 years old. Gröning’s age is testament to the failure of the justice system to punish contributors to the Holocaust over the seventy years since the liberation of Auschwitz; Gröning’s sentence, the perpetuation of this failure.

Oskar Gröning’s duty at Auschwitz was that of a twisted station attendant, whose moral judgement had been clouded not by the propaganda of the state or his father, but by his own individual sense of racial superiority. Between September 1942 and October 1944, Gröning collected and recorded the belongings of hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews who were doomed to be exterminated in the name of Hitler’s and the vast majority of ordinary German’s vision for a purified Aryan race.

Gröning himself has described his role as nothing but “a small cog in the gears”. When faced with the gargantuan scale of the Holocaust itself, it is hard for those ignorant of the historical facts not to accept Gröning’s statement as an acceptable excuse for his role in such a disgusting venture. Surely it is the Nazi war machine that swallowed young, impressionable men such as Gröning up, giving them only two choices in their service to the Reich: serve the Fuhrer in his efforts to rid Europe of the Jewish pestilence, or be destroyed alongside them as an enemy of the state. Nazi ideology was a religion and Hitler was its god. Obey him or die.

In light of such a toxic atmosphere, Gröning’s sentence of four years imprisonment for his part in such a venture appears draconian. Except in reality, it is not, because the aforementioned description of the Nazi machine lacks historical evidence.

Gröning is an anti-Semite of the highest degree, who saw the extermination of the Jewish race as, in his words, “the right thing to do”. So enthralled by Nazism was he that he decided to join the “dashing and zestful” SS. The historian Lawrence Rees reports that this decision was done in secret by Gröning who wished not to be dissuaded by his father, who according to Gröning expressed great disappointment upon discovering his sons involvement in what would become the vehicle that would burst through the fields of Eastern Europe, leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake.

The fact that Gröning’s father, himself a former member of the Stahlhelm paramilitary group which rejected the Treaty of Versailles and was therefore almost pre-disposed to support Hitler’s regime, viewed the SS in such low esteem as to feel disappointment at his son’s involvement, is revealing as to how the SS was viewed in a Germany won over by fascism.

In his compelling book about the role of ordinary Germans in the Holocaust, historian Daniel Jonah Goldhagen reveals that most Germans who engaged in systematic genocide were neither members of the Nazi party nor the SS. Indeed, a mere 3.6% of Police Battalion members, squadrons established with the express duty of finding and murdering Jews, were members of the SS. This is revealing in the sense that, if ordinary Germans, with no party affiliation and who can be considered as politically inactive, were willing to embark on a systematic extermination programme, those Germans such as Gröning, who actively engaged with Nazi institutions must have been even more virulent anti-Semites. Gröning increased his chances of becoming embroiled in the Holocaust and coming into contact with the brutalisation and murder of Jews by subscribing and engaging with perhaps the most virulently anti-Semitic institution in Nazi Germany.

Such historical evidence dispels immediately of Gröning’s defence that “if you can describe [being present at Auschwitz] as guilt, then I am guilty, but not voluntarily. Legally speaking, I am innocent”. The words “not voluntarily” are made redundant by the fact that Gröning, against parental advice, inspired by his senseless hatred of Jews, actively joined the SS and maximised his chances of contributing to the destruction of the Jews. This is not a man who is a “cog in the machine” as an ordinary man drafted into the army out of necessity for the German war effort may be described as. This is a man who actively sought involvement in the Nazi machine.

Readers who are familiar with the case of Gröning may interpret my views as over-zealous and unfair. After all, he has accepted moral culpability for the crimes committed at Auschwitz and has expressed deep regret at his involvement. Indeed, some may state that the fact that he requested transfer out of Auschwitz three times is evidence that he didn’t support the regime and its ideals. We should just treat Gröning’s case as another tragic demonstration of the evils of state sponsored indoctrination.

But, when one thinks of such defences seriously, they begin to fall apart. Can a person really accept moral responsibility for murder but not criminal responsibility? Everybody knows that murder is immoral. To accept so is largely seen as a moral universal. The illogical statement that Gröning does not see himself as criminally responsible is as ridiculous as you or I taking out a knife, stabbing our neighbour and claiming that “yes, of course it was the wrong thing to do, but that doesn’t make me a criminal!” It just doesn’t make sense.

As for Gröning’s requests for transfer; does it really weaken the case that this man should be held responsible for the murders of Jews? After all, he was there for two years between 1942 and 1944. If Gröning truly was disturbed by his experiences at Auschwitz and truly couldn’t cope with the abhorrent treatment of Jews, why didn’t he request a transfer every single day until his requests were accepted? Once again, there is plenty of historical evidence to suggest that German soldiers were excused from engaging in other aspects of the Holocaust, such as the purging of Jewish ghettos in the east.

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, in Hitler’s Willing Executioners, extensively investigates this aspect of the Holocaust, concluding that German soldiers were never forced into engaging in exterminatory activities, but instead were granted the freedom to absolve themselves of involvement. This assertion is supported by the actions of Major Trapp, the head of Police Battalion 101, as described by two separate German accounts of Trapp’s speech to the men of his battalion in preparation for their embarking on a genocidal orgy in the Jewish ghetto of Jozefow, Poland, on the 20 June 1942. One German soldier stated that “at the conclusion of [Trapp’s] address, the major put the question to the older battalion members of whether there were any among them those who did not feel up to the task. At first no one had the courage to come forward. I was then the first to step forward and stated that I was one of those who was not fit for the task. Only then did others come forward. We were then about ten or twelve men, who were kept at the major’s disposal.” Trapp’s invitation to abstain from purging the ghetto is reaffirmed by a second testimony by another German soldier, Alois Weber, who states that “Trapp’s request was not intended as a trap. It did not require much courage to step forward. One man of my company stepped forward… it is possible that twelve stepped forward. I did not hear that only older men could step forward. Younger ones also stepped forward. Everyone must have heard that one may step forward because I heard it too.” Although these two accounts differ in their description of the tone of Trapp’s invitation, the first illustrating an element of trepidation and the second a nonchalant abstention, the fact remains that the ability for German soldiers to remove themselves from genocidal situations was there for the taking. There is no evidence to suggest that those who were “not fit for the task” encountered any repercussions or punishment. Indeed, Goldhagen goes on to demonstrate countless more examples of soldiers wishing to remove themselves from engaging in the slaughter of Jews and being transferred to tasks better suited to their preferences.

Thus, Gröning’s claim that he had no choice in his activities in the Jewish extermination, does not hold up in the light of historical evidence. This, coupled with his voluntary involvement in the SS, clearly demonstrates that he was a willing volunteer, proactive in his involvement in the Nazi death machine. A volunteer who has been granted the freedom to live his life with all of the liberties he took away from innocent people during his youth. The pain and suffering that Oskar Gröning has caused could not be redeemed in a lifetime, let alone a mere four years in prison.

Such cases as Gröning’s once again demonstrate a distinct lack of historical reasoning within the modern justice system. Modern minds seem to be shielded from the facts. As a result, Auschwitz and its horrors continue to cast a shameful shadow over human reason. The importance of history and its lessons from the past has never been greater.