Should former Nazis still be persecuted if they have led good lives since WWII?

No

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by Felix Ellis

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Despite best intentions from those advocating continued Prosecution of former Nazis I fear that they have become blinded by the need to seek retribution, and propose action that will only cause more undue suffering. Prosecuting Nazis for war crimes is not only infeasible, but an act of wretched stubbornness.

The only purpose prosecuting Nazis could possibly serve was to exact some sort of animalistic revenge on people who got caught up in one of the most violent waves of mass hysteria of the 20th century. No other purpose is served. It has been argued that it is an act of deterrence, by demonstrating to those who may commit acts of genocide in the future that they will be similarly hounded to their graves and thus preventing acts of mass murder. Unfortunately this sort of reasoning is flimsy when it comes to acts of this barbarity. Individuals and societies who have fallen into an ideology dangerous enough to exterminate another ethnic group do not perceive the future problem of prosecution into their eighties. Not only is it an environment of almost trance-like obedience to the bloody cause, but people in these societies do not anticipate the collapse of the state. No prosecution of government officials can take place if a sovereign government does not wish it, and few Nazis would have predicted their eventual defeat in World War 2, otherwise they would not have gone to war. Thus, any call to deterrence in this situation seems fatally flawed.

The goals of protection or of rehabilitation can't be served in this situation either. Especially when we talk of former Nazis who have lived noble and honest lives since the end of World War 2 it seems ridiculous that we should continue to pursue these people. They cannot harm another soul (the immediate halt of Holocaust like slaughters of Jewish people at the hands of Germans, despite many Nazis being in communities world wide, is testament to that) especially at the age the few remaining survivors are at. And people who have led good lives need not be rehabilitated either.

Thus the only goal of those who wish to prosecute Nazis is blind retribution. This animalistic call to harm those who have harmed us is exactly the sort of mentality that led to the deaths of 6 million Jews. Furthermore, as we move into the 21st century there are fewer and fewer high ranking Nazi party and military officials remaining. It is almost understandable that the Nuremberg trials went ahead because those sentenced to death were the most powerful and most responsible for the slaughter. Very few remain free men today. Those left had small parts to play in the whole process and their trials require the relieving of painful testimony from victims and survivors of concentration camps. They subject the accused and the accuser to the trauma of reliving memories in such vivid detail as to lead to a prosecution on evidence more than 60 years old. The retribution sought does not even provide a true sense of satisfaction. The prosecution of reformed Nazis is truly a lose-lose situation.

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