What you don't realize is that the length of this situation is to a high extreme, 5 - 8 months of community service is not going to cut it when 11 million people were killed. The man is either going to be acquitted or is going to spend his last breaths behind bars. No judge, in any world, is going to over look the numbers. And if he is indeed innocent, which the numbers may be very slim, is a judge going to send him to prison for, lets say, 10 years? Is this anyway to punish a innocent? Not to mention a 94 year old man?
The gravity of the situation is rather heavy. Trial will be interesting to say the least. With the traditional views of the law, the man is going to rot behind bars, innocent or not. This is no normal case to say the least. Most of the remaining Nazi associates are indeed dead, but if they are that age, and forced into a situation like this, traditional views will be a bit harsh, considering that vendetta over comes all logic leading to horrible actions that he will live and die with.
You didn't give justice to my point which is summed up as: Punishment is optional, acquittal is not. We can choose not to punish him, because after all, there's no point in doing so to achieve the traditional purpose of punishing a criminal, a) Set an example b) An eye for an eye, and c) To protect people. The Nazi have been tainted beyond salvation, the man is too old and infirm ed to commit more crime.
Punishment is an option. Nazi criminals have often been found guilty, but not sent to jail, such as Maurice Papon, who was released from French prison after being deemed too old and sick to serve his 10-year sentence. The Lithuanian Nazi collaborator, Algimantas Dailide, was convicted in 2006 but didn't get a jail term since he was 'no longer a threat to society.'. If punishment no longer serves the purpose it was intended for, it is up for discussion whether to scrape it or not.
BUT it
isn't a question at all whether to judge this man not guilty if enough evidence is found. A crime is a crime.
Yes, it does. It's what separates the mercy of human beings from the strict emotionless unvaried-ness of laws.
Mercy is indeed a quality not often shown, as stated above, when it comes to dealing punishment; however, mercy should not be a factor in
deeming whether a person is guilty of a crime or not.
Furthermore, I disagree with the argument that orders were to be followed. This man was not part of the German population, who might be forgiven for their part, he was part of the Ukrainian Self Defense force, a Waffen SS Division that was based on volunteerism. Historically, the force itself was not wholly made of volunteers; people were pressed into service yes,
but we must bear in mind that this man was top brass, a position that would unlikely be filled up by and allocated to reluctant citizens forced into the army, but rather men who could be trusted, and displayed enthusiasm for the work they did.
Lastly, this plea of following orders, otherwise similarly known in tort law as ''Master-Servant'' rule, is not always a defensible plea. It has been used widely, and most notoriously in the Nuremburg Trials, and has been ruled in a way that only allows the lessening of penalties, not full acquittal, specifically
"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.".
In effect though, individual cases of the Superior-Orders-plea are ruled by an individual basis, so ultimately, we will have to wait for the trial to unfold.
