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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: war criminals
Message-ID: <5541@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Apr-85 00:11:24 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5541
Posted: Thu Apr 25 00:11:24 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Apr-85 00:11:24 EST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 19

There is a big difference between the regular German armed forces and the
SS. The SS was responsible for the war crimes; the rest of the German
armed forces got on with the business of fighting a war. This is not to
say that *no* atrocities were commited by non-SS members, but the particular
vile horror of the haulocast was the doing of volunteers to the SS elite
who believed (or at least professed to believe) in Hitler's racist doctrine.

To say that the German people as a whole, or to say that all the German
soldiers are responsible for the haulocast is to slander them - and is a
form of the same ``we are human -- those monsters are not human'' dogmatic
hatred that at least contributes and may cause such atrocities in the first
place. However, to say that volunteers to the SS are in some way not
responsible for their actions makes a mockery of the notion of personal
responsibility. To be 16 and join the German airforce in time of war --
understandable. To be 16 and to join the SS? Barely understandable and
not to be condoned or excused.

Laura Creighton --this account will be gone by the time you read this note...
utzoo!laura