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Hero or Nazi war criminal?

Jean-s

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Should a Third Reich occupation official responsible for reviewing Dutch applications to be spared from being sent to death camps be honored as a hero because he sent less than half petitions to be killed, a number that amounted to thousands? The residents of Osnabrück in northwest Germany are considering naming a museum to the Final Solution after Hans Georg Calmeyer, a native of the city, who spent the war years in the safety of a Nazi office in occupied Holland, using his pen to spare some Jews while condemning others.
Hero or Nazi war criminal? ′Good German′ Hans Calmeyer′s legacy debated | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 18.07.2020

There are some who say nobody is perfect but it mystifies me that a man who asked for the job of sending some Jews to their deaths can be considered by present-day Germans in Osnabrück as one of the millions of 'Good Germans'. Some are even comparing him to Oscar Schindler who saved many Jews from extermination by giving them jobs in his munitions factory near Krakau, occupied Poland.

b-der-gute-moerder-09-04-2016.jpg

Georg Calmeyer had a comfortable job in The Hague during WWII.
 
Should a Third Reich occupation official responsible for reviewing Dutch applications to be spared from being sent to death camps be honored as a hero because he sent less than half petitions to be killed, a number that amounted to thousands? The residents of Osnabrück in northwest Germany are considering naming a museum to the Final Solution after Hans Georg Calmeyer, a native of the city, who spent the war years in the safety of a Nazi office in occupied Holland, using his pen to spare some Jews while condemning others.
Hero or Nazi war criminal? ′Good German′ Hans Calmeyer′s legacy debated | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 18.07.2020

There are some who say nobody is perfect but it mystifies me that a man who asked for the job of sending some Jews to their deaths can be considered by present-day Germans in Osnabrück as one of the millions of 'Good Germans'. Some are even comparing him to Oscar Schindler who saved many Jews from extermination by giving them jobs in his munitions factory near Krakau, occupied Poland.

b-der-gute-moerder-09-04-2016.jpg

Georg Calmeyer had a comfortable job in The Hague during WWII.

He saved Jews from death? Sounds pretty good to me.
 
Should a Third Reich occupation official responsible for reviewing Dutch applications to be spared from being sent to death camps be honored as a hero because he sent less than half petitions to be killed, a number that amounted to thousands? The residents of Osnabrück in northwest Germany are considering naming a museum to the Final Solution after Hans Georg Calmeyer, a native of the city, who spent the war years in the safety of a Nazi office in occupied Holland, using his pen to spare some Jews while condemning others.
Hero or Nazi war criminal? ′Good German′ Hans Calmeyer′s legacy debated | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 18.07.2020

There are some who say nobody is perfect but it mystifies me that a man who asked for the job of sending some Jews to their deaths can be considered by present-day Germans in Osnabrück as one of the millions of 'Good Germans'. Some are even comparing him to Oscar Schindler who saved many Jews from extermination by giving them jobs in his munitions factory near Krakau, occupied Poland.

b-der-gute-moerder-09-04-2016.jpg

Georg Calmeyer had a comfortable job in The Hague during WWII.

Seems he was working within the system to save as many as he could. Second guessing a guy working directly under noses of the nazi's who managed to save over 2/3rds of jews whose "bloodline claims' were suspect. Apparently they were watching him.
 
Seems he was working within the system to save as many as he could. Second guessing a guy working directly under noses of the nazi's who managed to save over 2/3rds of jews whose "bloodline claims' were suspect. Apparently they were watching him.
You are missing the point that he did not have to work with the Nazi Final Solution system. If you read the article, you will see that Hans Georg Calmeyer requested to be a jurist in Occupied Holland. To excuse him for sending only a couple of thousand Jews to death camps when he did not have to do that job in the first place strikes me as odd. We read of old men in their 90s being brought to trial because they were posted as teenage guards in camps but never hurt a single inmate while this Nazi scoundrel who used his fountain pen to send thousands to their deaths is getting a Final Solution museum in his name strikes me as shameful.
 
Some figured rightly that Germany would lose the war and they would be tried as war criminals.

He could've been covering his bases.
 
You are missing the point that he did not have to work with the Nazi Final Solution system. If you read the article, you will see that Hans Georg Calmeyer requested to be a jurist in Occupied Holland. To excuse him for sending only a couple of thousand Jews to death camps when he did not have to do that job in the first place strikes me as odd. We read of old men in their 90s being brought to trial because they were posted as teenage guards in camps but never hurt a single inmate while this Nazi scoundrel who used his fountain pen to send thousands to their deaths is getting a Final Solution museum in his name strikes me as shameful.

okay. feel that way. Rejecting 2/3rds while under the nazis noses, kinda indicates the guy had an agenda. Most would prefer to think of the 3,000 he saved. But, if he really was a nazi, piss on him.

Yad Vashem will sort it out.
 
Should a Third Reich occupation official responsible for reviewing Dutch applications to be spared from being sent to death camps be honored as a hero because he sent less than half petitions to be killed, a number that amounted to thousands? The residents of Osnabrück in northwest Germany are considering naming a museum to the Final Solution after Hans Georg Calmeyer, a native of the city, who spent the war years in the safety of a Nazi office in occupied Holland, using his pen to spare some Jews while condemning others.
Hero or Nazi war criminal? ′Good German′ Hans Calmeyer′s legacy debated | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 18.07.2020

There are some who say nobody is perfect but it mystifies me that a man who asked for the job of sending some Jews to their deaths can be considered by present-day Germans in Osnabrück as one of the millions of 'Good Germans'. Some are even comparing him to Oscar Schindler who saved many Jews from extermination by giving them jobs in his munitions factory near Krakau, occupied Poland.

b-der-gute-moerder-09-04-2016.jpg

Georg Calmeyer had a comfortable job in The Hague during WWII.

If Vad Yeshem says he was OK that is good enough for me. In this particular case the only opinions that count are those of Jews.
 
If Vad Yeshem says he was OK that is good enough for me. In this particular case the only opinions that count are those of Jews.

Agreed. On the face of it he doesn't exactly sound like the amazing Spiderman, but I am not a descendant of the people who were murdered, so I don't get to decide on their behalf.
 
okay. feel that way. Rejecting 2/3rds while under the nazis noses, kinda indicates the guy had an agenda. Most would prefer to think of the 3,000 he saved. But, if he really was a nazi, piss on him.

Yad Vashem will sort it out.

Yad Vashem listened only to stories of those who were spared, not the families (usually working class) who perished at the stroke of Calmeyer's pen.
 
If Vad Yeshem says he was OK that is good enough for me. In this particular case the only opinions that count are those of Jews.
I disagree that only Jews can have a valid opinion on who is guilty of war crimes. As it happens, Yad Veshem are embarrassed by their earlier quick decision about Calmeyer and they are reviewing their earlier award when they got the testimony of Auschwits-Birkenau few and far-between survivors.
 
Not killing people doesn't carry the same moral weight as killing people. I don't kill people every day, yet no-one gives me a medal. Guy was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands. That he could of killed more doesn't change that.
 
Not killing people doesn't carry the same moral weight as killing people. I don't kill people every day, yet no-one gives me a medal. Guy was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands. That he could of killed more doesn't change that.
Covers it aptly, leastwise to me, and I need add nothing.
 
Sparing some does not somehow cancel out those he condemned to be murdered.

Thankfully, Justice doesn't work that way.
 
Not killing people doesn't carry the same moral weight as killing people. I don't kill people every day, yet no-one gives me a medal. Guy was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands. That he could of killed more doesn't change that.

Let's see. You and another guy, a guy bleeding statism all the way through, are both offered the job. You're more qualified but if you don't want it, the other guy gets it and no hard feelings from the higher ups. Do you say no, and let the guy take the job, knowing he'll end up going out of his way to kill all the Jews he can, or do you take the job and make sure that you can save as many as you can? Are you more guilty with the latter than the former?

It seems to me that this guy was a godsend for the Jews at this particular camp. If he said no, ALL would have perished.

When you live in a society with an unopposed boot on your neck at all times, you can either join the true resistance and fight guerrilla warfare, which also kills many many innocents and usually gets an unproportional response from the state, or you can join and work from the inside. Both are equally valid, and moral, the difference is that the guerrilla fighter usually wants to hang all the "collaborators" after the fact, even if they were the reason why he/she was able to win to begin with.
 
Should a Third Reich occupation official responsible for reviewing Dutch applications to be spared from being sent to death camps be honored as a hero because he sent less than half petitions to be killed, a number that amounted to thousands? The residents of Osnabrück in northwest Germany are considering naming a museum to the Final Solution after Hans Georg Calmeyer, a native of the city, who spent the war years in the safety of a Nazi office in occupied Holland, using his pen to spare some Jews while condemning others.
Hero or Nazi war criminal? ′Good German′ Hans Calmeyer′s legacy debated | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 18.07.2020

There are some who say nobody is perfect but it mystifies me that a man who asked for the job of sending some Jews to their deaths can be considered by present-day Germans in Osnabrück as one of the millions of 'Good Germans'. Some are even comparing him to Oscar Schindler who saved many Jews from extermination by giving them jobs in his munitions factory near Krakau, occupied Poland.

b-der-gute-moerder-09-04-2016.jpg

Georg Calmeyer had a comfortable job in The Hague during WWII.

It is a difficult question and it is hard to say. If he had been replaced by a more fervent and murderous Nazi official, would there have been as many Jewish survivors and their descendants today to comment at all? Doubtful. And we certainly know of such Nazi Party-appointed overlords of occupied nations who were eager to make the occupied territories judenrein.

But I will say this: People who were Nazi Officials in the apparatus in charge of the life and death of Jews were not "good Germans." Some were just less evil than others. Oskar Schindler put himself at greater personal risk, burned through his considerable personal fortune of ill-gotten gains to safeguard the Jews under his stewardship and helped undermine the Nazi war effort and extermination campaign in his own way. Calmeyer does not seem to have undertaken the same risk.
 
I think the question becomes what authoritative and substantive testimonial evidence did they have about why he wanted the job? We know any paper trail will show good Nazi -correct reasons, as he will get greater and more unwanted scrutiny otherwise, and whoever recommended him is not going to leave evidence of his own incompetence by employing a bad risk, and we know the man is not stupid enough to go around saying stupid things to the wrong people. Its going to have to be testimonials from very close friends or people sympathetic to the same resistance/ pro jewish cause. etc.
 
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He also sent other Jews to their deaths. Sounds like a war criminal to me.

He sent them or they were already on their way and he could not pull them out of line?
 
He sent them or they were already on their way and he could not pull them out of line?

That depends. But I'm more inclined to go with raw numbers. If he did allow thousands of Jews to be sent on to their deaths, then I would argue that he was NOT "doing all he could".
 
That depends. But I'm more inclined to go with raw numbers. If he did allow thousands of Jews to be sent on to their deaths, then I would argue that he was NOT "doing all he could".

... that is a good point. Just to play Devils Advocate... at what point does a person help others but try to not be noticed and probably murdered themselves?
 
... that is a good point. Just to play Devils Advocate... at what point does a person help others but try to not be noticed and probably murdered themselves?

Fair point. It is a difficult question and I wouldn't presume to know how I would've acted in such a situation. But intellectually I think that a person is obligated to prevent the murders of others up to and including endangering their own lives.

Oskar Schindler has been brought up. I would have some problems with Schindlers saving of Jews if those Jews were saved by putting them to work in his factory had been making weapons that the Nazis subsequently used to murder more Jews. But it is my understanding that Schindler's factory producing no war supporting products worthy of note.

We're getting deep into not only a moral issue but a philosophical issue of the "good vs. the greater good". Just shows that in real life there are no easy answers.
 
Fair point. It is a difficult question and I wouldn't presume to know how I would've acted in such a situation. But intellectually I think that a person is obligated to prevent the murders of others up to and including endangering their own lives.

Oskar Schindler has been brought up. I would have some problems with Schindlers saving of Jews if those Jews were saved by putting them to work in his factory had been making weapons that the Nazis subsequently used to murder more Jews. But it is my understanding that Schindler's factory producing no war supporting products worthy of note.

We're getting deep into not only a moral issue but a philosophical issue of the "good vs. the greater good". Just shows that in real life there are no easy answers.

Agreed.
 
Yad Vashem listened only to stories of those who were spared, not the families (usually working class) who perished at the stroke of Calmeyer's pen.

Not true. Vad Yashem listens to ALL survivor stories.
 
Not true. Vad Yashem listens to ALL survivor stories.
I wrote the truth. Read the article. Vad Yashem is reconsidering its hasty praise of Calmeyer. Even their original decision to name him righteous had dissenters at the time. Vad Yashem did not pay attention to all survivors who were victims of Calmeyer.
 
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