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May 14, 2004

Orders

"...we don't feel like we were doing things that we weren't supposed to, because we were told to do them."

"the order was issued by superior authorities,"he said, "the question of illegality could not arise ... for they had sworn obedience to the people who had issued the orders."

Posted at May 14, 2004 08:15 AM
Comments

I don't think it's exactly fair to compare this to the Nazis....
sorry. this will be bandwidth sucking in extreme. i'm going to write to you instead.

Posted by: anne at May 14, 2004 09:31 AM

I guessed right. I seem to recall that the justification for the trials- at the time- was that there were crimes against humanity which could not be tolerated, that moral responsibility must be taken for individual actions. That 'I was just following orders' would no longer be a redmptive excuse.

Literally taken , the comparison is apt.

Posted by: sue at May 14, 2004 11:03 AM

Mig, I can't tell you how very interesting and - in a way- disturbing I have found this.

It makes me wonder - do people see the parallel or not ?

And - if so- is it so very important not to disturb the waters . What can I say. It's that time of year once again. I'm re- reading a book about Anne Frank. Soon , The Longest Day will be on television- yet again.

And seriously re-thinking the concept of life ( death) as content-

Posted by: sue at May 17, 2004 09:17 PM

anne made an interesting point in her email to me about the fact that someone refusing to obey orders under the Nazi regime, say, faced the death penalty, while the consequences of disobeying these orders for the Americans would not have been so harsh.

Posted by: mig at May 18, 2004 07:38 AM

No, I imagine a court martial of some sort- Leavenworth and all that.

Sorry. It all upset me very, very much.

Posted by: sue at May 19, 2004 10:21 PM
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