Morality question Alzhiemers Nazi

[The Yosemite Bear]

You meet an old man in a public park, library ir some such, he's quite clearly suffering and after a bit of listening to him you realize that he's got Alzhiemers dementia, and 60+ years ago he went from hitler youth to low ranking person in an SS unit. What do you feel is the moral thing to do?

[Scepticalguy]

You meet an old man in a public park, library ir some such, he's quite clearly suffering and after a bit of listening to him you realize that he's got Alzhiemers dementia, and 60+ years ago he went from hitler youth to low ranking person in an SS unit. What do you feel is the moral thing to do?

It depends on the SS unit and his actions i would think.

[Mr Bean]

It depends on the SS unit and his actions i would think.

Normally I'd agree as simple passage of time does not erase crimes... however...
Because of the Alzhiemers no action is required, the old man is on his way to death all ready and in one of the most horrifying methods I could imagine that does not involve prolonged physical torture. He is already going to die. A death of self, of personality and presence long before his body gives up. The disease is slowly destroying everything that made the old man himself. All that he was is being slowly, day by day eaten by the disease, first his memories, then his ability to move his body and finally his vital functions. He is already sentenced to one of the longest slowest, lingering methods of death in existence and there is nothing more justice can bring to him, a trial at this point is a waste, forgiveness impossible and any rehabilitation useless in the face of the disease which will rob him of any mortal efforts at shame or suffering.

He's a dead-man and if he's already at the point he's mumbling in public parks about what he once was, he's mentally already far gone enough that any action is pointless. Whatever he was, it's already dead even if it might take another three years for his body to admit it as well.

[B5B7]

Obviously get a group of people together to beat, rape, etc the guy because he is an evil Nazi and that is what we do to evil types, right?
But seriously he has either wandered off from a nursing home or his house, or has even been reported missing, so the thing to do is contact the police and report a dementia patient.

[Gil Hamilton]

Nothing but listen to the guy if he needs to talk or help him find his way back to where he's supposed to be if I don't have something more pressing to do. He's going to be dead soon anyway, since such a person would be quite elderly. Whatever he was seventy years ago, he's now a dying old man whose probably not done anything particularly villainous since and I'm not the Mossad. A little kindness can't hurt.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Oh God, could you imagine how horrifying that would be? Picture an eighty-something year old man wearing an SS uniform wandering the streets of New York or DC because he forgot he's not in Germany and it's not the 1930s, terrified out of his fucking mind whilst people ignorant of his predicament yell and scream at him. I never thought there'd ever be a scenario where I could feel sympathy for a Nazi, but I guess this is it, hopefully it remains simply a contrived hypothetical.

[cadbrowser]

Oh God, could you imagine how horrifying that would be? Picture an eighty-something year old man wearing an SS uniform wandering the streets of New York or DC because he forgot he's not in Germany and it's not the 1930s, terrified out of his fucking mind whilst people ignorant of his predicament yell and scream at him. I never thought there'd ever be a scenario where I could feel sympathy for a Nazi, but I guess this is it, hopefully it remains simply a contrived hypothetical.

I'd agree that doing the right thing and reporting him to the proper authorities; but I wouldn't have any sympathy. Not saying it's the right attitude...guess I know my personal human limitations.

[Scepticalguy]

OK lets take it up a notch and say its Hitler himself or say a former long term commandant of a death or maybe even a doc who vivisected live children in a experimental camp.

General Schatten, Gil Hamilton etc would you be as forgiving?

Please do not see this as a attack or accusation as i respect the hell out of your initial answers and would like to see if they hold if the bar is raised.

[Mr Bean]

OK lets take it up a notch and say its Hitler himself or say a former long term commandant of a death or maybe even a doc who vivisected live children in a experimental camp.

General Schatten, Gil Hamilton etc would you be as forgiving?

Please do not see this as a attack or accusation as i respect the hell out of your initial answers and would like to see if they hold if the bar is raised.

Problem is you've gone to far, now your talking about people with bounties on their heads and earning the friendship of Israel, turn in a camp guard gets you a thank you from the Israel and maybe an official letter of thanks from various groups. Turn in someone like Aribert Heim and your talking several million dollars in reward money a free Israeli citizenship and international fame. It no longer becomes a question of do you take pity on the Nazi who might not be mentally all there to would you like a pile of free money and all you have to do is turn in a Nazi.

[Scrib]

On the original question: Why would I do anything? He's not someone very important, and him not getting his just desserts alters nothing in the scale of things, there was a whole set of trials that pretty much hammered enough men like him into the ground and there is a terrible stigma attached to their name and actions. Nothing I do will change that much and the man is already dead, punishment for punishment's sake is something I try to avoid. Besides, I can't think of many things more horrible than losing your mind to Alzhiemers. Would I even know if I was punishing the right man?

[Broomstick]

Oddly enough, I have actually had something like that experience.

I once met a man who had been Hitler Youth when young and was far from unrepentant - he had a portrait of old Adolf in his home. He had also broken his neck some years back and was a respirator dependent quadriplegic. Oh my - a genuine Nazi and he's completely helpless.

Yes, I had various fantasies of killing him, maybe with some torture thrown in. But I didn't. I found I could actually be pleasant to him on a social level.

How did I do that? Well, for starters, the war ended decades ago. They lost. I, for one, would rather not start fighting again. But mostly - I like to think I'm better than a goddamn goat-felching piece of shit unrepentant Nazi asshole. I don't kill people because I don't like them. Self-defense is the only rationale I can see for killing another human being, and this jackass can't even breathe on his own. He's harmless. No, he's helpless. A Nazi kills the weak and the helpless, and I don't want to be a Nazi.

Actually he's dead now - apparently natural causes. Good riddance. But it wasn't my place to be judge/jury/executioner.

Now, a 20 year old skinhead goose-stepping and throwing out Heil Hitlers and salutes and instigating violence and crime is an entirely different matter - he gets turned over to the Authorities if he's breaking the law. However, if I met the hypothetical demented old man in the OP I'd either leave him be, or try to get him back home/back to his caretaker/whatever. As much as I hate and loathe Nazis it's still not my place to be a vigilante. Nazis are not merciful, but I try to be.

[Aaron MkII]

Why the hell would you have fantasies about killing him?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Why the hell would you have fantasies about killing him?

Because she's a horrible person? I don't understand why you'd ask the question when you know the answer.

[Aaron MkII]

Point.

[Ralin]

Why the hell would you have fantasies about killing him?

Because she's a horrible person? I don't understand why you'd ask the question when you know the answer.

Well, he was a Nazi. And she is Jewish. And if I remember right she has family who went through the camps. So I'd be surprised if it didn't cross her mind.

EDIT: Just noticed she only said he was Hitler Youth, not an SS member or anything.

[The Yosemite Bear]

mindyou this was actual inspired by an Alzhiemer's sufferer from my teen years, She was one of the Scientists on the Manhatten Project, and thought that shadows were the ghosts of the Japanese she felt responisble for killingm she also thought that the war was going on still, and that the Concentration camps were still in effect. (The former Physicist in question was Jewish)

[Ritterin Sophia]

Well, he was a Nazi. And she is Jewish. And if I remember right she has family who went through the camps. So I'd be surprised if it didn't cross her mind.

Yeah, cause that would totally justify homocidal fantasies of killing a defenseless old man. I mean I can't tell you how many times I've daydreamed about murdering overly patriotic old white people for the injustices performed against my Cherokee and Shawnee ancestors.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Ghetto Edit since I missed this:

OK lets take it up a notch and say its Hitler himself or say a former long term commandant of a death or maybe even a doc who vivisected live children in a experimental camp.

General Schatten, Gil Hamilton etc would you be as forgiving?

Please do not see this as a attack or accusation as i respect the hell out of your initial answers and would like to see if they hold if the bar is raised.

Of course. I couldn't imagine a more terrifying punishment that to be tortured incessantly for the rest of my life with a loss of my own personality and continuously find myself living in a place I believe I've never seen before surrounded by people who hate every ideal I believe in and be powerless to change a thing. Honestly any other punishment I could contrive would be a mercy.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yes, in several teen years of working in managed care facilities, and dealing with my relatives who have gone through it before passing away, Alzhiermers is some special scary hell that no one deserves. and I feel for PTerry's family, and I hope someone finds a cure for it someday. Edit: I also met the Skinhead Biker, who broke his neck in a traffic accident and now was being cared for by people he considered sub-human. Irony is a scary thing.

[Simon_Jester]

How did the Skinhead Biker take it?

Why the hell would you have fantasies about killing him?

Because she's a horrible person? I don't understand why you'd ask the question when you know the answer.

Well, he was a Nazi. And she is Jewish. And if I remember right she has family who went through the camps. So I'd be surprised if it didn't cross her mind.

EDIT: Just noticed she only said he was Hitler Youth, not an SS member or anything.

Yeah. I can... sort of comprehend where the hell that comes from, but it's waay creepier than normal.

[Ralin]

Yeah, cause that would totally justify homocidal fantasies of killing a defenseless old man. I mean I can't tell you how many times I've daydreamed about murdering overly patriotic old white people for the injustices performed against my Cherokee and Shawnee ancestors.

Knowing people who still have serial numbers tattooed to their arms maybe makes it feel more immediate than knowing that your ancestors got Manifest Destinied?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Knowing people who still have serial numbers tattooed to their arms maybe makes it feel more immediate than knowing that your ancestors got Manifest Destinied?

I'm not seeing how the fact that you knew people who were persecuted justifies homocidal fantasies against a defenceless old man who can only wish that death will end his miserable existence. I'm not sure either you nor her realize just how personally degrading diseases like alzheimer's or being paralyzed are, you really can't know until you are left to be totally reliant upon others to so much as remember to eat or be able to breathe. Especially when given the evidence at hand this old man never had a hand in the persecution of people like the ones you know.

[Scrib]

Knowing people who still have serial numbers tattooed to their arms maybe makes it feel more immediate than knowing that your ancestors got Manifest Destinied?

I'm not seeing how the fact that you knew people who were persecuted justifies homocidal fantasies against a defenceless old man who can only wish that death will end his miserable existence. I'm not sure either you nor her realize just how personally degrading diseases like alzheimer's or being paralyzed are, you really can't know until you are left to be totally reliant upon others to so much as remember to eat or be able to breathe. Especially when given the evidence at hand this old man never had a hand in the persecution of people like the ones you know.

Jesus Christ, she had a fantasy or two based on some family issues, she didn't act on it, she didn't let it affect her actions, what's the issue here? IT wasn't just for her to think it, and that's why she didn't act on it. Thought is irrelevant unless it informs your actions.

[Ralin]

I'm not seeing how the fact that you knew people who were persecuted justifies homocidal fantasies against a defenceless old man who can only wish that death will end his miserable existence. I'm not sure either you nor her realize just how personally degrading diseases like alzheimer's or being paralyzed are, you really can't know until you are left to be totally reliant upon others to so much as remember to eat or be able to breathe. Especially when given the evidence at hand this old man never had a hand in the persecution of people like the ones you know.

Maybe we're reading it differently? I'm assuming that she meant something along the lines of "It crossed my mind more than once that I wished the fucker was dead/wanted him to suffer when I found out about the things he supported." Not that she actively plotted ways to make it happen or thought it would have been justified. On the grand scale of SD.net chest-beating it seems relatively small to me.

And my grandfather had Alzheimer's, so yeah, I do have some idea.

But whatever, we've reached the limit of the amount of energy I'm willing to spend on defending Broomstick.

[Broomstick]

Why the hell would you have fantasies about killing him?

Because she's a horrible person? I don't understand why you'd ask the question when you know the answer.

Because the Nazis slaughtered a lot of my relatives like cockroaches? (Literally - Zyklon-B was originally developed as a pesticide.) I don't have a European branch of my family. They were obliterated.

No, I didn't make elaborate plans. It was a kneejerk reaction to someone who represented evil. What, you've never had an Evil Thought?

Like I said, I try to be a better person. That's why my actions were very different from that first impulse.

I'm not seeing how the fact that you knew people who were persecuted justifies homocidal fantasies against a defenceless old man who can only wish that death will end his miserable existence.

It doesn't, of course - that's why I didn't act on it. I smiled and spoke politely to the incarnation of evil old man until it was time to leave.

I'm not sure either you nor her realize just how personally degrading diseases like alzheimer's or being paralyzed are, you really can't know until you are left to be totally reliant upon others to so much as remember to eat or be able to breathe.

Actually I DO have an idea how horrible that is. I didn't fucking care how degraded he felt about his life. He had a life, and no one was actively trying to kill him for being crippled, which is the antithesis of what the Nazis did.

Especially when given the evidence at hand this old man never had a hand in the persecution of people like the ones you know.

He was a Nazi. He might not have been a war criminal - hence, he was allowed to settle in the US and eventually become a citizen - but 60 years later he still espoused the Nazi philosophy and still praised Hitler as a great, good man. He didn't deny the Holocaust, he expressed regret that the Final Solution wasn't completed.

Yes, ironic that he was utterly dependent on "mud race" attendants for the most part just to stay alive, but then, being his slaves were what they were suited for, right? Well, OK, he had to pay them for their work, but the point is he viewed wiping his ass and answering to his whims the "rightful" place of minorities.