Auschwitz Accountant Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison

For at least 10 years Oskar Groening has been under scrutiny for the role he played in the Nazi regime during World War Two. He was 21 when he was employed as an accountant at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was responsible for keeping track of the valuables that were taken from its prisoners. But three months ago he was finally taken to court for his actions at the camp

“I ask for forgiveness.” He told the judge at the beginning of his trial “I share morally in the guilt, but whether I am guilty under criminal law, you will have to decide.” On Tuesday the court decided his fate. Groening was charged as an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people at the camp, and will serve a 4 year prison sentence.

His trial has rekindled a debate that has been raging since the Nuremberg trials ended after World War Two. Were all the participants of the Nazi system murderers? Or as Groening has asserted, were they merely unwitting and/or unwilling cogs of a brutal system? To answer that, you should take a look at the video I’ve posted below. It was produced by the esteemed historian, Dan Carlin, and it really puts things in perspective. I’ve posted it on this website before, but I think it’s worth mentioning again in light of recent events. It just goes to show you how easy it is for these systems to convince ordinary people to participate in horrible atrocities.