this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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I am watching a BBC doc about the Nuremberg trials. It is overall propagandizing against the concept of trying crimes against humanity at all. Due to, as described, the british position: it'll just be another chance for the defendants to present their position to the world so better to hang them and be done with it.

Q: Agree/disagree with the above? Both in the specific instance, and in general.

It was the first, but not the last, such proceeding. What are we learning from subsequent?

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[–] Andrzej3K@hexbear.net 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You have to bring them to justice, and you have to do that with due process. Fidel understood the importance of this.

[–] Keld@hexbear.net 13 points 3 days ago

Stalin was big on trials because of the importance of cementing a specific thing as wrong. It is not merely that the perpetrators needed to be punished, it was equally as important that everyone else understand what they had done and why it was wrong.

Now the problem with that is that the Nuremburg trials were a fucking sham and most of these assholes got off.

[–] Keld@hexbear.net 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

What we learned from the Nuremburg trials was that you can just do things. On one hand in the sense that the Nuremburg trials had no real legal basis and were basically made up ad hoc, it wasn't illegal to do what the nazis did prior, as indeed most of the winners of ww2 had committed and would go on to recommit similar acts. But on the other it also shows us that you can just do things once attention is no longer on the matter. As soon as the eyes of the USSR and the US were elsewhere the surviving nazis were let out by West Germany and the whole thing was made a farce.

There are people who committed acts of petty crime who served longer sentences than mass murderers tried at Nuremburg, and the "Just following orders" defense worked for many.

[–] ReadFanon@hexbear.net 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think it's a bad take. Exposure to fascism doesn't magically turn you fascist, it's material conditions and propaganda and being a garbage human being that turns you into a fascist.

Not having a judicial process during stable, peacetime conditions permits martyrdom and conspiracy narratives to spring up. I'd rather have Mengele on the stand saying that he'd do it all again because he believed that some groups of people are subhuman trash whose only use is to be subjects for medical experimentation rather than giving him the aura of mystique and government coverup "because they don't want you to know!!"

No. We should know exactly how awful it was, how horrific these people were. Let's hear all about it. Let's hear them say that they felt unmoved as one of their victims begged for mercy and lets hear them say that they'd do the same for anyone's parent, child, or loved one if they happened to be one in a group that was deemed "subhuman".

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago

Agreed. And then we blast him to oblivion vegeta-stare

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Just lib brainworms about platforming. I think it was a bigger problem with Nuremberg that it was a bunch of genocidal white supremacists trying a bunch of somewhat more unabashed genocidal white supremacists.

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There's a reason why everyone who wasn't hanged during the trials ended up getting out of prison in just a couple of years. Nato and West Germany needed buerocrats, and what's a couple genocides between friends?

[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

needed buerocrats

Am skeptical of this concept. bureaucrats abound. Fash not required.

and let me tell you how to remember spelling of this word: it has "eau" like "beauty". Remember there is beauty in bureauracy and the rest of the letters fall in place.

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Sorry if this wasn't clear, but i was being facetious, obviously there was no material reason why West Germany or NATO needed a bunch of allegedly former Nazis staffing the bureaucracy, i think the more immediately causal factor was just political apathy among the western powers for keeping all of the middle managers in prison compared to the east, and when they got out they went back to what they were doing before, managing in the middle and climbing the social ladder, the exception being a few Nazis with very specific skills or knowledge like Von Braun and Heusinger.

[–] built_on_hope@hexbear.net 15 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I’m not sure but the other day I was hanging out with a group of friends and I told them I had recently learnt that only ten Nazis were executed at Nuremberg. There was a German woman there and the first thing she replied was “yea but where do you draw the line?” And told us about how her grandparents’ schoolteachers were all Nazis. And this is someone who is definitely on the leftist spectrum, involved in labour movements, etc

[–] MarxMadness@hexbear.net 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"Where do you draw the line" is a reasonable question, it's just that the answer isn't anywhere close to 10.

[–] built_on_hope@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago

Yea that was what I thought immediately. Like. I don’t know the answer but I know there were more than 10 who deserved it

[–] Biggay@hexbear.net 10 points 3 days ago (2 children)

where do you draw the line?

Its amazing how every time this reasonable question has been asked, the reign of terror, the US civil war, and WW2 the eventual lines we did draw were totally wrong by about 4 orders of magnitude, both in scale and relation to the crime. For the reign of terror, should the revolutionaries have not killed every royal and noble family, every man woman and child? In the civil war, not just the confederate generals and officers but the plantation owners and politicians also suffer some fate than the removal of their vote? And finally the nazis, 10 nazis were held to account in nuremburg, though many more are popularly imagined to have faced judgement in the field, while so many more, just like the civil war, went on to continue living prestigious lives. Only one revolution seems to have ever answered this question correctly. mao-aggro-shining

anyways marx said it best "We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror."

[–] Inui@hexbear.net 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

I've said it before, but every confederate soldier (who couldn't be re-educated) should have gone and their lands and wealth given to their black slaves and Native Americans. Same with Germany and Black, Jewish, and Romani people's that the Nazis targeted. Reparations are never made, moral depravity is never punished, and people are told to just get on with things in the name of 'peace'. Then their legacy continues in different forms.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

who couldn't be re-educated

What is the standard of evidence for this?

[–] SwagliacciTheBadClown@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Re-educated to the point where they do it voluntarily in reparation and solidarity with those they’ve wronged lol.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

That doesn't answer my question. What is the standard of evidence that someone can't be re-educated?

[–] SwagliacciTheBadClown@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oh sorry - it wasn’t supposed to. More tongue in cheek to the point that someone could be forced to give up “their” land as punishment; or re-educated to the point where they do it willingly (either in good faith reparations or in abandonment of the concept of “private property”). And so the end standard would effectively be that they embrace anarcho-communism

[–] SwagliacciTheBadClown@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Also I’m realizing I mis-read your question as what’s the standard that they’ve achieved education; not that it isn’t possible.

If I had to guess for that - I’d say it has to be voluntary to an extent right? Like if they’re rejecting all education- what’s the point? Like if a guy who was extremely anti-miner were forced to work in a mine to develop solidarity and empathy with miners, but after a year they were still extremely anti-miner, it’d be safe to call that a lost cause imo.

But also I have no idea - just wanted to take an actual run at your question

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't know what you even mean by anti-miner, but I don't think it epistemically makes sense to say that someone who doesn't make progress for a year after a lifetime of being a reactionary cannot be rehabilitated.

My point in asking is that I think you will pretty readily find that there is no useful standard for making such a claim, so the claim should not be made. Keep them in re-education for as long as it takes and if they just live out the rest of their natural lives there, well, that's just how it goes sometimes but you aren't ever going to find a point where "euthanizing" them is the most sensible option because you don't actually know what they will do in the future and that information is also practically useful for other rehabilitation efforts.

[–] SwagliacciTheBadClown@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I pulled the “miner” example out of the blue while grasping at straws to try and formulate an example. I don’t really have enough knowledge on it to speak in an informed way.

I agree with your take though. And as an aside, I enjoy reading your thoughts on this site, because you not only challenge posters but provide solid insight. So I appreciate you taking the time to do both!

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thanks. Because I'm so argumentative, it can get really easy to view my relationship with the community here as mostly negative, so I really appreciate it heart-sickle

Nah I’m from the Midwest and a bit on the spectrum so my pet peeve is that no one is ever forthcoming, even when direct discussion is the best course of action. Literally dialectics ya know.

To digress a bit- The best public meeting I’ve held was with a local Indigenous nation in which the agency I worked for operated, but had apparently not held a meeting for longer than I’ve been alive. I lied and told “leadership” that the meeting would go well (I knew it wouldn’t but didn’t want them to cancel) and made sure they were in the room as I got yelled at for 3 hours. I didn’t take it personally because I agreed with all of their comments; but everyone who’d previously stuck their heads in the sand would now be unable to do so at least. People are afraid of confrontation and dialect, but it’s literally what moves society and builds community, even if it requires a more forward approach at times

[–] Inui@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I don't honestly know in practice and I understand what you mean about presenting such evidence. There's also a difference of this occuring while the situation is still ongoing and after it's over and you have 'won'.

It would have to involve the affected communities because an important part of justice is that the victims feel they were treated and interacted with satisfactorily.

In most case, victims don't want the perpetrators executed. It's usually their families and tertiary people who do. But they must be made to feel safe and whole again to where they would feel comfortable living alongside their former captors. If they don't, you invite vigilantism.

If it were realistically possible to keep every single Nazi in some form of confinement/education indefinitely, that's the most palatable moral action. I don't believe that would be the case in the immediate aftermath of most situations.

I also believe that there is room to say that some people do not deserve the chance of rehabilitation depending on the severity of their actions. To let them live would be to withhold doing what is right now for a benefit that may never come. Nothing the members of Unit 731 could do would make up for their actions, even if they spent their whole lives trying. The only argument for their continued existence is that to kill them would be a waste of a human body that could be put toward productive work, even if by force.

You would start by executing those at the top, then you work your way down until you've reached the cooks and janitors and society would collectively decide if their involvement deserved the same or some lesser punishment.

At the very least, nothing that has been done to those kinds of groups in the past has been enough. They have faced near 0 consequences after the fact.

I am also posting from the state of Minnesota where my emotions are inflamed by the murder of my neighbors, so you can also attribute my bloodlust to be using past groups as a proxy for what I feel should be done here and now, before the 'peace' has been established.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I'm speaking basically in terms of when you've "won," since in for example an insurrectionary situation it's really more of a shifting practical question based on the situation at the moment. I nonetheless think talking about what a dictatorship of the proletariat should do is helpful as a baseline, even if you and I agree that in more desperate situations things like summary execution become an inevitable necessity sometimes. I think this in part because it gives us basically the only really constant bar to have for reference and can be useful for grounding how we're reasoning before applying more complicating variables to it in other circumstances.

It would have to involve the affected communities because an important part of justice is that the victims feel they were treated and interacted with satisfactorily.

We can say that an important part of justice is that democracy is upheld, including by following the protocols established by democratic mechanisms, but that's neither here nor there in a question of what we should be advocating for, i.e. where we are trying to bring consensus to.

In most case, victims don't want the perpetrators executed. It's usually their families and tertiary people who do. But they must be made to feel safe and whole again to where they would feel comfortable living alongside their former captors. If they don't, you invite vigilantism.

I don't really know how to say this more nicely than just speaking plainly, but what you are describing is not a problem with the treatment of the convict, but with the attitudes of these secondary and tertiary parties. A desire for punitive justice, for revenge, is inevitably some combination of sadism and maybe some other forms of counterproductive moralism. We need to start from a place of recognizing that it's a backward social attitude and not pre-emptively buckle to hypothetical threats of vigilantism as though they are just a force of nature, any more than we should buckle to threats of vigilantism over other cases of blatant injustice (as killing someone over such threats would be). The answer here isn't to design the system so that it is willing to kill in cold blood if 2 - 5 people want it to strongly enough, but to have a functional political education so that vigilantism over not killing people enough isn't a problem at a systemic level. This isn't some fanciful proposition either, since there are plenty of countries where the death penalty is abolished either completely or at least de facto, and generally that's not motivating vigilantism for them.

If it were realistically possible to keep every single Nazi in some form of confinement/education indefinitely, that's the most palatable moral action. I don't believe that would be the case in the immediate aftermath of most situations.

Sure, but that's overwhelmingly a logistical question, which is separate from the aforementioned moralistic distortions.

I also believe that there is room to say that some people do not deserve the chance of rehabilitation depending on the severity of their actions. To let them live would be to withhold doing what is right now for a benefit that may never come.

You are question-begging that executing them is inherently right. That is simply baseless.

Nothing the members of Unit 731 could do would make up for their actions, even if they spent their whole lives trying.

There is no such thing as redemption for any of us. The bad things we've done in the past remain no matter what we do, and some hypothetical account of net benefit or detriment when weighing past actions against the positive actions someone can take in the future is an excellent example of why this moralism makes the world worse:

If I spend ~70 years being a terrible human being, like a war criminal or something, and then I perhaps have 10 years left to do positive things, we can say that my existence in the most optimistic case is a net negative for society, sure, if that's a framing you want to talk about. However, killing me at ~70 doesn't undo the bad things I did, it does not reach into the past and make a single thing any less damaging, all you've succeeded in doing is preventing me from doing positive things in the future. In effect, you have made the net impact of my life worse than it otherwise would have been (again, if that's a framing you care about, which I don't).

This invites an obvious counter: "But that's the most optimistic case! You could very well just continue to be a scoundrel."

That's correct. Most people underestimate what you can achieve with rehabilitation, but it's still true. However, the thing to consider is that me being a scoundrel while stuck in a re-education camp doesn't hold a candle to me being a scoundrel in my hypothetical war criminal past. It's overall a basically negligible negative, a much lesser negative than the positive impact if I actually was able to contribute positively in a more optimistic case. The average of these scenarios is weighted very plainly toward living being positive even if you think the better outcomes are much less likely, and I consider the average to be a very important consideration because we aren't really considering an individual case, we are considering the aggregate impact of many thousands of cases.

As you allude to, even the "negative" case of the stubborn war criminal can be viewed as still being positive in many cases if they are doing penal labor in the meantime that economically offsets the costs of their captivity, which can be true when considering the captive population collectively.

There is only one real question in this situation, and that's what will produce the best outcome for the whole of society. We should not let punitive sentiment get in the way of benefiting people.

I am also posting from the state of Minnesota where my emotions are inflamed by the murder of my neighbors, so you can also attribute my bloodlust to be using past groups as a proxy for what I feel should be done here and now, before the 'peace' has been established.

I'm glad that you see it as bloodlust rather than just self-evident morality. It's understandable why you'd feel that way and I'm certainly not trying to attack you for that, even if I criticize some of your assertions that seem to be predicated upon it.

I don't really have any answer for what you should do over in Minnesota, because that's a very different kind of situation and, as I said before, what should be done depends on shifting logistical concerns more than anything else. I certainly won't cry for any members of ICE winding up lying in the bed they made, even if I would advocate against putting them there in a situation where we had more leeway to choose as we wanted (which is not the present situation).

[–] Inui@hexbear.net 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I'm taking in the rest of what you've said but I do want to clarify that when I described making people feel whole, I was talking about the main victim. Not appeasing their family. As in, the people who were directly impacted must have a say, not necessarily decision making power, but be involved in the process. And when this is done, they usually wish not to enact the most extreme punishment. Pointing in favor of not immediately jumping to that as a main form of punishment if one of the goals is to make the affected feel safe again and not double disenfranchised by the forces meant to protect them.

Essentially arguing against myself and agreeing with the response you made to another user.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm taking in the rest of what you've said

I'm sorry that I'm not better at being succinct. I'm sure another person could have conveyed the same arguments in not quite as many paragraphs . . .

but I do want to clarify that when I described making people feel whole, I was talking about the main victim. Not appeasing their family

My bad here too, I definitely misread it at least partially. I'm sure it won't surprise you to know that it doesn't change the substance of what I would say all that much, but I still should have been more careful to represent what you said accurately.

[–] Inui@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

No worries, I'm just sorting out how I actually feel about what you've said and under better conditions with a cooler head, I'd probably agree a lot more readily. Scrolling the news makes it hard to do though given the flood of new occurrences every day. I'm sure I'd think differently if the people had absolute power over what comes next, ala the original question posed by OP.

It was my bad for not being clear, I was sort of jumping between points while I was thinking about them. I do appreciate the substantive replies though.

[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

In terms of reparations, I don't think how re educated someone is or could be should be taken into account. An act of economic justice via redistribution is not based on any individual's mind state.

[–] Inui@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago

Oh for sure. Asset seizure should be a given. Anything else is a separate consideration.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I would say that killing the children of nobles is generally not necessary. If you already have power enough to kill every adult, you can probably re-educate the kids.

Mao also correctly understood the immense value of rehabilitation.

[–] Biggay@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think the revolutionary terror of the French was in an altogether different mind and material set than the Chinese. French nobility was extremely entrenched and had a lot of inertia to continuing or reassuming power, an almost totally uninterrupted power for a millennium. Compared to the Chinese where they were dominated by foreign powers, where the authority of their royal and noble families where concentrated in a rump state of bureaucrats and repressed liberals, for a century they languished in humiliation and want. The multiple millennia of concentrated and cyclical rule of Chinese emperors was disrupted that there was no inertia to really bring it back. Even the kuomintang would likely only retain the child emperor like a figurehead of Japanese nature.

Which can also lead you back to the Russian revolution, what place would the Romanov children have? You would have to hide their identities from everyone, the whites where desperate for some central power to harken to, and its one of the main reasons why their project failed in my opinion.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 1 points 3 days ago

The Romanov kids were executed because of logistical extenuating circumstances and some degree of panic about the Whites imminently being able to retrieve them. If that wasn't the case, the kids could have just been held in captivity for the time being. It was to the best of my knowledge the actual intention of the central leadership of the Bolsheviks to try Nicholas II and spare the family, though they endorsed the killing once it happened because it was a reasonable response to the circumstances.

That said, even if that specific "scare" of their retrieval didn't happen, it would be a continuous liability down the line, and I think the singular centrality and religious importance of the royal family makes them maybe not a great comparison to "every single child born to any noble household in the state of France".

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago

It definitely explains why the Zionist Left exists primarily in Germany.

[–] Carl@hexbear.net 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

In concept: yes we should absolutely do them. It should be the remit of currently-existing society to seek justice, and on the stage of nation states one state committing injustice against the world cannot be resolved except by ad hoc systems like these enforced by the winners of an armed conflict.

In practice: it has mostly been a method by which the powerful countries consolidate their control over the rest of the world and launder their reputation. They say to us: "look at this long list of African and Middle Eastern warlords and all of the atrocities they committed with child soldiers and suicide bombers" while never prosecuting a single westerner for the atrocities they committed with spreadsheets and aerial drones. Milošević gets a trial for his role in the Yugoslav Wars, but nobody was held responsible for the sanctions against Iraq in the 90s which killed an estimated 500,000 children.

[–] Mardoniush@hexbear.net 9 points 3 days ago

I think trials are important and crimes against humanity and essential notion. To see the BBC argue against this simply confirms the old adage that a Socialist is simply someone who takes Liberal ideals seriously and to their logical conclusion.

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 12 points 3 days ago
[–] Sickos@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 1 points 1 day ago

hm I just read the wikipedia on this and it is barely discernible that these people are among the "victims" of communism. makes it sound like a massacre of women and children.

[–] BeanisBrain@hexbear.net 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The only bad things about the Nuremberg trials were not enough convictions and not enough death sentences

[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 6 points 3 days ago

If that's your logic, then not enough trials.

Only the very tippy toppy were tried. Most got away with bad vibes, if that.

[–] Trying2KnowMyself@hexbear.net 8 points 3 days ago

I haven’t really thought deeply about it, but by that same argument, wouldn’t a docudrama about the trials also provide a chance for the world to learn about their position - even if it presumably tries to take a stance against their actions?

[–] save_vs_death@hexbear.net 6 points 3 days ago (3 children)

idk, i think it makes your arguments to be quite lame if right after making them you get shot in the head, idk, i might just be built different

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 6 points 3 days ago

trial to determine whether we shoot them in the head immediately or get some guy who simultaneously doesn't know what he's doing and knows exactly what he's doing to intentionally botch the hangings

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago

I think it rather punctuated Guevara's argument, not that I think it would do the same for some freak proclaiming that he is dying for the Volk.

[–] hellinkilla@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago

execution by firing squad is reserved for elites and officers. these ones were hung t emphasize of their low, degraded situation. the ones who were sentenced to death, anyway. which wasn't all of them. within a few years, most of them were free.

[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You wouldn’t be the first to gather that from the Nuremberg trials. They made evil seem boring, and justice seem petty.

You might like this theater kid’s YouTube essay about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Ay5tzHIBU

[–] HexReplyBot@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: