Conference taveng::bagels

    Since there is no absolute rule of law recognized by all countries, and 
    since a moral code generally reflects local norms, it is almost 
    impossible to discuss the issue you raise.
    
    From what I understand, the Nazi party came to power in 
    Germany legally, and its laws restricting Jewish liberties were 
    properly legislated, according to the rules of the 3rd Reich, and thus, 
    all of these acts were legal.  The death camps were established in 
    what was called, the "Generalgouvernement", a portion of occupied 
    Poland.  I suppose that the laws that governed this area were 
    obeyed, in support of the morality that applied.

    The Nazis applied the so-called "Salami" tactic: get them slicewise.
    First, they reduced the right to travel, then the right to get out of
    town, then the right to get out of the neighbourhood, then the right to
    get out of the house. Similarly, they banned Jews from official jobs,
    then trading, then the doctors were only allowed to cure Jewish
    patients, etc. On top, a Jew made the mistake to kill the German
    ambassador in France. That gave the Nazis a pseudo-official 'green
    light' for their persecutions.
    
    Legal? I'm afraid the word looses all and any substance in this
    context. For current abuse of legality, cf. Iran. This is not a
    comparison, merely a pointer.
    
    Repelledly yours,
    
    Chris

>It seems to me that most people would want some sort of congruence between
>laws and what was or wasn't moral.  

I seem to recall studying (as an undergraduate back in the 60's in a 
Philosophy course) a debate between H L A Hart and another jurist named
(L ?) Fuller concerning the general relationship between law and morality, 
in which the Nuremberg Laws of the Nazis were a key example. I don't remember
many of the fine points of the debate, but it was an interesting exchange.
Unfortunately I cannot give you a pointer to the debate. It was probably
excerpts from articles which we were given to read, and I have no idea 
where the articles first appeared. Although, hold on... H L A Hart had a
book on Morality and The Law, if I am not mistaken. Maybe you could check
the bibliography there for further references.

-ZAITCH

Thanks for the replies.  I had suspected that the Nazis probably enacted
laws to make what they did "legal" while still being immoral to nearly
everyone.  The interview I had heard on the radio was someone reacting to
people comparing the aborting of fetuses to the Holocaust ( I don't want
to start another debate on abortion however), and the person disagreed with
the comparison by saying that what was wrong with the comparison was that
abortion was legal in the US, which implied that the Holocaust wasn't "legal"
in Nazi Germany.  I would have expected the person to disagree with the
comparison based on their view of the comparative morality of the two
situations instead of on the comparitive legality since the congruence of
legality and morality becomes less the more subjective morality becomes.

In any case, thanks for the info.

Paul

    There are so many instances of the term "Holocaust" being used to 
    describe something brutal, offensive, unacceptable.  Such broad 
    application of the term deprives both events of their uniquenes, 
    and defines the user as someone lacking in imagination and vocabulary.

    Re .0:
    
    I'm writing this without checking reference material but somewhere
    I remember that although the Nazis came to power legally in 1933
    it wasn't too long after that things like democracy and individual
    freedom went down the tubes. The Nazis gradually eased out all other
    political parties (Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, etc) until
    Hitler was in a position not unlike Louis XIV's (?) ("I am the State").
    
    I think the Holocaust resulted from some kind of Fuehrer Directive
    (I'll have to look it up when I have some more time) which resulted
    from the Nazi Party endorsing absolute rule of Germany by Adolf
    Hitler (sometime after September 1939 I think). In any event, Hitler
    delegated the Holocaust to his SS henchmen while the Wehrmacht was
    responsible for the conduct of the war (although the SS was involved
    with that too - Waffen SS). Incidentally, from the histories I've
    read the average Prussian Wehrmacht type generally looked down on
    the Waffen SS (although they didn't mind making use of them on the
    Russian Front or at Oradour Sur Glane in France where they wiped
    out the entire town).
    
    Mark

    Apology: I am writing this without checking any bibliography.

    1. The Holocaust was "illegal" by Nazi German laws: Even if there
       were laws preventing jews from holding public positions, making
       business, being citizens, etc., no law condemned us to death 
       for the reason of being Jewish.

    2. The Germans tryed to cover all their extermination operations
       with euphemisms that, even transparent and clear to all, avoided
       expliciting death and extermination. Example: Jews were to be 
       "SB" at the concentration camps (SB: 'Sonder behandelt' i.e.: 
       receive 'Special' treatment - all documentation just forgot to
       mention that Special treatment ment carbon-mono-oxide or cianyde).
       A 2nd example: Jews were "processed' by the EinzatsGruppen: they
       were shot in common graves.

    3. Himmler himself, when visiting the terrible Trebinka camp, he
       gathered the SS staff and in a speech he spoke about the fate
       of those that worked in the secrecy for the "vaterland" and whose
       deeds would "never" come to light. Of course, if their actions 
       would have been "legal" for their own standards, he would not have 
       used any euphemisms nor hide his deeds.

    4. The "Final Solution" was decided at the Wannsee conference, in 
       Berlin, the protocols of which speak of tranporting Jews to the
       "East" and logistics requirements, but no formal "sentence" is 
       spoken out.

    5. The "euthanasy" (sp.? eu- thanatos: mercy killing) of the mentally
       ill and/or deformed that preceded the "Final Solution" - most of
       the Concentration Camps commanders came out from this "project" - 
       was not covered by legislation either and was suspended after the
       Protestant Churches begun complaining against it. I allways wander
       what might have been if the public opinion in Germany would have 
       been against the "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem"...

    6. It would be possible to find references in books such as "Hitler's
       war against the Jews", etc.

    Juan-Carlos
       


    Re .7:
    
    Hi Juan:
    
    Your memory for details is better than mine....
    
    I was reading "Jewish People, Jewish Thought" last night and the
    author mentioned that the Nazi policies against Jews basically came
    in a three stage process. The first two stages essentially involved
    denial of common civil liberties; for example, Jews were gradually
    squeezed out of employment in education, the law, and other
    professions.
    
    The real crunch came in 1938 on Kristalnacht when the Nazis destroyed
    Jewish shops and set synagogues on fire. The handwriting was on
    the wall so to speak (looking back with 20-20 historical hindsight),
    evidenced by the fact that Albert Einstein was in the US by 1939
    (if memory serves me correctly this time).
    
    The bottom line is the denial of civil liberties and the right to
    life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or its German equivalent)
    were legislated out of existence. I'm not up on my Holocaust history
    enough to know whether that legislation was as far as the Nazis
    dared push it (given the outcry against euthanasia) and which led them
    to keeping The Final Solution a secret as long as they could.
    
    Mark

    The "Final Solution" was applied to two people: the Jews and the
    Tzigans. In total, 10 million people (6m Jews) died for genocidial
    intents of a sick man.
    
    The other millions who died for political or POW reasons in the camps
    are yet another chapter. 
    
    The question of legality just isn't to be asked without making it
    sound cynical.
    
    Legal or not is NOT the question.
    
    Plagiatingly yours,
    
    Chris

    Tzigans = Gypsies

    Re .9:
    
    >The other millions who died for political or POW reasons in the
    >camps are yet another chapter.
    
    I wish American anti-semites (you know the ones - the Holocaust
    is a "myth") would review their history a little. American servicemen
    (especially those connected with the OSS) perished in various
    concentration camps during WWII. In fact, the Germans were so incensed
    over American bombing raids that they made some captured USAAF aircrew
    (at a camp in Austria I believe) carry mankilling loads of stone
    up a hill until all of them perished.
    
    Mark

    Re: .11
    
    >I wish American anti-semites (you know the ones - the Holocaust
    >is a "myth") would review their history a little.
    
    They desire not to review history, but to re-write it.
    Jeremy
    

    
    > I wish American anti-semites (you know the ones - the Holocaust
    > is a "myth") would review their history a little. American servicemen
    
    And I wish the non-American anti-semites would review theirs, too.  
    
      Alan

    Alan, unfortunately, has it right:
    
    The "didn't exist", "major cover-up", etc. stories are blossoming
    everywhere.
    
    Informedly yours,
    
    Chris

    "the Holocaust is a `myth'?"  I'm flabbergasted!  Being a Christian
    who was raised Catholic in New Hampshire, I don't get to view much 
    anti-semitic behavior.  When I hear of things like that, I get so 
    *angry*!
    
    This is the one period of history, above all others, that *must*
    be constantly studied, reviewed, ingrained in our memories forever!
    We cannot allow anything like that to ever happen again!  And to
    think that there are ignoramuses out there who try to deny that
    it ever happened!
    
    On a different note (but related to my first paragraph), one of
    the earliest things that made me doubt/back away from the Catholic
    church was (at age 7) the realization that in the Old Testament
    the Jews were the good guys, and in the New Testament they were
    all going to hell.  Even at 7, that didn't make any sense to me,
    and when I questioned my father, he didn't have a very good answer.
    Now I'm a non-denominational Christian, who firmly believes that
    the horrors of Nazi Germany must be widely studied to keep history
    from repeating itself.
    
    Susan