As a concrete example of such actions, on Nov. 21, 1942, a Gestapo agent was shot and killed by the Ukrainian resistance in the City of Lviv in Galicia. In reprisal the Germans applied their “100-for-1″ principle by picking 100 foremost Ukrainian civilians throughout Galicia and executing them by firing squad on Nov. 27, 1942. History does not record justice ever having been meted out to the responsible Germans, for this or any other innumerable similar war crimes committed against Ukrainians by the Germans.

The interesting thing about this prosecution is how unique it is. Other than the little Nuremburgs just after the war, where the lesser mass-murderers like Hans Frank were prosecuted, there has been little activity on this front in Germany. One of the other commenters brought up Christopher Browning’s book “Ordinary Men”. That book is based on the “oral testimonies” gathered by the German government regarding this unit in the mid-60s. The Germans apparently guaranteed anonymity for everyone who talked to their oral historians, to the point of recording literally hundreds of murders, sometimes of the elderly or infants, without prosecuting or otherwise punishing anyone. It’s hard for us in the United States to imagine, but Germans are racist towards other nationalities in Europe to an extent that makes no sense to us.

So, I would imagine there are dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of former concentration camp guards who participated in the deaths of millions. We’re not just talking the six million Jews, by the way: Hitler had murdered hundreds of thousands of other people, and the Germans captured 3.5 million Prisoners of War, and worked/starved almost all of them to death by the end of the war. Demjanjuk was one of those captured; the fact that he volunteered to do something, in order to get out of starving to death in a labor camp is something of a mitigating factor.

The chief difference between Demjanjuk and these other possible defendants is that Demjanjuk isn’t German. Germany, as a result, can show its zeal in prosecuting Nazi-era war criminals, without actually prosecuting any of its own citizens. Since those citizens, and their relatives, have essentially bought into the “I was only following orders” defense for their relatives and countrymen, Demjanjuk is a wonderful surrogate. They can prosecute him *instead* of grandpa, and the international community won’t know the difference.

Jan Demjanjuk is being tried in Germany because Israel’s prohibition of double jeopardy prevents him from being tried there. His prosecutors have forum shopped in order to levy charges against him that could not be brought in the nation whose population is composed largely of the very people that he is supposed to have killed.

This is a travesty. It is a shame that the German constitution does not prohibit double jeopardy as does every other democratic state. I thought they had rid their judiciary of fascist elements.

The gross ignorance of the MSM is beyond belief. Wehrmacht soldiers represented the “ordinary men” depicted in the work of Christopher Browning. They were often not ideological Nazis—and could even ignore the orders to murder Jews and other so-called inferior people. John Demjanjuk’s case is disturbing. I am not always a fan of Pat Buchanan. His seems anti-Semitic at times. Buchanan’s defense of Demjanjuk, however, does appear reasonable. Why indeed is there so much emphasis on prosecuting this “smallest of the small fish”? Is it to convey the impression that the legal systems of Europe are actually doing something while allowing far worst alleged monsters to continue enjoying their freedom?