Um...What?

Lithium

@surreality That's a fair point, I don't think standard soldiers got tried as war criminals. The grandfather in question /did/ volunteer though, so that would sort of be like going to Isis from Sweden now, but, I am also guessing that Sweden might not have the same reaction to the whole Nazi conundrum as other countries, different cultural standards etc.

Aria

@cupcake While most Swedish volunteers were SS, not all were. His grandfather wasn't, so I'm not really sure what he could've reported and what may or may not have been done about it without evidence for an obvious charge.

ETA Answers to Questions:
@surreality Serving in the SS in any form, save as a conscript, was an offense that could be tried. After Nuremburg, it was declared a criminal organization because of the acts it committed, so yes, if you were Joe Bob -- or since it was German, Josef Wilhelm -- SS tank mechanic, you could be tried. If you weren't in the SS, not so much. The Wehrmacht as a whole was largely given a pass at Nuremberg; a few specific people were tried, but it was mostly high-ranking officers as you stated.

@Lithium Sweden was officially neutral during WWII, and did a great deal to rescue Denmark's Jews. Not to mention Raoul Wallenberg's actions in Hungary. Which Swedes are all very proud of -- now. What is often not mentioned is how much iron ore they shipped to Nazi Germany, which was something like ten million tons per year, and was crucial to Germany's war efforts. (Like, my dad is a gunsmith by hobby -- and a machinist by trade -- and to this day collects Swedish Mausers over German ones because of the higher quality steel.) There was also a Swedish Nazi party at the time, and membership in it was not always motivated by anti-Semitism, particularly during the 30s. Germany and Russia were the major powers in the Baltic, and the Swedes haaaaaaaaaaaated the Russians and had a tendency to go to war with them for a few hundred years, so anyone giving the finger to the Soviets held some appeal.

surreality

@lithium No lie, these days, with the current administration (and, frankly, for the past forever, even), I can't say I wouldn't be terrified of what could happen if the standard infantryman could be prosecuted for just being in active service.

Jaded

@surreality
So far as I understood what I learned from my history courses. The War Crimes Act that was established after WW2 by the Allies was for the collection and evidence gathering specifically on those soldiers and commanders who knowingly were committing war crimes and looting.

The standard soldiers who were pressed into service, 'volunteered' to protect their families, or were part of the standard military when the war broke out were only caught up in these prosecutions if they participated in acts that fell under those statutes.

It mostly targeted soldiers that were specifically those of the SS and those units responsible for moving stolen loot/property and those who were stationed at the various concentration camps. It also had the broad expanse to allow the allies to prosecute sympathizers under the same statutes.

surreality

@jaded That makes sense, yeah, and was the general understanding I had of it. I'd never dug into it, though, to confirm.

mietze

Report to whom? Sounds like grandpa is a Swedish National in Sweden. It sounds like the rest of the family is aware and hates it (and the older people probably suffered socially for it). There are still Nazi old folks living in Germany. The collaborators through Europe couldn’t/didn’t go anywhere most of the time.

The Tree of Woe

I am late to the Nazi party but I once wound up sitting next to a Neo-Nazi on a Greyhound for a trip to another city to take a class (that's another story... a boring one).

He asked me what I thought about National Socialism. Since there weren't any other seats, I dissembled a bit. Then he asked me what I thought about Dark Shadows. I like Dark Shadows, OK.

This Neo Nazi went on for the rest of the bus ride about how he and his father loved Dark Shadows and used to watch it together and he talked at length about the tattoo of Barnabas Collins he was going to get.

It was the oddest bus ride of my life.

Deleted

I once talked to a gangbanger from Cleveland on a bus about Existentialism.

Buses are the best.

Insomnia

I once got kissed by a gay guy, so a drunk guy wouldn't sit next to me on a bus.

Also @The-Tree-of-Woe Which Barnabas was he going to get? Original, remake, or movie?

surreality

@insomnia The remake would make for a more lethal drinking game than the forum one even if the only rule was 'take a drink every time someone mentions the phrase "two hundred years".' And it only lasted a single season!

Insomnia

@surreality I think I could handle it! I once did a drinking game where you took a drink every time they said mitochondria in Parasite Eve.

Cobalt

@emmahsue said in Um...What?:

@cobaltasaurus

Why so many ? You play TTS with us, fgs!

ES

not on mac

Derp

@insomnia said in Um...What?:

@surreality I think I could handle it! I once did a drinking game where you took a drink every time they said mitochondria in Parasite Eve.

Maaaaaan. My liver hurts just thinking about that.

JinShei

Also late to nazi party.

I had a random patient decide to bring his folder of his clippings and nazi stuff from when he was one to a clinic appointment with me. The first time I met him and he just showed me this stuff. I was ..... And now I have to see the next person. BYE.

surreality

One of my great uncles was in one of the Italian military groups in Africa around then.

Another of my great uncles, his brother, was in a resistance group in Italy.

Both totally knew this about the other. They still had the occasional family dinner with all 11 siblings and their parents, back then.

What I would not give to be an Italian-speaking fly on that dining room wall.
I wonder if this is where the 'family tradition' of people in the family of my grandmother's generation pulling knives on each other in the kitchen came from, because it happened often enough to warrant the word 'tradition' being applied without a trace of irony. (Usually, it was over people adding shit to somebody else's sauce, but still.)
You have not actually lived until you've seen two little old Italian ladies in aprons emerge, rumpled and covered in tomato sauce, from the kitchen, hugging, while one of them is still holding a knife, after lots and lots of yelling in Italian. Because that's just... wow. No, this shit does not just happen in movies. Pretty sure that hasn't even happened in movies, come to think of it.
Somewhere, we still have some of the weird souvenir things that great uncle sent to my grandmother from Africa. They're weird generic 1940s tourist trinkets and she treasured them (because she loved all of her brothers very much, duh, and treasured everything she had been given by anyone in her family) but they're... not something we leave out on display, they're tucked neatly away in a drawer, wrapped up in bubble wrap. We all loved her too much to rid ourselves of them, but for many reasons, we... do not want them out and about.

Thenomain

So this thread has turned into a "when I met a fascist/socialist" thread.

Um...what?

(I am kidding; this is a fantastic series of um-whats.)

Aria

@thenomain said in Um...What?:

So this thread has turned into a "when I met a fascist/socialist" thread.

Um...what?

(I am kidding; this is a fantastic series of um-whats.)

Contrary the number of my moronic countrymen shrieking otherwise, those words are not synonyms.

Thenomain

@aria

I refer to these as nerd honey traps. It's not as sweet, but it's sure to catch someone.

(edit: specifically "nerd honey traps", because as nerds we are super cereal in our desire to make sure the world is correct. Actually this reminds me of Um Actually: The game show where nerds correct nerds. It's formatted as a game show and it's actually pretty good. Good times.)

mietze

@thenomain
At least it’s not called “Well, Actually...”

Aria

@thenomain

Ohh, I freely acknowledge that I can be a pedantic pain in the ass. But that one annoys me not because "OMG, someone is wrong on the internet!"

That one annoys me because the sheer level of political ignorance, and moreover the pride in political ignorance, is a fair part of why my country is a volcanic explosion of "What the fuck?!?!" right now. So, yeah. Yeah, I'mma point that one out every. single. time. Usually followed by my, "So. Have you ever collected unemployment/do you hope to collect social security when you retire?" thought experiment.