What is the exact definition of the fine line between War and Murder?

[Frankie]

After having watched a History documentary on WW2, a question arose. What actually defines the fine line between an act of war and murder?

This particular documentary showed amongst other things a re-enactment of a trial of a German SS Officer who allegedly was involved in the murder of a group of Canadian prisoners of war by members at Hells corner.

What struck, as most odd was that this documentary implied that only one country "Germany's military", were tried for acts of murder and no other countries military?
Why was this, especially as before this re-enactment of the trial, one of the Canadian military said that there had been these acts of murder committed on the German POW by their side too?

Is it a fair and just trial of a person, when the members of the court entirely consists of members from that aggrieved country that has brought this individual up on charges of murder?

As the SS officer was originally sentenced to be shot, then later sentenced to life imprisonment * see below* did the Canadian public state that no justice was served?


If one person can be brought for trial and sentenced for an act of murder during war, what then stops citizens caught in the war from taking the country to blame to court for murder and or criminal damage?

Who placed the buffers in situ that allows a person to kill in the name of war, but then as in the case above contradict.

Are these buffers an actual legal status or just mere assumptions by the Military personnel?

*[i]The Officer, was found not guilty of actual ordering the killing of this POW's, and was let of the firing squad following a mistake during the trial and sentence. He served x amount of years in a Canadian Jail before being moved to a German jail. He spend overall 10 years in jail before being released.]/i] *

[Bjorn]

You shoot and kill someone during the battle. Fine. No crime. :)

You shoot and kill a defenseless POW. Not fine. Crime. :(

[shanek]

Murder is when you and I do it. War is when the government does it.

[Frankie]

Originally posted by Bjorn
You shoot and kill someone during the battle. Fine. No crime. :)

You shoot and kill a defenceless POW. Not fine. Crime. :(
Your in a building looking for possible snipers, you find an enemy in one of the rooms and shoot him. He did not shoot you or was firing shots. Crime or war?

Your approaching an enemy solider, he's shooting at you and your squad, as you get right up to him he surrenders. You shoot him. Crime or war?

A group of unarmed POW's sitting on the roadside, one escapes you shoot him crime or war?

[Frankie]

Originally posted by shanek
Murder is when you and I do it. War is when the government does it.
Then why was that SS officer on trial for murder? He was in a war that his Governement said he had to do.

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Frankie

Your in a building looking for possible snipers, you find an enemy in one of the rooms and shoot him. He did not shoot you or was firing shots. Crime or war?

Your approaching an enemy solider, he's shooting at you and your squad, as you get right up to him he surrenders. You shoot him. Crime or war?

A group of unarmed POW's sitting on the roadside, one escapes you shoot him crime or war? I'm sure you can construct situations where the answer is not easy. Courts are handling such cases on a regular basis for civilians.

However, the case you introduced in your first post said:

a trial of a German SS Officer who allegedly was involved in the murder of a group of Canadian prisoners of war by members at Hells corner. If he murdered a group of POW's, why shouldn't he be tried for it? :confused:

[geni]

Originally posted by Frankie

Your in a building looking for possible snipers, you find an enemy in one of the rooms and shoot him. He did not shoot you or was firing shots. Crime or war?

War

Your approaching an enemy solider, he's shooting at you and your squad, as you get right up to him he surrenders. You shoot him. Crime or war?

Crime

A group of unarmed POW's sitting on the roadside, one escapes you shoot him crime or war?
War

[KelvinG]

Originally posted by Frankie
What struck, as most odd was that this documentary implied that only one country "Germany's military", were tried for acts of murder and no other countries military?


This is one of the down sides of being on the losing side. Even if allied countries were committing war crimes, would there be much impetus to investigate and bring about charges? Somehow I doubt it.

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Frankie
Then why was that SS officer on trial for murder? He was in a war that his Governement said he had to do. There are rules and laws regarding the treatment of POWs. Murdering them is not on the to-do list.

Originally posted by KelvinG
This is one of the down sides of being on the losing side. Even if allied countries were committing war crimes, would there be much impetus to investigate and bring about charges? Somehow I doubt it.Well, luckily we did on some occations, and US soldiers have been tried and found guilty of war crimes by US courts. How eager we have been to find and investigate such cases, I don't know.

[KelvinG]

Originally posted by Bjorn
Well, luckily we did on some occations, and US soldiers have been tried and found guilty of war crimes by US courts. How eager we have been to find and investigate such cases, I don't know.

Yes, I never meant to imply it has never happened, just that it is less likely to happen.
But, I don't have any solid evidence to back it up. It's just speculation on my part. (Oops, a real no-no on this board!)

[Frankie]

Originally posted by Bjorn
I'm sure you can construct situations where the answer is not easy. Courts are handling such cases on a regular basis for civilians.

However, the case you introduced in your first post said:

If he murdered a group of POW's, why shouldn't he be tried for it? :confused:
He didn't murder then or give the order to. That was why I thought it odd and wondered just what was this fine line.

As an officer is he to be held totally responsible for his mens crimes, if they shot POW's without his order or knowledge and then he was shot as originally sentenced to by the court would that not be wrong?

Where do you draw that line and at who?

[CapelDodger]

As a Canadian on the program said, if your enemy has kept firing at you and hitting your mates until you get right on top of him and then throws his hands up, anger and frustration can rule. But marching prisoners off for execution, or shooting them where they sit, is something else. There's hot-blood and cold-blood, and they can't be treated the same.

But when you fly a bomber over a German city and drop your bombs, is that hot-blood or cold-blood? Perfectly normal non-homicidal guys did that during WW2 and went back home to be normal non-homicidal guys. Because it was "War". There seems to be a deep-seated understanding of what "War" means and it allows for very different behaviours wthout major trauma. (This is not to say that everyone reacted that way, but many men did.)

Perhaps the fundamental question is the difference between "killing" and "murder". Murder is what you do to someone within your group. Killing is what you do to someone outside your group. You might do it to steal his horse and woman in both cases but there's a definite difference. For instance, when you kill you can flaunt the horse and woman whereas after murder you have to sell them somewhere discreet.

When it comes to soldiers in battle, enemy soldiers can be more part of your group than your own officers, and almost always more than the politicos back home. The SS, and particularly the Hitler Jugend division, weren't normal soldiers. The HJ weren't even the same species, really. They were also guilty of fake surrenders which caused early casualties. After that, surrender wasn't an option. But they were lost as human beings long before.

[Frankie]

Originally posted by geni
Your in a building looking for possible snipers, you find an enemy in one of the rooms and shoot him. He did not shoot you or was firing shots. Crime or war?

War

Your approaching an enemy solider, he's shooting at you and your squad, as you get right up to him he surrenders. You shoot him. Crime or war?

Crime

A group of unarmed POW's sitting on the roadside, one escapes you shoot him crime or war?

War

Please explain your answers to the above situations?

Your answers make me curious to know who or why you answered as such. The first one and the last one you say are war. But the middle one is a crime?

[Frankie]

Originally posted by CapelDodger
As a Canadian on the program said, if your enemy has kept firing at you and hitting your mates until you get right on top of him and then throws his hands up, anger and frustration can rule. But marching prisoners off for execution, or shooting them where they sit, is something else. There's hot-blood and cold-blood, and they can't be treated the same.

But when you fly a bomber over a German city and drop your bombs, is that hot-blood or cold-blood? Perfectly normal non-homicidal guys did that during WW2 and went back home to be normal non-homicidal guys. Because it was "War". There seems to be a deep-seated understanding of what "War" means and it allows for very different behaviours without major trauma. (This is not to say that everyone reacted that way, but many men did.)

When it comes to soldiers in battle, enemy soldiers can be more part of your group than your own officers, and almost always more than the politicos back home. The SS, and particularly the Hitler Jugend division, weren't normal soldiers. The HJ weren't even the same species, really. They were also guilty of fake surrenders which caused early casualties. After that, surrender wasn't an option. But they were lost as human beings long before.
Hitler Jugend division it was them. But surely as you say they were a different species well wasn't that was how they were trained to be. Even in the recounting of war tales I noticed not many Germans do not show their emotions as much as the Canadians for example. I put his down to how they were initially trained. I know Meyer(?) was emotionless at his sentence I again assumed that was how they were, and later after his release from prison he still showed no remorse. Though I did find his self promotion of the SS etc very hard to stomach.

Hitler Jugend division were not as bad as some of their other counterparts though this particular incident was evil.

[quote]Perhaps the fundamental question is the difference between "killing" and "murder". Murder is what you do to someone within your group. Killing is what you do to someone outside your group. You might do it to steal his horse and woman in both cases but there's a definite difference. For instance, when you kill you can flaunt the horse and woman whereas after murder you have to sell them somewhere discreet.quote] I will beg to differ with you, some murderers like to keep trophies so that is not entirely true.

I don't quite grasp your meaning. Murder within the group, Killing outside the group? are you saying that in war murder and killing are different animals to that in normal life?

[Frankie]

Bjorn or indeed anybody, out of curiosity what are the rules and laws on the treatment of POW's?

[The Fool]

Originally posted by Frankie


Please explain your answers to the above situations?

Your answers make me curious to know who or why you answered as such. The first one and the last one you say are war. But the middle one is a crime?
If the middle one is a crime there are a lot of criminal soldiers around. Troops that continue to shoot at you but then want to throw away thier weapons and put the hands up when they are overrun rarely get what they want. They are highly likely to get a bullet as the assaulting troops move through. They cannot stop to be concerned with prisoners, they move through shooting anyone not in the same uniform.... Did he have his arms in the air? did he have a weapon? Irrelevant. I doubt if the assaulting troops would notice or care.
Start worrying about crime after the battle is over. When the surviving enemy are rounded up and processed, thats when they cease being combatants...running around when a fight is still happening with your arms in the air is not going to get you any special treatment.

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Frankie
Bjorn or indeed anybody, out of curiosity what are the rules and laws on the treatment of POW's? Five seconds on Google:

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

The Geneva Convention says a lot of things and you might want to read it. One quote:

Article 13

Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Frankie
He didn't murder then or give the order to. That was why I thought it odd and wondered just what was this fine line.How can we know what he did or didn't when the only info we have is from you and it looks like this:

a trial of a German SS Officer who allegedly was involved in the murder of a group of Canadian prisoners of war by members at Hells corner.

[Frankie]

Originally posted by Bjorn
How can we know what he did or didn't when the only info we have is from you and it looks like this:



Give me a bit of time I might find some link to it. It was a tale end recording from another program. I will re watch it and write down his name etc and than go look for you ok?

[Jon_in_london]

As has been said above, its easy to construct situations where the line is blurry.

If you have been trying and possibly succeeding in killing members of a group of people and then attempt to appeal to their sense of mercy at the last minute, well;

1: They may accept your surrender and treat you well.

2: They may accept your surrender and in the heat of the moment kick the crap out of you because you just killed their mates, and frankly I sympathise.

3: They may just shoot you or blow up your arse anyway.

I think all three of these regularly happen in all conflicts regardless of whos fighting, and honestly we cant really complain about this, its war and war isnt a nice fluffy cuddley thing.

However, to kill out of hand, a group of disarmed POWs whos surrender has been accepted and who are attempting no escape or take any offensive action, well thats murder.

[Mauler]

According to my training (1991-1994, USMC) it would be :

Your in a building looking for possible snipers, you find an enemy in one of the rooms and shoot him. He did not shoot you or was firing shots. Crime or war?

Act of war. One doesn't have to be actively engaging in combat against the individual to be an enemy combatant. Since there is no act of surrender on the part of the enemy it's an act of war.

Your approaching an enemy solider, he's shooting at you and your squad, as you get right up to him he surrenders. You shoot him. Crime or war?

Crime. At the moment his surrender is communicated his status changes away from enemy combatant, but his surrender must be unmistakeable.

A group of unarmed POW's sitting on the roadside, one escapes you shoot him crime or war?

War. Shooting escaping POW's is long established to be an act of war. "Letting" them escape to shoot them would be a crime.

[Crossbow]

First, the Germans did sign on to the 'Geneva Convention' which outlines how prisoners of war are to be treated, and one of those rules state quite clearly that one cannot execute POWs unless it can somehow be proved that they committed a capital crime while they were a POW (spying, murder, etc.).

Second, probably every side did at least some war crimes, and if you can get a front-line soldier from any country to talk honestly to you, then you will soon see that there were many war crimes which were not prosecuted. That is one of the advantages of being the winner in armed conflict, that you get to impose your will upon the losers.

By the way shanek, that was a good call about the difference between war and murder.

[Tmy]

"War" is for the winners and "murder" is for the losers. The winning side makes the definitions. Its not like anyone really has the right to take life, they only have the ability.

Fox News has been big on this story of some US Lt Cornel who used some shady tactics to get a captured insurgent to spill his guts on soem pland to attck US troops. THe Cornel turned himslef into his bosses and fessed up to his rule breaking tactics. I think he was forced to resign. Of course FOX NEws has him on and everyone loves the guy and thinks he shoud be given a metal for his actions. Now imagine if an Iraqi Cornel had done the same to some captured Coalition soldier. He'd be facing war crime charges.