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The devil’s greatest trick

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img_1187The 19th Century French poet, Charles Baudelaire, wrote the devil’s greatest deception was convincing the world he didn’t exist.

On Monday a German federal court upheld the July conviction of Auschwitz SS camp guard, Oskar Gröning who admitted to witnessing the reality of Hitler’s Final Solution but had no direct role in the killings.

Oskar Gröning has been found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews. He was sentenced to a four year jail term.

The ruling is important because it overturns an almost 50-year-old German legal interpretation, where an SS dentist at Auschwitz was acquitted because direct knowledge without actual participation in mass murder was not regarded as sufficient proof of guilt.

Full column here:

155 Comments

  • Rhys Needham says:

    Sadly, I see Andrew Sachs who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers has died – http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-02/andrew-sachs-known-for-playing-manuel-dies-aged-86/8086430?section=arts-culture. Vale.

    Adds to the Kiwi rock legend, Ray Columbus, and Allan Zavod who played with Frank Zappa for a number of years, in the last few days.

  • Jean Baptiste says:

    Milton 4:38PM

    Weak as water, you child. You wont debate because you’re hopelessly out of your depth. Take the cheap shot and run away.

    Quayle on the Coast 5:31PM

    Yeah right! First, apologies to Lloyd Bensteen.
    “I never worked with Galileo, I did not know Galileo but I am familiar with his discoveries, and one thing I can tell you for sure Carl. You aint no Galileo.

    http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/

    You’re thinking of me all the time? That’s a disturbing obsession you have there.
    Cheers.

    Trivalve 6:10PM

    Great remark TV. Save a motzah if we turfed our parliamentarians and replaced them with backpackers too.

    Yvonne 7:20PM 1st

    “I’m not a rabid Greens supporter-”

    What! Just rabid?
    Give ’em Heaps.

    Indian Cricketer 8:43PM

    You had trouble finding the site. Not real bright, how hard can it be? But I have to ask. What is the most important job in Australia?

    • Indian Cricketer says:

      Mr JB, thank you for your interest in reading my most humble contribution. From a perusal of you work, you appear to be a contributor whose quality of writing is without peer and your concern for both the disadvantaged and the environment shows a sense of humanity I find most lacking in contemporary society. Thus it is with much trepidation that I must ask why you choose to treat your fellow bloggers with such irreverence, dare I say disdain? Is it the penal colony influence from European settlement? Or is it a deeper flaw in your otherwise seemingly impeccable character? May I offer a suggestion – that you make a pilgrimage to India; a first step in a never ending journey to begin a path of healing by helping others.

  • Dwight says:

    Trump at rally in Cincinnati: “We are nominating Gen. “Mad Dog” Mattis as Secretary of Defense. But don’t tell anyone as we’re not announcing it until Monday.” Winning another few news cycles.

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    Pauline Hanson may have to change the name of her Party Mr Insider to “Hanson’s Many Nations” as again we see them splintering all over the place, not turning up for meetings with dear Leader etc. And some pea brains are calling for Hanson to be PM!
    http://tinyurl.com/znl5psf

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    Comical yesterday Mr Insider to hear “current” PM Turnbull sledge Bill Shorten using the now famous “Harbourside Mansions” line and of course as we all know it was ex ousted PM Abbott’s right hand help Peta Credlin who gave us that line. Still Malcolm is entitled to a years end stuff up to match the ones all year round!

  • John O'Hagan says:

    I don’t claim to have any definitive answers to this kind of murky moral dilemma, but to take a somewhat similar example, what about someone who worked for a religious order and methodically arranged for children to be abused without actually abusing them himself? Would he be entitled to any concessions for subsequent remorse? If not, how is it different from Gröning’s case?

  • Razor says:

    Well Malcolm ended the last week well. A bit of compromise but that’s politics. I would have loved to have seen Shortens face when he found out about the deal with the Greens! He would have been apoplectic. I’m starting to think Malcolm might be warming to the role finally.

    Also credit where credit is due to Qld Labor and the CFMEU for the new legislation passed last night regarding the setting up of seperate bank accounts so head contractors and subbies are paid at the same time. The rest of the legislation was crap but that bit was a bright point.

  • Indian Cricketer says:

    Much searching has led me to this most venerable yet hard to find site. Perhaps your Aussie cricket team should also go into hiding after their recent performance. I find it most apt that the only Test match you Aussies could win was with a pink ball – perhaps you were channelling the powers of the unbeatable women’s cricket team. You Aussie males, it’s time to consider handing over the second most important job in your country to women’s cricket captain.

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