" ... German courts investigated more than 100,000 cases, only some 6,500 accused were convicted and, of these, most received light sentences. ... "
John Demjanjuk is a Ukrainian. The German courts have pursued him doggedly, and this begs the question: Why, when Nazis in abundance with blood on their hands have been living in the Reich all anong? ...
Excerpt: Demjanjuk saga enters final round
Kyiv Post | November 26, 2009
... Why has Germany decided to target Demjanjuk? And why now, after 30 years of silence, while the Demjanjuk case made its way through the U.S. and Israeli courts? After all, there was no shortage of Nazis to prosecute – no shortage of party members, Nazi government officials, army officers and camp commandants. Why, for example, didn’t Germany prosecute Reinhard Gehlen, the former Nazi chief of the eastern front intelligence and the other ex-Nazis he gathered in the West German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) that he headed after the war, according to the Engelhart article?
The answer is that Germany did not have the stomach to prosecute its own transgressors. While modern-day Germany has paid dearly to disassociate itself from its Nazi past, paying out millions of dollars in reparations to Nazi victims, running effective educational, restorative and commemorative programs, it is also true that Germany’s pursuit and conviction of its own Nazi transgressors has been not as impressive. Though German courts investigated more than 100,000 cases, only some 6,500 accused were convicted and, of these, most received light sentences. Not long ago Germany passed legislation that effectively provided amnesty from prosecution for German Nazis, including SS concentration camp commanders and their German subordinates. But the amnesty did not include Untermenschen like Demjanjuk.
That fact alone makes it hard to believe that this case is not a show trial. ...
http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/53709/
