Speer Was Not the Only Repentant Nazi

To be quite honest with you, I find it hard to hold back my furious contempt for your easy dismissal of his covert guilt, and his self-serving intentions, and, more to the point, your conveyance of such a shallow interpretation of the motives of an historical figure of such import as Speer, Hitler's conniving sycophant when you say that by admitting wrongdoing Speer's sincerity (and concomitant guilt) is merely questionable.

I must confess to being more than a little bit confused here. Where in the world do you get that I said that the guilt of Speer was questionable? I said no such thing.
Speer was obviously guilty, and so was Hans Frank. What both of them did was horrible. All I said was that Frank also admitted responsibility for the crimes that he committed under the Nazi regime and that he had returned to his Catholic faith. I think he knew that this would not have done him any good with the IMT and it didn't; his actions in bringing Hitler to power in 1933 were bad enough, but what assured his date with the hangman was his brutal actions as Governor-General of Poland. Some crimes are too much and Frank's crimes fall into this category. From what I know about Hans Frank, he knew this as well. No, he richly deserved his sentence and he knew that his fate was sealed the moment that he walked into the courtroom. Frank was an intelligent man and he had to know that his return to the church would not spare him from the noose. Instead, he saw the justice of his sentence.
No way am I endorsing what the Nazis did, which you seem to imply. In short, sir, you badly misjudge me.

Hello, micaofboca-1. Forgive my intrusion on this thread, but I've read both your and gary overman's posts and I really believe the two of you are of the same essential mind re the Nazis and their guilt, but seem to misunderstand one another a bit.

I certainly don't wish to speak for either of you but it's clear to me both of you have no illusions about any of the Nazi war criminals, nor any desire to have seen any of them let off with less than their deserved sentences. I believe my friend gary meant only to make the historical point that Frank, like Speer, professed his acceptance of his guilt, unlike the other defendants, who accepted no responsibility for anything: nothing more than that. Actually, Wm. L. Shirer in his work "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", reported that Frank admitted some, but not all, of the charges against him, but had claimed to have rediscovered God, and begged His forgiveness. I frankly have many doubts as to his sincerity, and no one can say for certain whether his discovery of God was sincere, calculated, or a mix of both; likewise Speer, who I think is generally believed today to have been cynical in his professed renunciation of his past, doing what he could to get off as lightly as possible. But I do not read anything Mr. Overman wrote as a dismissal of Speer's motives, or as an irresponsible recasting of historical fact, in an effort to mislead others or somehow soften the crimes of the Nazis. Perhaps if you were to each re-read the others' posts I think you'd see you're both making complementary, not contradictory statements, and simply misunderstanding one another.

For myself, just so you both know where I'm coming from, I feel some of the Nuremberg sentences weren't tough enough. I would have had Hess executed, and given Speer and Doenitz life (Doenitz's 10-year sentence was a travesty). But, although a later West German court did find von Papen, Fritzsche and Schacht guilty of war crimes and sentenced them to prison (where they wound up spending little time), even Shirer, as fierce and knowledgeable a critic of the Nazis as ever lived, thought that the charges against Fritzsche were unfair and that his acquittal at Nuremberg justified; likewise with von Papen and Schacht, whose responsibilities were nowhere remotely near those of the others on trial. Unfortunately, a lot of other war criminals, including, for example, the SS men who ordered the Malmedy massacre, got away with their crimes. Life is, indeed, unfair, and often outrageous.

At least the Czechs got Heydrich, though the price paid by the residents of Lidice (and elsewhere in the country) was perhaps too high: he would have been caught, tried and hanged eventually, or more likely, committed suicide like his hero Adolf. A difficult decision to make. But I never thought of him as having a deceptive exterior: he always looked and seemed like the unbridled psychopath he was. To reveal my sadistic streak, however, at least Heydrich suffered: an apt finish to someone who so eagerly gave pain to others. That may make me a less than enviable person, but this was a brutal, unforgiving war.

Anyway, I don't believe either of you has a real quarrel. I think you're both coming from the same place, just on slightly parallel tracks. Trust me, if either of you was in any manner soft on Nazis, I'd notice it...and not be particularly fond of that individual either.

Take care, both of you. You each have my respect and admiration for your knowlegde and convictions -- and your stands in favor of humanity, and against those monsters, of any stripe, who derive meaning in their lives only through the exercise of bloodshed and terror over their fellow man.