There is almost unanimous consent among German media that the death penalty for Tookie Williams reflects badly on the U.S., on California and on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Occasionally things get a little out of hand…
On Saturday, Dec. 17, I watched in disgust the commentary of a Catholic priest on German public TV who favorably compared Saudi Arabia’s (!) practice of the death penalty with that of the United States.
Clemency, so his conclusion, is a typical aspect of the Saudi’s – and Islam’s – handling of the death penalty, while the U.S. follows a merciless “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” approach.
And then, of course, our moral apostle made a reference to the country of absolute ethical superiority:
“We don’t have to worry here (in Germany) about the death penalty, thank heavens.”
The good priest should be reminded why “we” don’t have to worry about the death penalty in Germany:
Contrasting their nation’s policy with that of the Americans, Germans point proudly to Article 102 of their Basic Law, adopted in 1949. It reads, simply: “The death penalty is abolished.” They often say that this 56-year-old provision shows how thoroughly the postwar Federal Republic has learned — and applied — the lessons of Nazi state-sponsored killing. (Communist East Germany kept the death penalty until 1987.)
But the actual history of the German death penalty ban casts this claim in a different light. Article 102 was in fact the brainchild of a right-wing politician who sympathized with convicted Nazi war criminals — and sought to prevent their execution by British and American occupation authorities. Far from intending to repudiate the barbarism of Hitler, the author of Article 102 wanted to make a statement about the supposed excesses of Allied victors’ justice.
The International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg sentenced 11 top Nazis to death, all of whom were hanged in November 1946 except for Hermann Goering, who committed suicide. The Western Allies hanged or shot dozens of lesser-known war criminals — including 284 at a U.S. Army prison in Landsberg between November 1945 and June 1951. Though SS men who had supervised death camps and massacred Jews were among the condemned, many Germans bristled at victors’ justice. “The longer the executions went on,” reports a town history on the Landsberg Civic Association’s Web site, “the louder became the voices demanding an end to them. There was a broad political alliance in favor of clemency efforts.” (Source / via Kosmoblog) (emphasis added)
Thank heavens?
I would like to add, as a personal opinion, that the German state was responsible – among other evils – for the gassing and slaughtering of millions of Jews, and it is therefore unconceivable in all eternity to again grant this state a right to put humans – even convicted killers – to death.
In terms of being in a moral position to judge other countries’ practice of the death penalty, Germany ranks even below Saudi Arabia.
And that is quite an accomplishment…
Endnote: It seems that British leaders also failed to consider the advantages of clemency when it came to applying the death penalty to a certain ex-German leader…
