@Remittancegirl @cstross To be fair, a lot of the blonde,...

To be fair, a lot of the blonde, blue-eyed Aryan 12-year olds were volunteering to die for the fatherland, because by that time, they had been indoctrinated for years. You can teach people to "enjoy being instrumentalized" for the cause.

The world was lucky in the end that the Nazis sacrificed their young so young, instead of having the next generation gain the power to sacrifice the world in their own turn.

Like 4 November at 9:39 | Wall-to-wall | Open on 23.social

4 comments

Madeleine Morris

@Yendolosch @cstross

I'm not sure you can describe that as volunteering.

Legally speaking, 12 year olds are not capable of giving consent.

4 November at 9:57 | Open on mstdn.social

Yendolosch

@Remittancegirl @cstross

> Legally speaking, 12 year olds are not capable of giving consent.

True. I guess the grown-ups were busy with all the indoctrinating and recruiting and total-war-waging, so the part where they ask the lawyers somehow got overlooked... and anyone arguing with a fanatical Sturmbannführer about "rule of law" and "separation of powers" and "free press" at _that_ point would get shot.

Better start _before_ 12-year olds are volunteering to run at tanks with hand grenades.

4 November at 10:39 | Open on 23.social

Charlie Stross

@Remittancegirl @Yendolosch "Legally speaking" and "in the Third Reich" are two phrases that don't belong on the same continent. (They had conscription, no age limit. Their solution to conscientious objectors was a firing squad. The law was whatever the führer decreed. IIRC the youngest "soldiers" in May 1945 were just eight years old ...)

4 November at 10:56 | Open on wandering.shop

Madeleine Morris

@cstross @Yendolosch

Indeed. I was just unwilling to go along with the implication that somehow 12 year olds get held morally responsible for being child soldiers or that their deaths are to be celebrated.

4 November at 11:08 | Open on mstdn.social