[southernmissouri2007]

Hello my question is at the Nuremberg Trials did'nt the Nazi War Criminals defend themselves by saying they were just following Orders therefor they were not Guilty of Genocide why is following orders not an excuse ? Is it because humans have freewill did the Nuremberg Trials Judges/Courts say this ? Also if low rank Soldiers commit war crimes and or genocide because their military offiers and or generals or heads of state give them these orders to commit murder can these soldiers if taken to court say they were just following orders as an excuse defense to defend themselves ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders

[Zenno]

There is the question of conscience. If your superior tells you to massacre innocent children, then your conscience tells you that there is something wrong. If taken to court you cannot pretend that you didn't know that.

[Smilin' Dave]

Nurumberg principle four in full actually states that 'just following orders' isn't a valid defence if there was an option. So presumably if you could prove that opposing your orders wouldn't do any good and would genuinely get you killed, it might have worked. I vaguely remember reading a paper that studied the actions of a policing unit that was tasked with 'liquidating' a ghetto early in the war, and one of the points raised was that those that refused to participate not only seemed to escape serious reprimand, but some were even promoted a few years down the track.

Another point made was sometimes it wasn't the fact that the subject had been ordered to do it that caused them to comply in the end, but a perception that they were not doing their part or otherwise letting down the other people in their unit. So instead of hierarchy being the cause, it was a collective action.

You might also be interested in the Milgram Experiment