Verschärfte Vernehmung

Before there was enhanced interrogation, there was verschärfte Vernehmung which is German for enhanced interrogation. It was the interrogation techniques developed by the Gestapo around 1937. Apparently too many of their victims were winding up in court all busted up, so they devised these techniques to minimize marks of abuse. Below is the translation of a memo that describes the techniques:

Do you see any significant differences between this and what George W. Bush has allowed? And people keep wondering why we keep comparing Bush to Hitler. There is more to it, though.

Shortly after the war there was the Trial of Kriminalsekretär in which three German soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes for carrying out these enhanced interrogation methods. What's even more scary is they used many of the same justifications the Bush administration has been using. The court didn't buy it and sentenced the men to death.

These interrogation techniques were viewed as war crimes . The men were sentenced to death. If it was wrong then; it's certainly wrong now. For those who cry foul anytime Hitler is mentioned in regards to Bush, a very nice reply from the Daily Dish:

Critics will no doubt say I am accusing the Bush administration of being Hitler. I'm not. There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn't-somehow-torture - "enhanced interrogation techniques" - is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.

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