Originally Posted by
Trollkiller
But then you would have to prove it was a him or me proposition.
It'd be hard to prove. It'd be entirely plausible, but hard to prove.
I agree reasonableness is relative to a degree. To me a person knowingly digging their own grave and then running to the edge of it on a soldier's orders knowing you would be executed is completely unreasonable behavior, but it happened. And it happened to with enough frequency you can't honestly make the claim that all of those people were unreasonable.
I think in that case, it would probably fall to how the people executed the order. Like how you described or shooting people for the hell of it like the commandant in Schindler's List? No question that a reasonable person wouldn't do that. Have the low level grunts that are told if they don't kill them, they'll be killed too (clearly, the Jew was screwed either way)? Harder to lay that one at their feet. Not impossible, but harder.
Thankfully the him or me proposition is rare. Let us pray that we are never in the soldier's or the Jew's position.
+1