Comment on Natzism? That WWII pardon… by Clive Sullish

This is one of the most mealy-mouthed pieces of legislation ever to have come before Dáil Éireann. Its effect, according to the Irish Times, will be to give ‘immunity from prosecution to those who served on the Allied side and were subsequently found guilty of desertion by a military tribunal’ in Ireland. About a hundred of these deserters survive, all of them at least 85 years of age. Who is likely to prosecute them?
The legislation is, however, of a piece with the non-punishment administered to these deserters after the war (which was a de facto pardon). They were excused the ordinary punishment for desertion (because de Valera didn’t want to cause a diplomatic kerfuffle), and were instead barred from public service employment for seven years. The fact was however that they had virtually no chance of public service employment at that point anyway, because, as in other countries, preference for such scarce positions was given to those with an honorable discharge from the armed services. Giving honorable discharges to deserters, one imagines, would not have been good for morale in the Irish army.
Alan Shatter says: ‘Their efforts, in an indirect way, also contributed to the safety of their home country. If the United Kingdom had fallen to the forces of Nazi Germany, the same fate would almost certainly have been visited on this island, with all the consequences that would have gone with it.’ By that logic, the correct course for the Irish government in 1939-45 would have been to dissolve the entire Irish army, and place all Irish soldiers at the disposal of the British for ‘the safety of their home country.’