Transcript The Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals after the Second World War

Occupation
zones for
Germany,
Austria, & Berlin,
May 1945
Two American soldiers examine a wagonload of corpses at
Buchenwald in April 1945
Starving
prisoners at
KZ
Vaihingen,
freed in
April 1945
Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton view the bodies
of camp inmates in Ohrdruf on April 12, 1945
A German
woman sobs as
American
soldiers force
her to view
corpses
The Potsdam Conference, July 1945:
Clement Attlee, Harry Truman, and Stalin
THE POTSDAM ACCORD ANNOUNCED THESE OBJECTIVES:
“The complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany and the
elimination or control of all German industry that could be used for
military production.”
“To destroy the National Socialist Party…, to dissolve all Nazi
institutions.”
“To prepare for the eventual reconstruction of German political life on a
democratic basis.”
“War criminals… shall be arrested and brought to justice.”
“All members of the Nazi Party who have been more than nominal
participants in its activities… shall be removed from public office and
from positions of responsibility in important private undertakings.”
“German education shall be so controlled as completely to eliminate
Nazi and militarist doctrines and to make possible the successful
development of democratic ideas.”
“The German economy shall be decentralized for the purpose of
eliminating the present excessive concentration of economic power as
exemplified in particular by cartels, syndicates, trusts and other
monopolistic arrangements.”
“26 million
dead are
accusing! In
Nuremberg
there is a
reckoning!”
The historic city of Nuremberg in the summer of 1945
Opening session of the Nuremberg Trial, November 20, 1945
THE INDICTMENT AT NUREMBERG
(drafted primarily by Justice Robert H. Jackson)
1. CRIMES AGAINST PEACE (based on the Kellogg-Briand
Treaty of 1928, whose signatories pledged “to renounce
war”).
2. CRIMES OF WAR (as defined by the Hague Convention on
the Rules of Land Warfare and the Geneva Convention of
1929).
3. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: participation in mass
murder, the use of slave labor, or the suppression of
religion (an unprecedented charge).
4. CONSPIRACY to commit one of the acts listed above
(unprecedented under international law).
“Duress” was acknowledged as a legitimate defense, but
NOT the mere receipt of orders from a superior.
The top-ranking defendants at Nuremberg:
Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, and Keitel
VICTORS’ JUSTICE?
Sentenced to
death:
Göring, Ribbentrop, Gen. Keitel, Gen.
Jodl, Alfred Rosenberg, Wilhelm Frick,
Seyss-Inquart, Fritz Sauckel, Bormann
[in absentia], Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Hans
Frank, and Julius Streicher
Life
imprisonment:
Walter Funk, Rudolf Hess, Admiral
Raeder
Prison terms of
10 to 20 years:
Albert Speer, Baldur von Schirach,
Konstantin von Neurath, Admiral Dönitz
Acquitted (over
Soviet protest):
Franz von Papen, Hjalmar Schacht, Hans
Fritzsche (Propaganda Ministry)
Carl Krauch stands during interrogation at the IG Farben
trial conducted by the U.S. military in 1947/48
The USA
conducted
12 follow-up
trials in
Nuremberg
with a total
of 185
defendants
The U.S., British, &
French occupations
collected 6.7 million of
these questionnaires.
3.66 million Germans
had denazification
hearings:
• 25,000 were classed
as “major offenders”
• 150,000 were “minor
offenders”
• 1 million were “fellow
travelers”
The Allies banned the
first two groups from
any government job.
“Black Becomes
White:
Or ‘Mechanical
Denazification’”
(Simplizissimus,
Munich, 1946)
German Denazification Committee, Berlin, 1946:
The British relied on German victims of persecution
“International
Memorial Day for
the Victims of
Fascist Terror,”
Berlin,
September 12,
1949
The Auschwitz commandant,
Rudolf Höss, being turned
over to the Polish authorities
in 1945.
• Western military tribunals
in Germany convicted
5,000 war criminals and
executed 486
• The Soviets convicted
tens of thousands
• West German tribunals
imprisoned 6,100
• Over 50,000 Germans
stood trial in occupied
countries; in Poland
alone, 631 were hanged
Konrad Adenauer (CDU) sworn in as the first Chancellor of
the Federal Republic of Germany, September 1949
When North Korea
invaded South Korea in
June 1950, the U.S.
Government instructed
Dwight D. Eisenhower
as NATO commander
to raise an army of 40
divisions to defend
Western Europe.
In August Adenauer
volunteered to help.
“WARNING! THE EUROPEAN DEFENSE FORCE WILL REVIVE
THE WEHRMACHT” (French Communist poster, 1952)
“NATO:
His Comrades,
our Allies”
(West Germany,
1955/56)
“Negotiating is
better than saberrattling”
(trade union rally
against
rearmament,
ca. 1955)
ADENAUER’S POLICY TOWARD THE PAST:
LET BYGONES BE BYGONES…
Dec. 1949: Amnesty Law for all sentenced to up to 1 year
for economic crimes and 6 months for other crimes in
1945-49; 792,000 Germans benefit.
In 1946 only 5% of West Germans polled termed the
Nuremberg Trial unfair, but 30% did so in 1950.
1951: New civil service law mandates the rehiring of
150,000 purged government employees.
1954: New Amnesty Law pardons most crimes committed
during the “time of collapse.”
In 1958 a meeting of West German state prosecutors
resolves to intensify prosecutions.
In 1963-65 the SPD
Hessian state’s attorney
tried 22 Auschwitz
guards for murder.
Six were sentenced to
life in prison and another
11 to prison terms of
3-14 years.
In accord with German
law, they were only
charged with murder if
acting on their own
initiative, out of
“personal” motives.
DER SPIEGEL asked on March 10,
1965, whether the statute of
limitations should apply to war
crimes…
“Heil myself. Been
reading lately about the
statute of limitations.
Are there any warrants
out on me?”
Heinrich Lübke (CDU), President of the Federal Republic
from 1959 to 1969, is 3rd from the left in this photo from
1942 of Armaments Minister Fritz Todt at Peenemünde
“We need enlightenment!” about the Nazi past of
high officials (student protest, 1967/68)
“Killers Wage War
against the State,”
Der Spiegel,
12 September
1977.
The Red Army
Faction targeted
the industrialist
Hanns Martin
Schleyer as a
former member of
the SS and
NSDAP.