Hello there, I had a question, did a quick search and didn't see anything and hoped you all could help me out. Was there ever a general amnesty declared for all german/axis soldiers after WW2? Any links where i could read up more on this? Thanks, monty
Hi Monty, found some remarks to start with: http://www.trufax.org/chrono/crf.html Clay was a U.S. General and postwar Administrator of occupied Germany. He successfully dealt with the issues of Europe's D.P.'s, but his lenient denazification policies and grants of amnesty to almost 100,000 Nazis have been widely criticized. More controversial was Clay's position regarding denazification, and he has been severely criticized for allowing the beginning of the Cold War to influence the course of justice. Opposed to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau's proposal to de-industrialize Germany, Clay advocated handing responsibility for Denazification over to the Germans. Clay also pursued a liberal policy regarding so - called minor war criminals. Clay's policies were strongly supported by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and by John J. McCloy, Stimson's advisor on Germany. Further causing controversy was Clay's December 1946 grant of amnesty, through which almost 100,000 minor Nazis were pardoned without trial. This policy was problematic because of the perception that Clay had ruined the denazification program before it even began. Largely responsible for the successful Berlin Airlift of 1948, he retired from the military one year later. In 1950, Clay wrote Decision in Germany, which describes his postwar role as Military Governor of Germany. http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x05/xr0538.html ------- http://www.bard.edu/hrp/atrocities/panelone.htm The first major shift in American war crimes policy began in 1951 when U.S. High Commissioner for Germany John McCloy ordered the first large-scale clemency of German war criminals. With one stroke of McCloy's pen, one-third of the Nuremberg convicts were released, including all of the executives and industrialists convicted in the Farben, Flick, and Krupp trials. Not only was Alfred Krupp released from prison, he was also given back his fortune and his vast industrial holdings. But it should also be mentioned that in the face of great public pressure John McCloy upheld seven death sentences, and on May 7, Einsatzkommandos Blobel, Braune, Naumann, Puhl, Ohlendorf, Schallermaier, and Schmidt were hanged at Landsberg. According to Jörg Friedrich, "The hanging of the mass executioners was the American pièce de résistance. In late 1951, former Nuremberg defense attorney Otto Kranzbühler met with Chancellor Adenauer and members of the German Foreign Office. Kranzbühler described the meeting to me in 1996: "There was a treaty settling matters of war and occupation. In this, all the acts of the military government were recognized by the German government. In the document that we prepared for the central German government, there was a recommendation that the war crimes trials should not be recognized by the German government. I convinced Adenauer that it was about accepting war guilt or not, accepting special law only for Germans and not for anyone else, which no government could do. Adenauer agreed, and it was astonishing." The contractual agreements were signed by the Allies on May 26 and 27, 1952. Article VI of the treaty established a six-man clemency board composed of Allies and Germans to review war crimes cases. Article VII appeared to be a straightforward endorsement of the Allied war crimes trials. However, in truth it was anything but that. According to Otto Kranzbühler, he helped orchestrate the legal trickery. "It was drafted after we had a conference with Adenauer. A good lawyer would never do it that way, to put the exception in a different place than the rule, but it was intended to conceal. Nobody took notice of it, no press mentioned it." And just as Kranzbühler said, buried in Article VI-11 is an exception to Article VII, and this spared the German government from recognizing the validity of the Allied war crimes tribunals.
John McClouy´s speech Feb 1950 Quite interesting: http://www.usembassy.de/usa/etexts/ga4-500206.htm ------ Prosecutor William Caming recalls the tidal shift in global politics hit Nuremberg like an artillery shell. With American politicians increasingly alarmed by the "Red Menace," Caming says pressure mounted on prosecutors to wrap up the trials. Caming says: "We had visits from congressmen and senators who favored the re-armament of Germany and who said that we had to get rid of the trials because they're an obstacle." Amidst the criticism and red baiting, the subsequent American trials at Nuremberg concluded in 1949 with some 142 convictions. Twenty four Germans were sentenced to death and many others got prison terms. But they would not stay behind bars long. To appease West German leaders, American diplomats in command of the U.S. occupation zone formed a review board to consider clemencies. The man who appointed the review board, John McCloy, stressed that the board was not reconsidering judgments but would examine fairness in sentences imposed by the tribunal. Many prosecutors suspected that politics were involved, though John McCloy always denied that he was acting on any political directives from Washington, according to prosecutors and historians. http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/justiceontrial/nuremberg5.html
Somthing you also might consider--all German units were color catagorized. They had the White, ??? and Red colors. A "White" unit would be something like the Grossdeutschland Panzer Korps, or the Herman Goring Panzer Korps. This is because units like these had excellent reputations and were tough elite units that commanded much respect. These men were released almost immediately. A middle catagory unit like SS Kav Bde "Florian Geyer" were held various lengths of time because of some suspecions on activities during the war. and "Red" units were held for thorough interrogations because of their "fine" war records. Units like the Dirlwanger Brigade or the Kaminsky Bde, and even the Leibstandarter and Das Reich Divisions. Some of these men saw at least 10 years in prison, but many were released very early too. Oh course--the units im using are for example purposes only. Hope this helps.
