I have a few questions regarding German high ranking officers that were convicted of war crimes... 1) Why were some of these men (that were in American or British captivity) sentenced a number of years but served a much lesser sentence? Here are a few examples... Kesselring - convicted of war crimes in Italy - more notably the Ardeatine massacre (335 italian civilians massacred on his orders).. others included , slave labour in france , execution of POW's Anyway, under nuremburg trials he was sentanced to death but then changed to life in prision. He was released in Oct. 1952 Manstein - was charged with war crimes commited on eastern front - sentenced to 18 years, was released after 12 yrs. Von Rundstedt - was chaged with war crimes on eastern front, but never faced trial supposedly due to ill health. Sepp Dietrich - he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the malmedy massacre (battle of the bulge) - for ordering the execution of U.S. prisoners of war ..but was later reduced to 25 years. He was released in 1955. (he was later re-arrested in 1956 for taking part in murders on the night of the long knives in 1934, and served another 18 months) 2) Were some of these cases reduced due to their military popularity? (i.e Manstein, Kesselring) and/or was political pressure involved? 3) Were there any defendants (not just these listed) that should have received a more stricter of shorter sentence? Or should have not even been convicted? By the way correct me if I am wrong on any of this, I in no way claim to be an expert . Defentely would like to learn a bit more about this topic.. love to hear from you all! Thanks!
This was actually far more commonplace than you think. Quite a few prominent Waffen-SS officers were imprisoned but served much shorter sentences. However, those who participated in more grievous crimes did not enjoy such leniency. Another one who got off easily (considering the immense horrors he oversaw) is Albert Speer.
Some ss generals were offered lessor sentences for German technolghy! Like thee USA. Alote of German Officals like Sicentist actually was invited to thee usa after ww2 for there invance technolghy for protection and lessor sentence. Thates why America after ww2,wase thee leading country withe rockets.
This is an oversimplification Heidi. When von Braun was asked about his rockets he asked a question in return. (paraphrasing) "Why don't you just ask your own Robert Goddard, I'm using his patents." He was unaware that Goddard had passed away before the war ended. BTW, he and Goddard's widow successfully sued the US government for patent infringment and eventually won the largest settlement ever (to that time) in 1960. $1,000,000 was paid to the Goddard estate by NASA for patent violations of 214 of Goddards patents, dating back to WW1, and including the solid rocket fuel used in the "Bazooka". Gimbled rocket nozzels, gyroscopic navigation guidence, fuel pumps, ect.. Von Braun was of assistance, without doubt, but not for the thinking up the system; for the engineering developments he had made on the existing designs.
Lets not forget another big problem, the west was "at war" with russia, and any anti-communist was a friend. The West German government actually wanted to try Manstein again as they had put together a nice pile of evidence of his war crimes in the east. Luckily for him though the west had deluded itself into believing his 1943 era defensive tactics he used against the RUssians would have a chance in hell of delaying 1950 era soviet deep battle doctrine the soviets would use when they came charging through the Fulda Gap or North German Plain, and thus the US managed to get him spared.
This is a very good thread. And I must admit my ignorance on the matter. All I know is that the enormous majority of the big shots of the III Reich, from all the armed forces and civil services, all up-to-the-neck in national socialist crap, went away with light sentences or none at all. I've read (in Eric A. Johnson's The Nazi Terror, though it was long ago and I don't remember well) that the chiefs of the Cologne Gestapo, Franz Sprinz and Emanuel Schäfer, responsible for the deportation of some 20,000 Jews from the city, were not prosecuted and went on with a career in the police in post-war Germany.
OK, I've made a bit of research from the book above mentioned. It exemplifies the lesser punishments suffered by war criminals, but only adds mistery to the why. Examples: Of over 100 members of the Cologne Gestapo, only three were prosecuted by the De-Nazification comittee: Emanuel Schäfer, Franz Sprinz and Kurt Matschke, all three successive heads of the Gestapo in the city. The main charge was the deportation of 13.500 Jews from the city to concentration or extermination camps, out of whom only 600 survived. There were also numerous other charges regarding the German population, whether it be repression of political opponents or various other infractions that ended in 'protective custody' in camps. Schäfer was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison, minus the time already in detention awaiting trial. As he had already served more than that, he was released. The extradition requests from Yugoslavia, Poland and the USSR never took place. Sprinz and Matschke were given three-year sentences, minus the time already held in captivity. All three later received a State pension for their service in the police. Karl Löffler was those men's inmidiate subordinate, responsible for the 'Jewish section' of the Cologne Gestapo. He, along with his counterpart in Krefeld, Richard Schulenburg, were never put to trial and received their pensions too. The question remains... Why?!
The Nuremburg trials certainly looked "good" in historical terms since it identified "bad guys" and sort of closed the book on the war as much as possible. They had nothing to do with justice but certainly, almost all those accused were guilty of every charge and more. The spotty sentencing is i think entirely political in nature because like i said, Nuremburg had nothing to do with justice so much as vengeance, and a desire to set some sort of historical precedence since if the Russians had their way, every Nazi from the rank of Colonel on up would probably just have been shot without trial. Perhaps also it was intended to put some teeth behind the Geneva conventions for future wars. Perhaps the most eloquent "defendant" at Nuremburg was Herman Goering. Certainly he was guilty of everything he was charged with: He was instrumental in setting up the concentration camps (he got the idea from the British Boer war.) He also founded the Gestapo, whose crimes are well known, and was its real head (Himmler ran things but was always subordinate to Gering). Yet his arguments to many of the charges were relevant, persuasive, knowledgable and forthe most part truthful and mostly defended his own actions as those that were similar to those taken or that would have been taken, by any other high government official in the war. Goering ran mental rings around the American prosecuting attorney, Henry T. King,who was nowhere near as intelligent as Goerring - his arguments were so persuasive that King was worried Goering would be turned into some sort of martyr or hero. Goering so exasperated King that he said "we ought to have just taken these Nazis and shot them out of hand". Despite Goering's eloquent and well-founded arguments in his defense, there was never any doubt that the hangman was to be his fate. But what Goering had succeded in doing was to call into question the whole nature of high-level leadership. "Your leaders would have and did do the same as we did, on many occasions" was his whole point. there were some in my opinion who perhaps should not have been tried at all. Speer came late and left early, had his post as armaments minister practically forced upon him by Hitler yet simply did his job as a "good German", and there is evidence he 1) made some effort to improve the lot of the slave laborers and 2) made serious attempts to sabotage the Nazi war effort at the very end, to the extent that he personally countermanded Hitler's "scorched earth" orders in Germany in the closing months of the war, for which he could easily have been shot by the SS. The Russians wanted him to hang as well but he got 20 years. Admiral Karl Doenitz may be the most curious case, and no one protested their sentence more vigorously. Doenitz pointed out how he had taken great care to obey international protocol in his wartime conduct, particularly during the U-boat campaign, even when it cost the lives of German sailors - yet he was sentenced to 10 years anyway.
That's a very difficult proposition to justify. Indeed your follow on pretty much refuted it. Now it can be argued that justice wasn't the only reason or possibly even the main reason for the trials it was surely a part of it.
Actually it was Russia NOT the U.S. which was the worlds leader in missile technology after WW2. Space race remember?
Right, they were leading until about the mid-sixties. Then I feel the US pulled slightly ahead in missile tech, especially in solid fueled rockets. In the other areas it was more or less even, with each focusing on different missions for their programs. In reality, the Space Race was one of the few Cold War events which actually had (and continues to have) benefits for man-kind. I was watching a special on History International the other day, and Sergi Khruskev (sp?) was being interviewed about his father and JFK. When they first met in Vienna, JFK made an offer of the two governments "teaming up" to go to the moon, this was just before JFK's famous "...we shall go to the moon within this decade..." speech. Mr. K. turned the offer down for the simple reason that he figured the USSR could go it alone. A few years later, he had changed his mind, and made a counter offer to LBJ. Johnson was in no mood to deal with the Soviets, and still had a sneaking suspicion that they were somehow behind JFK's assassination. LBJ turned the offer down flat. Khruskev's son pondered what might have been if that had come to pass. He was making two points, one that perhaps as a "team" we could have done more sooner, and two that JFK's assassination had more far reaching unintended consequences than generally thought.
I'm far from convinced that was the case. The space race in particular is not a good guide. For instance US scientist proposed orbiting a satelite well before sputnik but were ordered not to because the legal status of them was unclear. It was only afterwards that the edge of the atmosphere was defined to be the territorial limits. US ICBMs were also superior for most if not all their existence at least on a technical basis.
Does anybody know how their treatment in prision was? Were they given better treatment because they were high commanding officers, or were they treated like everyone else who was convicted of war crimes?
I am not a lawyer but would suggest the difference being talked about here is between justice and fairness, not necessarily the same thing.
I sure wish that Bernard and Souzana Stevering were still members here-those two fine people could easily answer this to above satisfaction of all here. I mention Bedo because he worked with Werner von Braun after coming to the USA in 1950-and helped work on our Rocket Program. A very few people may remember Bedo-as he was on this site about 7-8 years ago-give or take. Anyway, I was friends with he and his wife (Souzana) and Bedo-in WWII was a German Artillery Officer who served on the Eastern Front from beginning to end. I don't know what unit he served with but-he gave me his only momento left from the war--which was his East Front medal-which I stll have. In return, I gave him one of my EKIIs-so that he could also have one to use when he and Souzana went from place to place doing speeches and such about WWII. Anyway, Bedo has the distinction of never surrendering and never being in any PoW camp. One of his stories-if I remember correctly? that he told me, he said that it took him six months to make his way from whereever his unit had been fighting at-to make it to safety at his parents home. Along the way, I remember him saying that he either "lost" or got "rid" of his badges I guess in exchange for food and shelter? The only item like I mentioned earlier-that he still had-was his East Front medal.
Well, if a comprehensive trial was held, how far should they go? You can not maintain a proper system of justice that is procedurally and substantially fair if you are using it to carry out a purge, which is what a rigorous effort to root out every National Socialist criminal would become. Not even the Russians did that--in many cases they absorbed the Gestapo and transformed its former members into the post war Stasi. From the Western prospective, to try to utterly punish everyone who was guilty would ripp apart German society and make the reintergration of Germany into the community of nations impossible--and the lesson of Versaille Conference tought the US, France and Great Britain that this was absolutely neccessary. Also owning to the threat of the Warsaw Pack, it was important to ensure the loyalty and morale of the Federal Army by not going too harsh on its former generals, especially because some of their military talents and experience (if not expertise) in dealing with the Russians was badly needed. I don't agree Nurnberg Trial was a show trial or "victor's justice" at all, not in the sense that those phrases were invoked. To show that the trial was somehow lacking, one need to find the laws that the trial abided to or the procedures with which the trial conducted itself were unfair. To challenge the origins of the court as a way to discredit it is absurd, as the alternative, "the vanguished's justice", is completely non-sensical. Would it be a fair trial if it was conducted by Nazi judges or German jury? Until the Day of Judgement cometh and the lamb inherits the earth, the victor's justice would be all we got.
