Le Paradis Massascre

[vibmon]

Good stuff! I hadn't known Paradise and Wormhout were on consecutive days; albeit different divisions.

[Anderson]

Post war, justice got entangled with geopolitics and some bad characters ingratiated their way into service of Western Intelligence agencies by promoting their knowledge of Soviet systems and networks. Significant war criminals escaped further investigation and a day in court. And of course the West German courts had little enthusiasm to pursue war criminals, not helped probably by the fact that about half of all judges up until the 1970's had actually been appointed during the Third Reich. In fact there may been a few who actually were convicted, sentenced, then disappeared with a new identity courtesy of their new masters.

[HetzersGonnaHetz]

As Christian Ingrao has stated, many people in the new West Germany had lost family, money, homes, land etc etc and saw the post-war trials as ‘Victor-Run’ and as a show by the allies, a final nail in the coffin of defeat on top of a devastated Germany. As a result, after the initial trials at Nuremberg, to get the ‘big’ Nazis, the trials in the 1950s began to peter out, with many people who received death sentences having had their sentences reduced to life, and then out in 5 years, many others serving less. Many Germans also found these trials reminiscent of the ‘Victor-Run’ trials in Leipzig after WW1 to punish war criminals, and the Allies realised this and couldn’t allow a similar feeling of resentment in Germany after WW2 like they had in WW1, due to requiring a West Germany as stable and secure as possible.

Anyone interested in these post war trials, there are a few shows on excellent that provide excellent interviews and information:
The Accountant of Auschwitz

Einsatzgruppen

Both of those talk about the post-war trials and break down the numbers very well, including interviews with original prosecutors, historians, and original trial footage.

[HetzersGonnaHetz]

What also didn’t help is that Germany didn’t have the legal framework to prosecute war criminals themselves once the Allies had concluded at Nuremberg, meaning many got off lightly.