Gestapo rank and file

Hi all,

Does anyone have any knowledge of the post war fate of the "rank and file" members of the Gestapo? We all know the leading Nazis were tried as war criminals at Nuremberg (including Goering, who founded the Gestapo), but as surely the organisation must have been ajudged by the allies as perpetrating "crimes against humanity" also, what of the fate of the little men in sinister black leather coats.....

 

In the 3 western occupation zones (British, US, French) the vast majority were initially top priority during the initial denazification processes on 1945-47. However, the process was actually quite a farce, and with the advent of the cold war, hardly any were prosecuted. Some started working for the western intelligence agencies, but most went back to civilian life. Some even re-joined the west German police force (from which the vast majority had been recruited bfore and during the war).

It's more difficult to say exactly what happened in the Russian zones - some summary executions, some worked for the Russians, some sent to the camps, and some disappeared into civilian life.

 

Would it have been realistic, or even possible, to apprehend and convict in court every Gestapo agent, S.D. man, and SS camp guard who committed a crime?

Years ago I knew an old tailor, a German Jewish gent, who still did a bit of work even with rheumy eyes. He told me one day that he fled Germany with the advice and help of a Gestapo man, an old friend of his.
After the war, when Germans were starving, this tailor sent several CARE packages of food to the friend who had saved his life.
Exception to the rule, methinks.

JT

 

A similar thread was brought up not long ago - about a month or so and the contributor said that some of the Nazis/Gestapo,who were caught on the eastern side were incorporated into the Stazi and the like. It is a possibility but if I was in the Gestapo or similar, I wouldn't put myself at the sympathies of a victorious Russian army out to settle a few wrongs. If you get my drift. It wouldn't surprise me if a few were on the ships leaving for the west and Sweden and the like, mixed in with civilians. There seems also the possibility that some also went the way of the Odessa line to South America.

 

A similar thread was brought up not long ago - about a month or so and the contributor said that some of the Nazis/Gestapo,who were caught on the eastern side were incorporated into the Stazi and the like.

I made this point at (but it may have been others too):

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8548&page=4

It is a possibility but if I was in the Gestapo or similar, I wouldn't put myself at the sympathies of a victorious Russian army out to settle a few wrongs. If you get my drift. It wouldn't surprise me if a few were on the ships leaving for the west and Sweden and the like, mixed in with civilians. There seems also the possibility that some also went the way of the Odessa line to South America.

It's true that tens of thousands, of ex-Nazi officials were executed or transported to the camps. However, unlike the three western occupation forces, the Soviet view on denazification was always officially pragmatic and tied to Sovietization of all of east German society. Whilst complaining that the western denazification process was a sham, they themselves used all sorts where they thought appropriate. And the ex-Gestapo members were equally pragmatic about offering their services to an old enemy.

Whereas, in the west the escape routes such as ODESSA etc did spirit away hundreds of Germans who had been officially criminalised by their membership of outlawed organisations (SS, Gestapo etc), this was much harder in the east.

 

Too many escaped justice.Many re-entered society under assumed names and their true identity was found out later.The big problem was the onset of the Cold War when their services were sought of by the four major Allied powers.

Klaus Barbie "the butcher of Lyons",a war criminal, a member of the Lyon Gestapo who died in French captivity in September 1991,escaped early after the war.He found work with the American Intelligence and despite being sought by the French authorities as a war criminal..At the time he was on the American payroll, unknown to the Americans he was assisting former SS members with false identities and financial assistance to flee to South America.Not that the British had high morals with the affair as while MI5 were interested in him as a war criminal, MI6 wished to recruit him.

This was the man that was responsible for the brutal torture of Jean Moulin, the Chairman of the Nation Council of the French Resistance who later died on of his injuries while being transported to Germany.Barbie was notoriously remembered by those who passed through Montluc Prison as resisters and those who were innocent children of the village of Izieu.

By 1950,the French knowing that Barbie was working for American Intelligence,requested Barbie's extradition as a war criminal.The Americans denied all knowledge of the former Gestapo Hauptsturmbannfuhrer and in 1951, Barbie under the assumed indentity of Klaus Altmann slipped away from Europe to Bolivia, via an organisation aided by a Croatian priest,Fr Dragonovic.Barbie who became a Bolivian national by 1957,enjoyed freedom in Bolivia for thirty years as a businessman and as an advisor the the right wing governments where he was able to pass on his Nazi talents.He was also prominent in the employment of Robero Suarez,the biggest drug baron of the era,acting as his minder.In Bolivia,Barbie did little to hide his Nazi past and was deeply involved in maintaining Hitler's memory.In 1979 he stated "I swore an oath of allegiance to the Fuhrer in September 1935 and I have remained truely faithful"

His luck ran out in 1982 when a democratic government under Hernan Zuazo,accepted the French plea for extraditon and jailed him on a debt charge to prevent him leaving Bolivia.In February 1982, Barbie found himself captive in his former torture jail at Montluc,Lyon after being flown to France via French Guiana.In 1972, President Pompidou had been refused a request for Barbie's extradition but the pressure on Bolivia was maintained by the French lawyer Serge and his wife, Beate Klarsfeld who were determined that "the butcher of Lyon" would in the end, face justice.

The trial started in May 1987 and Barbie was charged with crimes against humanity and was sentenced to life imprisionment.His defence was typical of the Nazi regime.He was just an humble official discharging orders from his superiors.But as a then 13 year old victim of his treatment put it, "he really enjoyed other peoples' sufferings"

In 1983 the American government apologised to France for its involvement in delaying the course of justice against Barbie.

Barbie was just an example of many,that,for many reasons, slipped through the net into the German post war era.(He had been sentenced to death in absence by French courts between 1952 and 1954 for his part in the deportatation of 7000 Jews from France and his involvement in 4000 murders in the Lyon area between November 1942 and August 1944.)

 

Harry Ree, you may be interested in this article too:

Newly Declassified Files Confirm United States Collaboration with Nazis

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0508-05.htm

Other papers at the time printed similar articles but this one is the most detailed.

 

The Allied governments let a lot of their own people down ethically and morally. Dragging their feet on prosecutions, giving Nazis new identities shipping them to their own countries to gain knowledge and have immunity from prosecution. The apathy in recent times by the Government when British far east prisoners of war wanted reparations from the Japanese - who have still not made an apology to these troops. Don't want to upset the Japanese they are bringing trade here etc, etc. An ethical and moral wasteland I can see.

 

I made this point at (but it may have been others too):

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8548&page=4



It's true that tens of thousands, of ex-Nazi officials were executed or transported to the camps. However, unlike the three western occupation forces, the Soviet view on denazification was always officially pragmatic and tied to Sovietization of all of east German society. Whilst complaining that the western denazification process was a sham, they themselves used all sorts where they thought appropriate. And the ex-Gestapo members were equally pragmatic about offering their services to an old enemy.

Whereas, in the west the escape routes such as ODESSA etc did spirit away hundreds of Germans who had been officially criminalised by their membership of outlawed organisations (SS, Gestapo etc), this was much harder in the east.
Kyt, I believe this is the piece in question, of which I referred to at the time. Acknowledgement to Kyt on this one.

I think I comment as well that I for one didn't believe that the Russians would be so pragmatic. I think they would have got what they wanted out of them. They transported and executed their own troops for allowing themselves to be captured. I think the said Germans would have been made to talk, then have a piece of cranial ventilation courtesy of a Nagant or a Simonov.

 

http://images.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/images/400/alloallo_3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/a/gallery/alloallo_7770250_3.shtml&h=300&w=400&sz=15&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=qHUOfd5HZKof5M:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHerr%2BFlick%2BAllo%2BAllo%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG

This picture from a Declassified British Intelligence report shows one such rogue still at large who had a long history with the Gestapo.

 

:p

 

Harry Ree, you may be interested in this article too:

Newly Declassified Files Confirm United States Collaboration with Nazis

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0508-05.htm

Other papers at the time printed similar articles but this one is the most detailed.


Thank you for the reference.

As after the Great War,the western victors were extremely conscious of the march of communism after the Russian Revolution in October 1917.In 1919,this attitude led the British to be involved in White Russia and Southern Russia without any change in the outcome.After the Second World War,it led to the US to assess the services of former Nazi thugs such as Klaus Barbie.

In the case of the Soviet Union regime,it replaced the equally totalitarian regime of the Nazis in Eastern Europe and it was seen that these types would be an asset to their new regimes.Those who were guilty of war crimes against the peoples of the USSR normally received swift justice.

Postwar,there were western reports that SS Gruppenfuhrur Heinrich Muller,head of the Gestapo, ("Gestapo Muller" as he was named ) who had vanished without trace during the fall of Berlin had been captured by the Russians and had been drawn into their intelligence organisations.These reports were active for many years after the war but there has been no evidence as yet that Muller resurfaced wearing different colours.