British Justice in Western Germany, 1949-55

Abstract

Britain did not release its final two prisoners from the prison it administered in West Germany until July 1957, eight years after the formation of the Federal Republic and the formal ending of its military rule. By 1949, Germany, once the enemy of Europe assumed greater strategic significance in the minds of western politicians seeking its reintegration within a new European family of nations to forestall fears of Soviet hegemony, not least because it now wanted to re-arm West Germany. The continuing incarceration of German war criminals had become a lesser priority in the battleground of Cold War ideologies. The Adenauer government pressurised Britain to honour its pledge to review the sentences for the hundreds of detainees who remained in custody following the Nuremberg trials. Britain’s moral mandate to govern Germany from 1945 was underpinned by its claims to be exporting democratic liberal values but, as this article explains, was exposed in its illiberal handling of the war criminals issue which ran counter to the new moves towards reconciliation.