Die Gestapo nach 1945--Konflikte, Karrieren, Konstruktionen

Abstract

The Gestapo is still the ultimate symbol of the totalitarian police state. Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Andrej Angrick have now published an anthology in which fifteen established authors examine the biographies of Gestapo members. In their introduction the editors thoroughly recapitulate the findings of the latest research, but also attend to the more general questions of how postwar societies dealt with the legacy of National Socialism and the political changes that have taken place between 1945 and today. This is followed by seventeen essays, arranged into three chapters, according to subject. Chapter 1 provides an overview of postwar careers. Those who—at least officially—accepted the new democracy and adapted to the new situation were usually able to integrate into German postwar society. Thousands of others fled the country. Using documents that have only recently been uncovered, Gerald Steinacher investigates the infamous ‘Rattenlinie’, the escape route through the Alps and Italy that was used by Nazi criminals to flee to South America, especially to Chile, where Martin Cüpper keeps track of Walther Rauff, to arrive at an understanding of how a mass murderer managed to spend his remaining years in exile despite a number of requests for extradition. Stephen Tyas describes how the British secret service spared a high ranking official of the Reich Main Security Office in order to obtain information on the Soviet Union. Stephan Linck looks into the postwar careers of police commissioners who graduated from the leadership school of the security police. Many of them filled high-ranking positions in the West German criminal investigation departments and Federal Criminal Police Office. Furthermore, high-ranking officials were often able to escape prosecution for having participated in deportations, as Bernhard Brunner demonstrates using the example of the commanding officers of the security police in occupied France. While many Nazi criminals made themselves comfortable in West Germany during the phase of the ‘economic miracle’, as Jacek Andrezej Młynarczyk points out, it took the German judiciary decades to prosecute the Nazi crimes. Although exceptional, there were also cases where the perpetrator himself felt guilt and remorse, as David M. Mintert illustrates.