Why did Allies go easy on Nazi war criminals?

[Zanza]

If you read Wiki articles on many German generals, one common template seems to be:  "He was found guilty and sentenced to death for executing 1387 American and 654 Canadian POWs.  His sentence was later commuted to life in prison, and he was released in 1953.  He died in 1979 due to complications from extreme old age."

Why were the western Allies so reluctant to deal rertibution to Nazi war criminals that often committed crimes against their own troops?  Were they pussified, did they really need to go to such lengths to appease the Germans after Cold War started, or was there something else?

I was under the impression that it was often German courts that could make the decision to free them as the Allies actually only held very few of the prisoners in allied prisons.

[Zanza]

Some of the Wehrmacht field marshals were later buried with military honors by the way, e.g. von Manstein or Kesselring. Others were shunned, e.g. Schörner or Dönitz.

[Admiral Yi]

That doesn't sound fair to Donitz.  What did he ever do?

[Caliga]

Wasn't he accused of ordering U-boat crews to not rescue survivors of the ships they sunk?  I think that order came after an incident where a U-boat tried, and was bombed by US aircraft... but I guess that didn't matter to the Allies.

[Zanza]

That doesn't sound fair to Donitz.  What did he ever do?

He was too much of a Hitler fanboy.

[Razgovory]

I remember reading the CIA found them completely useless. And the Bundeswehr was not that good of a force.  At least by 1962, when NATO rated the Germans the lowest possible standard after the Fallex 62 maneuvers.  We would have done better using Poles, who actually did defeat the Soviets in a war.

Bundeswehr was still in it's infancy in '62.

It is also the period of time when all those useful German officers from WWII would still be around.

Kursk is the best example of this.  Hitler allowed his generals a great deal of latitude in planning and executing the operation.  They fucked up royally, which is probably why they wanted to focus on Stalingrad rather then Kursk as the turning point of the war.

The CIA thing was about recruiting German intelligence agents.  The US generally found them dishonest, unmotivated and incompetent (German intelligence proved  inept during the war, so that should prove no surprise).  I brought up the 1962 since it was a famous incident and it happened within a decade of the founding of the new German army. 

Nowhere in your posts, up until your last one, are you talking about German Intel agents. You were talking about the ww2 german army leadership in the Bundeswehr.

I should have made that more clear.  I figured it would be obvious what the CIA would be interested in.  What was that list about? 

[11B4V]

I remember reading the CIA found them completely useless. And the Bundeswehr was not that good of a force.  At least by 1962, when NATO rated the Germans the lowest possible standard after the Fallex 62 maneuvers.  We would have done better using Poles, who actually did defeat the Soviets in a war.

Bundeswehr was still in it's infancy in '62.

It is also the period of time when all those useful German officers from WWII would still be around.

Kursk is the best example of this.  Hitler allowed his generals a great deal of latitude in planning and executing the operation.  They fucked up royally, which is probably why they wanted to focus on Stalingrad rather then Kursk as the turning point of the war.

The CIA thing was about recruiting German intelligence agents.  The US generally found them dishonest, unmotivated and incompetent (German intelligence proved  inept during the war, so that should prove no surprise).  I brought up the 1962 since it was a famous incident and it happened within a decade of the founding of the new German army. 

Nowhere in your posts, up until your last one, are you talking about German Intel agents. You were talking about the ww2 german army leadership in the Bundeswehr.

I should have made that more clear.  I figured it would be obvious what the CIA would be interested in. 

Cool

What was that list about?

Being a smart ass.

[grumbler]

How many  high-level, former-Wehrmacht officers were in the Bundeswehr in 1962?

Probably very few.  This would have been 17 years after the war, after all, and officers who were in their mid-40s during the war would be at or past retirement age by 1962.

Probably an overwhelming majority of senior officers in 1962 had been junior officers in WW2, but the original thread was about the generals.

I don't think the utility of the Germans involved had much, if anything, to do with the commutation of death sentences.  That's a facile and popular argument, but suffers from the small flaw that it is unsupported by the facts.

[Razgovory]

Inform us of those facts, of wise one.  Don't merely allude.  We can never approach your infinite knowledge if you do that.

[The Brain]

That doesn't sound fair to Donitz.  What did he ever do?

Nazi head of state?

[Zanza]

The German military of WW2 had 92 field marshals, colonel-generals, grand admirals and general-admirals. Of these 92 top officers of the Wehrmacht, most weren't alive in 1960 anymore and the only one that had any role in the creation of the Bundeswehr was Erich von Manstein.

There were a couple of lieutenant generals, major generals and colonels, usually from general staffs, that formed the new leadership. So while I wouldn't say it was only junior officers, it is fair to say that no top officers made the transition.

[Zanza]

That doesn't sound fair to Donitz.  What did he ever do?

Apparently he read the eulogy at Raeder's burial at the request of the then commanding admiral of the navy.

[Valmy]

The German military of WW2 had 92 field marshals, colonel-generals, grand admirals and general-admirals. Of these 92 top officers of the Wehrmacht, most weren't alive in 1960 anymore and the only one that had any role in the creation of the Bundeswehr was Erich von Manstein.

There were a couple of lieutenant generals, major generals and colonels, usually from general staffs, that formed the new leadership. So while I wouldn't say it was only junior officers, it is fair to say that no top officers made the transition.

A Major General is not a top officer?

[Zanza]

I can't find a figure, but they must have had hundreds of major generals in the Wehrmacht, so it's not really a top rank. You have to consider that militaries during WW2 were much, much bigger than they are today, so there was obviously an "inflation" of generals.

[Siege]

Why were the western Allies so reluctant to deal rertibution to Nazi war criminals that often committed crimes against their own troops?  Were they pussified, did they really need to go to such lengths to appease the Germans after Cold War started, or was there something else?

Antisemitism.