Managing Criminal Reputations: West German Elites after the Nuremberg Trials, 1946-1960

Abstract

From the start the Nuremberg Trials were planned as trials of the power elites of Nazi Germany, including the military, corporations, government bureaucracy and party elites. By targeting those who had orchestrated the genocide of the European Jews from above and ultimately had ‘command responsibility’ for war crimes and crimes against humanity according to contemporary terminology, they set an important precedent for international criminal tribunals down to the present day. The Nuremberg Trials signalled a radical break with the past for the German people and their power elites, and a deep disruption in the lives of those who were charged, sentenced and imprisoned. This article explores the lives after punishment for selected groups and individuals of elite perpetrators, and their career trajectories when they returned from prison into the post-war society of West Germany in the 1950s and early 1960s. It uses a framework of ‘reputation management’ (as suggested by Gary A. Fine) to identify different routes and strategies as these sentenced war criminals navigated their way back into society.