Disguised as an Austrian private, former SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Oberg (1897−1965) was captured in June 1945 by American troops. Oberg was responsible for Nazi security forces (e.g., Schutzstaffel, Gestapo, and Sicherheitsdienst) in occupied France from April 1942 until the country’s liberation in August 1944. He was directly responsible for the deportations to KZ Auschwitz II-Birkenau of more than forty thousand Jews. Originally convicted of crimes against humanity by the British and then separately by a French court in 1954, Oberg’s death sentence was commuted to life in 1958 by the French president. A year later, the life sentence was further reduced to twenty years. In 1962, President Charles de Gaulle pardoned Oberg and he was set free. An aberration of justice in a case of a former Nazi convicted of crimes against humanity? No. Unfortunately, this was not an exception but rather the norm during the early postwar years.
Former SS General Karl Oberg in custody of the American army. Photo by anonymous (c. June 1945). PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
One of the byproducts of doing research for my next two books, Where Did They Put the Gestapo Headquarters? A Walking Tour of Nazi Occupied Paris, is learning how many war criminals (Nazi as well as collaborators) were either never brought to justice or received relatively light sentences compared to the enormity of their crimes. Underground rat lines (click here to read Odessa: Myth or Truth) provided notorious Nazis with escape routes to South America. Protection was offered to some by Catholic Church officials. Many escaped during the chaos at the end of the war and returned to Germany to live out their remaining lives under either their given or assumed names. Politicians and government officials pardoned many of them after their convictions. However, it was only after 1998 that we became fully aware of the American, British, and Soviet recruitment of former Nazi scientists, engineers, and doctors during the immediate aftermath of the war. The American efforts were known as Operation Paperclip while the Soviet counterpart was Operation Osoaviakhim.
Dr. Wernher von Braun (left) and Dr. Kurt Debus (right), director of Kennedy Space Center, attend the Saturn 500F rollout. Photo by NASA (26 May 1966). PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
Did you Know?
Did you know the U.S. Government began declassifying World War II documents in the 1960s? However, it wasn’t until 1998 when President Clinton signed into law the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act that historians began to fully understand the involvement of the Allies in protecting certain Nazis who were clearly either directly or indirectly responsible for war crimes including crimes against humanity. The purpose of the act and its “Interagency Working Group” (IWG) was to fully disclose the remaining millions of pages of classified documents pertaining to war crimes committed by the Nazis and the Japanese. One of the results was the complete declassification of OSS documents (the OSS was the wartime American intelligence agency that morphed into the CIA after the war). The IWG also disclosed the involvement of the former Allied governments (United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union) in a post-war competition to see which country could recruit the most valuable Nazi scientists, engineers, technicians, and doctors. In all, the United States recruited more than 1,600 former Nazis while the Soviet Union forcibly recruited more than 2,200.
Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
After the first Nuremberg trial was finished (click here to read Court Room 600), some of the most ruthless and complicit Nazis captured by the Allies were tried in twelve Nuremberg follow-up trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Convicted defendants received prison sentences or were sentenced to death. However, in many cases, death verdicts were eventually reduced to life imprisonment and finally, to shorter and finite prison terms. Some were even given full pardons. By the mid-1950s, with the exception of the original Nuremberg prisoners in Spandau Prison, all imprisoned Nazis had been released including ten SS officers convicted and sentenced to death for their participation in the Einsatzgruppen (mobile SS death squads). Two men recruited by Operation Paperclip, Kurt Blome and Otto Ambros, went to trial. Included in the Doctors’ Trial (Case 1) was Dr. Blome, responsible for all Nazi biological warfare research while Ambros was a defendant in the I.G. Farben Trial (Case 6). We will meet both of these men later.
A guide shows jars containing human organs removed from prisoners in Buchenwald to Jack Levine, an American soldier. Photo by anonymous (27 May 1945). National Archives and Records Administration/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
From the end of the war to around 1959, there were several categories of ex-Nazis who hid from justice with the assistance of the United States government. They included the scientists and engineers who worked on the development of V-2 rockets in Peenemünde and later, Nordhausen-Mittlewerk-Dora as well as the doctors who developed biological germ warfare. Read More “Hang ‘Em or Hire ‘Em”
“Informative and entertaining, Stew Ross’ newest work evokes a difficult and frightening time in the history of the City of Light. The detailed descriptions of sites such as the Vél’ d’hiv’ or Gestapo headquarters reminds us of the choices people made during those years.”
Cynthia Bisson, PhD, Professor of History, Belmont University, French Resistant Expert
“Stew blends the dark history of buildings in Paris that are associated with the infamous deeds of the Gestapo with contrasting insights into the bravery of the French people, who, at great risk to themselves and their families, secretly resisted the German Occupation.”
Stanley Booker, MBE, RAF (Ret.), Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur
