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After Nuremberg: American Clemency for Nazi War Criminals
How the American High Commissioner for Germany set in motion a process that resulted in every non-death-row-inmate walking free after the Nuremberg trials
After Nuremberg is about the fleeting nature of American punishment for German war criminals convicted at the twelve Nuremberg trials of 1946–1949. Because of repeated American grants of clemency and parole, ninety-seven of the 142 Germans convicted at the Nuremberg trials, many of them major offenders, regained their freedom years, sometimes decades, ahead of schedule. High-ranking Nazi plunderers, kidnappers, slave laborers, and mass murderers all walked free by 1958. High Commissioner for Occupied Germany John J. McCloy and his successors articulated a vision of impartial American justice as inspiring and legitimizing their actions, as they concluded that German war criminals were entitled to all the remedies American laws offered to better their conditions and reduce their sentences.
Based on extensive archival research (including newly declassified material), this book explains how American policy makers’ best intentions resulted in a series of decisions from 1949–1958 that produced a self-perpetuating bureaucracy of clemency and parole that “rehabilitated” unrepentant German abettors and perpetrators of theft, slavery, and murder while lending salience to the most reactionary elements in West German political discourse.
After Nuremberg is about the fleeting nature of American punishment for German war criminals convicted at the twelve Nuremberg trials of 1946–1949. Because of repeated American grants of clemency and parole, ninety-seven of the 142 Germans convicted at the Nuremberg trials, many of them major offenders, regained their freedom years, sometimes decades, ahead of schedule. High-ranking Nazi plunderers, kidnappers, slave laborers, and mass murderers all walked free by 1958. High Commissioner for Occupied Germany John J. McCloy and his successors articulated a vision of impartial American justice as inspiring and legitimizing their actions, as they concluded that German war criminals were entitled to all the remedies American laws offered to better their conditions and reduce their sentences.
Based on extensive archival research (including newly declassified material), this book explains how American policy makers’ best intentions resulted in a series of decisions from 1949–1958 that produced a self-perpetuating bureaucracy of clemency and parole that “rehabilitated” unrepentant German abettors and perpetrators of theft, slavery, and murder while lending salience to the most reactionary elements in West German political discourse.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 27, 2022
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April 18, 2023
‘Of the 142 Germans convicted of war crimes at the twelve Nuremberg Military Tribunals from December 1946 to April 1949, eighty-eight men and one woman remained incarcerated at Landsberg in January 1951. Of these eighty-nine, seventy-seven received clemency, which included commutations of ten out of fifteen death sentences.’
It's an astounding statistic: that so any mass murderers, employers of slave labour, abusers, and tormentors were able to walk free, often within just ten years of their trial, requires explanation. Robert Hutchinson's 'After Nuremberg' attempts to do just that. Using previously overlooked sources and recently declassified information, he brings new and piercing insight to this travesty of justice.
The standard excuse for this clemency has always been 'Cold War expediency': the realpolitik of appeasing certain important sections of West Germany society to present a united front in fighting the 'real' enemy of the Soviet Union. Ironically, this use of a German bulwark against communism is not that dissimilar from the rationale behind the appeasement of Hitler between 1933 and 1939. Hutchinson, however, looks beyond this simple reason to the thoughts, both public and private, of those at the heart of the clemency proceedings to provide an entirely new interpretation of the American pursuit of 'justice' for the war criminals, and the result is surprising.
The road to hell, so the expression goes, is paved with good intentions. As with so much on either side of the Second World War, it certainly also seems to be the case here. For High Commissioner John McCloy and his successors seemed, more than anything else, to be concerned with 'justice' - specifically showcasing their idea of 'American justice'. Thus, everything they did, every action they took, was directed by the idea of providing war criminals with the same rights of appeal and parole as offered to those held in American prisons. Yet here is another irony: the United States is not famed internationally for its fair access to justice - with one of the largest relative prison populations in the world, disproportionately of non-white people, the impression is not one of moderation, restraint and equality. But the war criminals were granted far more than their American counterparts: appeals without consultation of the full trial records or the judges and prosectors who secured their convictions; benefit of doubt that wasn't merely walking the tightrope of credulity, but dancing a tango with it; the constant downgrading of sentences based on the notion that 'we've offered mercy once, so that shows they're not so bad'; and ignoring the thousand of lives destroyed because ten were spared on a whim. Perhaps the greatest irony of all was that in this pursuit of justice, the greatest injustice was done by calling into question the very processes and findings of Nuremberg.
The extent of clemency, and the disparity between the two systems, does cast a sliver of doubt on Hutchinson's argument that McCloy was primarily concerned with American justice rather than the Cold War. He obviously believed it, but the facts still speak towards more going on than perhaps he and his successors cared to admit, even to themselves. After all, this shining example of justice was set up as a direct contrast to Soviet notions of the same. The competition, even on an implicit level, points to the influence of the international situation in guiding decisions. Surely no-one can be that naïve otherwise.
Nevertheless, Hutchinson argues his case strongly, and with considerable passion. There is an exasperation with the High Commission for Occupied Germany that is absolutely deserved, and this transfers to the reader. Despite the razor-sharp, flowing and articulate prose, this therefore means that 'After Nuremberg' is not the easiest book to read: the subject is simply too awful, too infuriating. Yet it is also an extremely important book to read, not just to give the reader a fuller understanding of what happened after Nuremberg, but because it is all too relevant today. With the International Criminal Court looking to press charges against crimes in Eastern Europe - and significant sections of the world refusing to acknowledge its legitimacy - it becomes a necessity to understand the roots of the theory and application of international law. But beyond that, 'After Nuremberg' raises questions about justice that go right to the heart of the matter: are some crimes just too heinous, on too massive a scale, to be treated as 'ordinary', and consequently should those perpetrators be treated differently? What even is justice - is it more concerned with rehabilitation or with punishment? And justice for whom - the victims, the perpetrators, or both - and how can that ever be achieved? Societies will continue to grapple with these questions and, in all probably, continue to fail in finding solutions satisfactory to all.
It's an astounding statistic: that so any mass murderers, employers of slave labour, abusers, and tormentors were able to walk free, often within just ten years of their trial, requires explanation. Robert Hutchinson's 'After Nuremberg' attempts to do just that. Using previously overlooked sources and recently declassified information, he brings new and piercing insight to this travesty of justice.
The standard excuse for this clemency has always been 'Cold War expediency': the realpolitik of appeasing certain important sections of West Germany society to present a united front in fighting the 'real' enemy of the Soviet Union. Ironically, this use of a German bulwark against communism is not that dissimilar from the rationale behind the appeasement of Hitler between 1933 and 1939. Hutchinson, however, looks beyond this simple reason to the thoughts, both public and private, of those at the heart of the clemency proceedings to provide an entirely new interpretation of the American pursuit of 'justice' for the war criminals, and the result is surprising.
The road to hell, so the expression goes, is paved with good intentions. As with so much on either side of the Second World War, it certainly also seems to be the case here. For High Commissioner John McCloy and his successors seemed, more than anything else, to be concerned with 'justice' - specifically showcasing their idea of 'American justice'. Thus, everything they did, every action they took, was directed by the idea of providing war criminals with the same rights of appeal and parole as offered to those held in American prisons. Yet here is another irony: the United States is not famed internationally for its fair access to justice - with one of the largest relative prison populations in the world, disproportionately of non-white people, the impression is not one of moderation, restraint and equality. But the war criminals were granted far more than their American counterparts: appeals without consultation of the full trial records or the judges and prosectors who secured their convictions; benefit of doubt that wasn't merely walking the tightrope of credulity, but dancing a tango with it; the constant downgrading of sentences based on the notion that 'we've offered mercy once, so that shows they're not so bad'; and ignoring the thousand of lives destroyed because ten were spared on a whim. Perhaps the greatest irony of all was that in this pursuit of justice, the greatest injustice was done by calling into question the very processes and findings of Nuremberg.
The extent of clemency, and the disparity between the two systems, does cast a sliver of doubt on Hutchinson's argument that McCloy was primarily concerned with American justice rather than the Cold War. He obviously believed it, but the facts still speak towards more going on than perhaps he and his successors cared to admit, even to themselves. After all, this shining example of justice was set up as a direct contrast to Soviet notions of the same. The competition, even on an implicit level, points to the influence of the international situation in guiding decisions. Surely no-one can be that naïve otherwise.
Nevertheless, Hutchinson argues his case strongly, and with considerable passion. There is an exasperation with the High Commission for Occupied Germany that is absolutely deserved, and this transfers to the reader. Despite the razor-sharp, flowing and articulate prose, this therefore means that 'After Nuremberg' is not the easiest book to read: the subject is simply too awful, too infuriating. Yet it is also an extremely important book to read, not just to give the reader a fuller understanding of what happened after Nuremberg, but because it is all too relevant today. With the International Criminal Court looking to press charges against crimes in Eastern Europe - and significant sections of the world refusing to acknowledge its legitimacy - it becomes a necessity to understand the roots of the theory and application of international law. But beyond that, 'After Nuremberg' raises questions about justice that go right to the heart of the matter: are some crimes just too heinous, on too massive a scale, to be treated as 'ordinary', and consequently should those perpetrators be treated differently? What even is justice - is it more concerned with rehabilitation or with punishment? And justice for whom - the victims, the perpetrators, or both - and how can that ever be achieved? Societies will continue to grapple with these questions and, in all probably, continue to fail in finding solutions satisfactory to all.
September 30, 2025
Ultimately, this book is the story of how the American legal system received and interpreted the finding of Nuremberg. Given that the world was unprepared for the category of international war crime before and even after WWII, the majority of Nazi war criminals tried in the US were given some form of clemency. What to my mind is most fascinating is the legal systems devised thus far do not have the tools or categories to adequately deal with extreme and radical evil on a scale that pollutes not just some subgroup but an entire nation state. On a philosophical-theological level, this is because evil just is even more destructive and dark than our best legal minds can fathom or comprehend.
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