> you were just implementing the rules, and you cannot be held accountable

That kind of explains why they tried to pull it of at Nuremberg. And why some nazis that weren't sentenced internationally got good jobs in post-war Germany. For Germans they weren't really at fault if they were just following procedures.

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jasonvorhe 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That's not the main reason though. The reason the denazification was mostly a sham is because a lot of federal positions required good contacts and experience in that field and you couldn't find anyone qualified who wasn't in the party. Based not just on first hand accounts on the family side but also lots of research. A lot of higher ups also were well connected so they got an already short conviction halved to released early in order to get a position in the government.

	▲	bratwurst3000 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		yes but there are so many cases where they took the worst of the worst and gave them high profile jobs with way way way to much power for high ranking nsdap members. Rheinhard gehlen and everyone around him is a something that could have been prevented. And so many high class nazis where in such good positions because they where experts on anticommunism. For the americans and brits it was "safer" to give positions to exnsdap officiers then people from the SPD(socialists) Gehlen kicked even the only high ranking spd member in secret service out for god sake they even hired klaus barbie. that guy had entertainment partys where the guests could torture jews homosexualls etc... and he killed most of french opposition. Got hired from the bnd and cia as expert on anticommunism Germany didnt change much.. fuck we even voted a full member of the nsdap as chancelor. Kurt kiesinger. Yes we had two Nazi chancellors!! honestly the only reason the denazification was shit was because most people at power at that time where kind of nazis. edit:// btw the DDR had somehow solved the problem and didnt had as much nazis in high position.

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this_user 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"I was just following orders," is a bit of a meme, but it's also true, and even more so in the context of Prussian-style military discipline. Disobeying an order was not an option. You carry it out no matter what, but the responsibility lies with the commander. It gets more murky for the civilians who theoretically could have walked away, but a lot of them had a similar mindset that they were just doing their jobs. And you have to keep in mind that all of the Nazi's racial ideology had been codified into law at the time. So you were once again just implementing the rules, even if those rules were actually harmful.

But what this episode also highlights is the opposite of this in the form of the American approach that is much more flexible and willing to bend the rules if necessary. Rightfully, the Allies could and probably should have brought everyone to justice, but they realised that a lot of the Nazi scientists were extremely valuable assets that they needed to get a leg up on the Soviets. So rather than execute them or put them in prison and throw away the key, they recruited them.

	▲	pqtyw 44 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That's kind of interesting, though considering that the German army (and presumably Prussian before that?) was know for giving a relatively huge amount of leeway and authority to more junior officers. Supposedly while the French and British officers were frozen waiting for new orders to be telegraphed when something didn't go according to plan, Germans took the initiative based on what's happening on the ground. US and other countries adopted this doctrine after the war because of how unexpected successful the German army was (despite being outgunned by the French and the soviets who had better tanks and more trucks just couldn't figure out how to use them efficiently)

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tempest_ 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They got good jobs because the Allies did not really care about punishing the Nazis.

At the end of WW2 a strong West Germany to oppose the USSR was more important than punishing some middle manager and the quickest way to get the West German state together was to use a lot of the existing bureaucracy.