Nazi war criminals ran children's homes in post-war Germany

[Jean-s]

Millions of West German children were sent to brutal "spa" homes between the 1950s and 1980s that left them traumatized, a new report alleges. Many of the homes were run by former Nazis. Nazi war criminals were allowed to run children's holiday homes in postwar Germany where draconian corporal punishment and bullying were normal, new research by public broadcaster ARD has shown.

ARD's investigative TV show Report Mainz has discovered that former SS officer Werner Scheu, convicted for his part in the murder of 220 Lithuanian Jews in 1941, ran a children's home named "Möwennest" (Seagull's Nest) on the German North Sea island of Borkum (picture below) after serving his sentence.
Nazi war criminals ran children′s homes in post-war Germany: new research | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 10.08.2020

A few disturbing accounts can be read in the DW report. That thousands of Nazis and those who had responsibility for running the Third Reich were given important jobs in West Germany is well established. They enjoyed state protection as they contributed to the Bundesrepublik which turned a blind eye to their Nazi days and, as this report exposes, allowed them to continue their abuse of needy children.

 

[Sven Karma]

Slightly off-topic my father (r.i.p) never much talked about his WW2 experiences but at the end of the war he was in Schleswig-Holstein where one of his tasks was to sort out the sheep from the goats so that factories could be reopened.

 

[Jean-s]

Slightly off-topic my father (r.i.p) never much talked about his WW2 experiences but at the end of the war he was in Schleswig-Holstein where one of his tasks was to sort out the sheep from the goats so that factories could be reopened.

Your post is on-topic insofar as the occupation American and British forces decided to go after only a handful of Nazis who were at the very top, allowing many war criminals to take up positions in the Bundesrepublik in a Cold War climate. The West German authorities let nearly every Nazi go free or in rare instances gave only short sentences as was the case with those who were allowed to open children's homes as recounted in this report. It is not a glorious period of history.

 

[Chagos]

Adenauer (the first post-war Chancellor) put it very succinctly when he said that in a dire shortage of water you don't pour out what you have, just because it's not perfectly pure.

The Bundesrepublik could not have been run in the post war years if every Nazi had been eliminated. There wouldn't have been anyone left to fall back on.

A problem that the newly formed Bundesrepublik incidentally shared with the (equally) newly formed German Democratic Republic, which, after sending a token number either to jail or to the "in the back of the neck" room, didn't act much differently.

 

[Sven Karma]

Your post is on-topic insofar as the occupation American and British forces decided to go after only a handful of Nazis who were at the very top, allowing many war criminals to take up positions in the Bundesrepublik in a Cold War climate. The West German authorities let nearly every Nazi go free or in rare instances gave only short sentences as was the case with those who were allowed to open children's homes as recounted in this report. It is not a glorious period of history.

Well, there were compromises and collusions on all sides; both the Americans and the Soviets were happy to co-opt Nazi scientists deemed to be in their strategic interest.

 

[Jean-s]

Well, there were compromises and collusions on all sides; both the Americans and the Soviets were happy to co-opt Nazi scientists deemed to be in their strategic interest.

The Soviets and East Germans were far more severe on people who committed war crimes than the Americans and West Germans.

 

[Jean-s]

Well, there were compromises and collusions on all sides; both the Americans and the Soviets were happy to co-opt Nazi scientists deemed to be in their strategic interest.

The Soviets and East Germans were far more severe on people who committed war crimes than the Americans and West Germans.

 

[Chagos]

Well, there were compromises and collusions on all sides; both the Americans and the Soviets were happy to co-opt Nazi scientists deemed to be in their strategic interest.

It wasn't just scientists, plenty of Nazis (CC guards and murdering medics included) found themselves a cosy bed in East Germany, once the initial purges were completed.

Much as Jean may wish to go into denial over it, German unification revealed that the "Staatssicherheit" (the new Gestapo) kept plenty of files, primarily to make the whole load of scum toe the party and gubmint line.

Universities in GDR were rife with professors that had taught in the Reich already.

 

[Chagos]

The Soviets and East Germans were far more severe on people who committed war crimes than the Americans and West Germans.

BS, the only reason more death sentences were initially handed out and executions effected, was that capital punishment already existed with the Soviets and was slavishly adopted by the governing East German satraps.

While the FRG made it a point to never introduce it at all.

 

[bomberfox]

Well, there were compromises and collusions on all sides; both the Americans and the Soviets were happy to co-opt Nazi scientists deemed to be in their strategic interest.

Even before the war, Americans sent their worst to Germany to aid and help construct the nazi racial hygiene and eugenics program, the nazis took their policies to their most logical conclusion which is why Americans today should be very wary of these snake oil salesmen.

 

[Tigerace117]

Your post is on-topic insofar as the occupation American and British forces decided to go after only a handful of Nazis who were at the very top, allowing many war criminals to take up positions in the Bundesrepublik in a Cold War climate. The West German authorities let nearly every Nazi go free or in rare instances gave only short sentences as was the case with those who were allowed to open children's homes as recounted in this report. It is not a glorious period of history.

France, meanwhile, desperately tried to recruit Nazis to fight for their precious Indochinese colony.