People who plead guilty and pledged loyalty to the new government were given light sentences. People who plead innocent were executed. The results could hardly be called inexplicable.

Incorrect.

Most of them weren't even tried.

And of those that were, most of the ones who fought the charges weren't convicted, or were convicted of far lesser charges. Only a few got death sentences.

... For instance, the industrialists that bankrolled the Nazis, ran their factories with slave labour, and made posion gas for exterminating Jews and other victims of fascism got 2 to 7 years, with most of them being acquitted.

Of the four death sentences handed out in the SS trials, only one was actually carried out. None of them, including the people who got life sentences actually served more than 10 years!

If this is victor's justice, the victors did a shit job of actually punishing the losers.

Thats not incorrect. The idea that people working for companies making basic supplies are guilty of murder for what their own government did with said supplies without their knowledge is so absurd that by your own admission they were not even tried. But that makes the trials of people who were fair? How about you directly enumerate the rights they were or were not afforded to determine if their trials were fair.

> without their knowledge

I would beg to differ. The industrial magnates of this German era where all well aware of what their supplies were going towards: A 'total war' that didn't stop at exterminating anybody considered inferior.

Each individual case is certainly difficult but there is a line where you can and should be tried as an employee for participating in something which violates laws and or ethical boundaries. And this doesn't apply only to the manufacturing of something like Zyklon B nerve gas.

Do you expect the executives of Raytheon and Lockheed to be put on trial if they lose a war too? You don't want to open that can of worms. Living by the sword is for soldiers and military, not for the civilian government. In the past, royalty who lost a battle were treated well and ransomed precisely to prevent blowback when the shoe is on the other foot.

If the US starts a six-year war of extermination against Jews and Slavs and Roma and others, killing 30 million people, I think more than the executives of Raytheon should stand to lose their heads, but it would be a good start.

It certainly wouldn't help their case if they also used slave labour, and bankrolled the fringe party that went ahead to seize power, and unleash that horror upon the world.

'Just following orders' isn't a valid defense for a lieutenant, and it absolutely isn't a viable defense for a general. Or for someone like Krupp.

Firstly, Zyklon B is not “nerve gas” its cyanide that was manufactured as an insecticide to disinfect lice. If you have proof that the employees making it had knowledge of its use as a murder weapon please present it. Otherwise you are just going on a witch hunt to enact vengeance on people just for being German.

As a German I am a bit saddened that you are coming to defend some of the most murderous tools of mass annihilation.

Zyklon A (the predecessor product) was banned after the first world war due to its use as a weapon in the war.

And Bruno Tesch - the inventor of Zyklon B - was executed in 1946 for knowingly selling the product to the SS for use on humans (at least according to Wikipedia).

In essence, the people in Germany knew very well what their leadership was doing and they supported it. Too few were ever held accountable.

This is not about vengeance (there isn't such a concept in the modern justice systems, right?). It is about accountability for your own atrocities. Germans grow up learning this in the hope it can prevent another event like the Holocaust.

This kind of accountability extends to everyone. Even scientists in the trenches who participate developing those technologies that might be misused.

Once again you just keep asserting things without any evidence and in its place attack anyone who asks for it as “defending murderers” as if that is a foregone conclusion. This is the logic of charlatans and liars my friend. Think a bit harder about why you believe these things and if it is evidence and not emotion share it with me please.

> The idea that people working for companies making basic supplies are guilty of murder for what their own government did with said supplies without their knowledge is so absurd

That idea is absurd.

@vkou mentioned industrialists, not rank-and-file employees.

Ok. Can anyone name an industrialist and present evidence that he thought people were being murdered with his company’s products? If not this is just mindless lashing out at powerless Germans for losing the war.

We are still waiting for the war criminals who bombed Dresden to be tried as well.

Why? They are dead.

exactly. that trial never happened.

I guess we aren't waiting for a trial then.

You do remember that Germany's humiliation at Versailles was a major factor leading up to WWII, right?

Are you absolutely sure you need to humiliate a nation even after you achieved total military victory?

Versaille played a role, the Nazi's used, and the reparations, for propaganda. WW1 and WW2 were different so, as in WW1 a lot less genozide happened. What was very convinient for both, Allies and Axis, was the coming cold war. It allowed them to quickly forego the necessary clean-up work of Germany, an ugly and lengthy thing, and just go and use former Nazis to continue the "good fight against Communism".

That the Allies choose the Marshall over the Morgenthau plan was a good call so, even if the former would have worked as well including a complete purge of Nazis from Germany.

I'm sure you're able to tell the difference between the guilt of Germany's government and various other collaborators in terms of starting and prosecuting WWI, and how it started, and what it did in WWII.

Observe that nobody was put on trial for the former.

Those monsters took a crushed Germany and turned her into an economical, technological and military power house capable of waging war against the world. Would you "disentangle" yourself from something like that? Remember, they were once popular.

It's a mistake to think you're not crushing a nation's pride and self-respect by exacting vengeance against your monsters. Their restraint was wise and showed they learned valuable lessons.