"Support Germany to maintain its importance as a paramount factor of military power on the European continent"
In April 1945 Deputy President of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Folke Bernadotte, nephew of the Swedish King Gustav, invited Reichsführer SS Himmler to have breakfast at the Swedish embassy in Lübeck, and then to a secret meeting in the office of the Red Cross. During the conversation, Bernadotte agreed to Himmler's request to convey a message to the Western powers through the Swedish Foreign Ministry about Germany's readiness to capitulate on the Western front in order to continue the joint war with the Anglo-Americans in the East..
Himmler sent the same proposal to the French authorities.. Paris refused Himmler not at all because, that he considered it unacceptable to rub shoulders with a Nazi criminal. General de Gaulle later recalled: was denied because, that he was too odious a figure and could not offer the French anything in return. spring 1945 g. Churchill sent a telegram to the commander of the British units, Field Marshal Montgomery "carefully collect German weapons and store them, so that it can be easily distributed again to German soldiers, with whom we would have to cooperate" (G.L. Rozanov "The Last Days of Hitler", Moscow, 1961).
USA still in 1943 g. at a meeting with Himmler's envoy, Prince Hohenlohe, with CIA Director Allen Dulles, they expressed hope, that Germany will remain a factor of order and will play an appropriate role in Europe in the future.
spring 1945 g. the process of voluntary surrender of German senior officers to American and British captivity was already underway. In the hands of the Allies were Field Marshal of the Luftwaffe Kesselring, Chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe Koller, chiefs of the general staff of the ground forces of the Wehrmacht Halder and Guderian, Head of the Operations Department of the General Staff Heusinger, Field Marshal Manstein, Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions Speer, SS Generals Steiner and Juttner, head of the Hitler Youth Axman, Hitler's personal doctor Morrel, personal chauffeur Kempka, chief adjutant of the Führer Schaub and thousands of smaller figures of the Hitler regime.
The above persons did not suffer any serious punishment., and some have avoided it altogether.. Preparing for a possible third world war with the Soviet Union, West later 1945 g. carefully collected former Nazi military leaders, promoting them to high positions in the army and politics.
So, unrepentant Nazi, Colonel General Halder, one of the developers of the plan of aggression of Nazi Germany against the Netherlands, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Poland and the USSR, being in the American zone of occupation, successfully passed denification, transferred to the US Army, at 1961 was awarded the highest American award, given to foreign citizens.
AT 2014 g. The New York Times I wrote, that after the war, at least a thousand former Nazis worked for the American special services. AT 1980 g. The FBI refused, for operational reasons, to provide the Justice Department with information about 16 Nazi criminals, legally residing in the USA, because it used them to fight the communists.
“American government agencies directly or indirectly hired many former Nazi German police officers and collaborators from Eastern Europe., clearly guilty of war crimes", University of Florida historian Norman Goda says (Norman Goda).
High-ranking Nazi military Halder, Guderian, Manstein took part in the development of a plan for the creation of the armed forces of a democratic Germany. Kesselring, after serving five years in prison, received the post of military adviser to German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.
Chancellor willingly gave ex-Nazis high positions. Popularizer of the racial laws of the Third Reich, Hans Globke, served under him as Secretary of State, the executioner of Soviet citizens Theodor Oberländer was a member of the Bundestag (at 1986 g. he was awarded the Order of Merit), Heusinger - Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, then Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. Heads of military intelligence of the Wehrmacht, war criminals Reinhard Gehlen and Gerhard Wessel, stood at the helm of the secret services of West Germany.
Thanks to the intercession of the Americans, Koller, Steiner, Kempka served only two years, Axman - three, Juttner and Schaub - four. Steiner, after his release, was in the Munich Mutual Aid Society for SS members. Speer only remained in prison for this reason., that the Soviet side managed to achieve the rejection of his numerous petitions for pardon.
After the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders throughout Germany in 1947 year passed the courts of a lower rank - over middle-ranking Nazis (Wehrmacht unit commanders, punitive sonder teams, concentration camp guards, etc.). The composition of these courts was not international, most of the judges were Americans and carried out the political order of the American government.
These courts were distinguished by benevolence towards the defendants., until recently, who burned people in crematoria and shot the civilian population of Europe and the USSR. The accusation was based on US intelligence data and the testimony of the defendants themselves.. Witnesses from the USSR were not invited to the hearings, the evidence base was poor. Only four Nazis sentenced to death. The rest of the Nazi butchers served ridiculous terms - two or three years each., although formally they were sentenced to imprisonment from several decades to life.
A few days before the surrender of Germany, in a report to the commander-in-chief of the German troops, Grand Admiral Dönitz, German staff officers accurately defined the contours of the post-war policy of the West - "to support Germany in order to maintain its importance as a paramount factor of military power on the European continent", which will serve as a prerequisite for mastering "a certain part of the Russian heritage".
Washington is true to this line so far. NATO expansion to the east, along with a powerful information campaign to belittle the role of the Soviet people in the defeat of fascism and revise the results of World War II, is a continuation spread to the east by other means.
Vladislav GULEVICH
