Editing Konrad Adenauer (section)

==== Amnesty and employment of Nazis ====
In 1950, a major controversy broke out when it emerged that Adenauer's State Secretary [[Hans Globke]] had played a major role in drafting anti-semitic [[Nuremberg Laws|Nuremberg Race Laws]] in Nazi Germany.<ref>Tetens, T.H. ''The New Germany and the Old Nazis'', New York: Random House, 1961 pages 37–40.</ref> Adenauer kept Globke on as State Secretary as part of his strategy of integration.{{sfn|Herf|1997|pp=289–290}} Starting in August 1950, Adenauer began to pressure the Western Allies to free all of the war criminals in their custody, especially those from the [[Wehrmacht]], whose continued imprisonment he claimed made [[West German rearmament]] impossible.{{sfn|Goda|2007|pp=101–149}} Adenauer had been opposed to the [[Nuremberg trials|Nuremberg Trials]] in 1945–46, and after becoming Chancellor, he demanded the release of the so-called "Spandau Seven", as the seven war criminals convicted at Nuremberg and imprisoned at [[Spandau Prison]] were known.{{sfn|Goda|2007|p=149}}

In October 1950, Adenauer received the so-called "[[Himmerod memorandum]]" drafted by four former Wehrmacht generals at the [[Himmerod Abbey]] that linked freedom for German war criminals as the price of German rearmament, along with public statements from the Allies that the [[Myth of the clean Wehrmacht|Wehrmacht committed no war crimes]] in World War II.{{sfn|Large|1996|pp=97–98}} The Allies were willing to do whatever necessary to get the much-needed German rearmament underway, and in January 1951, General [[Dwight Eisenhower]], commander of NATO forces, issued a statement which declared the great majority of the Wehrmacht had acted honorably.<ref>Bickford, Andrew ''Fallen Elites: The Military Other in Post–Unification Germany'', Stanford: 2011 pages 116–117</ref>

On 2 January 1951, Adenauer met with the American High Commissioner, [[John J. McCloy]], to argue that executing the [[Landsberg Prison|Landsberg prisoners]] would ruin forever any effort at having the Federal Republic play its role in the Cold War.{{sfn|Frei|2002|p=157}} At the time, American occupation authorities had 28 Nazi war criminals left on death row in their custody. In response to Adenauer's demands and pressure from the German public, McCloy and [[Thomas T. Handy]] on 31 January 1951 reduced the death sentences of all but the 7 worst offenders.{{sfn|Frei|2002|pp=164–165}}

By 1951 laws were passed by the [[Bundestag]] ending denazification. [[Denazification]] was viewed by the United States as counterproductive and ineffective, and its demise was not opposed.<ref>The Nazi-ferreting questionnaire cited 136 mandatory reasons for exclusion from employment and created red-tape nightmares for both the hapless and the guilty; see ''The New York Times'', 22 February 2003, p. A7.</ref> Adenauer's intention was to switch government policy to reparations and compensation for the victims of Nazi rule (''[[Wiedergutmachung]]'').<ref>Steinweis, Alan E., Rogers, Daniel E. ''The Impact of Nazism: New Perspectives on the Third Reich and Its Legacy.'' Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2003, p. 235</ref><ref name=Art />

Officials were allowed to retake jobs in civil service, with the exception of people assigned to Group I (Major Offenders) and II (Offenders) during the denazification review process.<ref name=Art>Art, David, ''The politics of the Nazi past in Germany and Austria'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 53–55</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav?start=%2F%2F*%5B%40attr_id%3D%27bgbl151s0307.pdf%27%5D#__bgbl__%2F%2F*%5B%40attr_id%3D%27bgbl151s0307.pdf%27%5D__1578237681963|title=Gesetz zur Regelung der Rechtsverhältnisse der unter Artikel 131 des Grundgesetzes fallenden Personen (Bundesgesetzblatt I 22/1951, p. 307 ff.)|date=11 May 1951|language=de|access-date=5 January 2020|archive-date=3 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803035403/https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav?start=%2F%2F*%5B%40attr_id%3D%27bgbl151s0307.pdf%27%5D#__bgbl__%2F%2F*%5B%40attr_id%3D%27bgbl151s0307.pdf%27%5D__1578237681963|url-status=live}}</ref> Adenauer pressured his rehabilitated ex-Nazis by threatening that stepping out of line could trigger the reopening of individual de-Nazification prosecutions. The construction of a "competent Federal Government effectively from a standing start was one of the greatest of Adenauer's formidable achievements".{{sfn|Williams|2001|p=391}}

Contemporary critics accused Adenauer of cementing the division of Germany, sacrificing reunification and the recovery of territories lost in the westward shift of [[Poland]] and the [[Soviet Union]] with his determination to secure the Federal Republic to the West. Adenauer's German policy was based upon ''Politik der Stärke'' (Policy of Strength), and upon the so-called "magnet theory", in which a prosperous, democratic West Germany integrated with the West would act as a "magnet" that would eventually bring down the East German regime.{{sfn|Large|1996|p=70}}