In 1951, approximately 800 alleged
war criminals were still being held
in prisons across Europe.
Source
Therefore, in April 1951, the SPD faction submitted an inquiry about the fate of the "German prisoners of war in the West" to the Federal Government. The interesting thing about this inquiry was not only the harsh tone especially against France, but also the adoption of nationalist associations’ long-standing practice of linguistically consolidating war criminals and prisoners of war, which were both referred to with the newly coined term "war convicts". In this way, attention was drawn to the approximately 800 Germans still imprisoned in Western European countries in the spring of 1951 for alleged war crimes, who had previously attracted much less attention than the Nazi culprits held in Allied prisons in Germany (who still numbered 991 in June 1951).
However, the answer of the Federal Government to the SPD made clear how delicate this issue was, as these trials involved sentences passed by courts in those countries for crimes committed by members of the German occupation forces in those countries. Therefore, any intervention by the West German side was only possible in an indirect and highly discrete manner. Since the establishment of the Federal Republic, this could be done through diplomatic channels and by providing legal assistance. Accordingly, the federal government was eager to continue to negotiate this issue in silence and without any public debates.