The partition of Germany intensified
the disputes about the war crime
trials.
Source
Social Reintegration of Convicted Nazi Criminals
Following the sentences of the Nuremberg trials of major war criminals, the occupying powers held follow-up trials against jurists, doctors, industrials, and other Nazi organisations such as the SS Task Forces. In the zones of the Western Allies, the military courts brought charges against 5,025 persons. The death penalty was imposed in 806 cases and executed in 481 cases (including the Nuremberg sentences). In his book "Werner Best. Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft, 1903-1989" (Werner Best. Biographical Studies on Radicalism, Weltanschauung, and Reason, 1903-1989", published in 1996 in Bonn, Germany, Ulrich Herbert, Professor of Modern History at the University of Freiburg, demonstrates the creeping rehabilitation of Nazi criminals in the fledgling Federal Republic of Germany on the basis of the biography of a top functionary of the Reich Security Main Office. Here is an excerpt:
Due to the imminent establishment of a West German state, the dispute about the war crime trials had become even more explosive since early 1949, especially as the imposed death penalties were bound to cause a wide echo from the West German public for a long time.
Thus, the American military administration was facing increasing pressure, especially since the spring of 1949, when the key defence counsels of the defendants in the Nuremberg Trials teamed up with a number of university professors in the "Heidelberg Circle" to form an influential pressure group. Partly together with the new Federal Government, partly instead of it, they appealed to the High Commissioners for a general revision of the sentences passed in the trials against Nazi criminals as well as for mitigation and amnesty in individual cases.