III.B. The High-Level Political Operators and Administrative Continuity

At the upper echelon of the West German state, administrative experience and political loyalty often superseded any moral concern regarding wartime activities. These high-level roles included Ministerial Advisors and State Secretaries.

A notable example of this institutional tolerance is Hans Globke, who, while not an SS member, had been a crucial administrator in the Nazi state, helping to draft the infamous anti-Jewish laws and assisting SS leader Heinrich Himmler in enforcing them across occupied Europe. After the war, Globke rose to become one of the most powerful individuals in the German government. Serving as State Secretary of the Chancellery from 1953 to 1963, he was Chancellor Adenauer’s closest aide, wielding significant influence over governmental policy, managing anti-communist strategy, and serving as the main liaison between the BRD, NATO, and the CIA. Adenauer consistently defended Globke, emphasizing the necessity of retaining experienced officials for stability and competence.  

III.C. Intelligence and Security Roles: The Cold War Currency of SS Expertise

For the most politically and militarily valuable former SS and Gestapo officers, the highest professional reward lay in the nascent West German security apparatus. Their expertise in totalitarian surveillance and anti-communist operations was considered indispensable by both the BRD government and its American patrons.

This need was crystallized in the formation of the Gehlen Organization (Org), led by former Wehrmacht General Reinhard Gehlen. The organization was supported by the CIA and eventually became the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), West Germany’s federal intelligence service. Gehlen actively recruited “thousands of the meanest, most despicable former members of the Gestapo, Wehrmacht, and SS officer class”. The value these individuals possessed lay not in their ideology, but in their operational knowledge accumulated while fighting on the Eastern Front, including established networks and expertise in surveillance and interrogation techniques.  

Specific examples of high-profile war criminals recruited included Franz Six, the exterminator of hundreds of Jews in the Smolensk Ghetto; SS Major Emil Augsburg, who oversaw the murder of hundreds of Russians; Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s most trusted aid; and Klaus Barbie. A German newspaper reported that the Gehlen headquarters became a place where “Himmler’s elite were having happy reunion ceremonies,” confirming that this recruitment was systemic.  

The professional employment of these men as intelligence agents, analysts, and operational directors within the BND demonstrates a foundational policy choice by the BRD: the willingness to sacrifice moral integrity to ensure a robust, anti-communist state apparatus built upon established, compromised, operational foundations. This administrative symbiosis—where political heavyweights like Globke collaborated closely with intelligence heads like Gehlen —defined high-level post-war careers for former Nazi security personnel, validating their experience through strategic necessity.  

IV. Occupational Paths in the Private Sector and Industry

For the thousands of former SS and NSDAP members who did not possess the high-level intelligence expertise required by the Gehlen Org or the specific administrative background to qualify under Law 131, the booming West German private sector provided the most accessible route back to professional life.

German industry, which had benefited immensely from rearmament and the war economy—often through the use of forced labor —was closely aligned with the Nazi regime. When denazification was relaxed after 1951 , the BRD’s priority shifted entirely to economic revival (Wirtschaftswunder). This rapid economic necessity prioritized skill, efficiency, and organizational experience over political vetting.  

Consequently, former members of the SS and related organizations who had accumulated technical, engineering, or industrial administrative skills were easily integrated. Former personnel found roles as corporate executives, engineers, and plant managers in major companies, capitalizing on the continuity of corporate leadership structures that often resisted deep political cleansing. This offered a straightforward path to financial stability and middle-class existence, far removed from the scrutiny of either Allied or West German judicial inquiries.

V. The Eastern Model: Surveillance and Specialized Utilization in the DDR

In the Soviet occupation zone and the subsequent German Democratic Republic (DDR), the political environment for former Nazis was officially hostile, leading to purges of the bureaucracy and judiciary. However, operational realities dictated a different, more transactional approach to utilizing former personnel.

The DDR’s secret police, the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS or Stasi), adopted a strategy of covert collaboration, distinct from the BRD’s systemic rehabilitation. The Stasi recruited former Wehrmacht veterans, SS members, and NSDAP members as Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs), or Informal Collaborators. These roles were covert and disposable, lacking the administrative authority granted to former functionaries in the West.  

The fundamental difference in employment philosophy rested on trust. The BRD offered former SS/Gestapo members systemic leadership in exchange for anti-communist capability (high trust, high reward). Conversely, the Stasi primarily sought information from former members, particularly concerning anti-communist organizations operating out of the West. The former Nazis’ past provided the leverage necessary to ensure their cooperation. This approach reflected the transactional nature of totalitarian employment: former SS/Gestapo members were valued for their knowledge and their inherent political vulnerability, serving as compromised assets used for informational surveillance (low trust, high control), thereby ensuring that they did not contaminate the official socialist administrative structure.  

VI. Evasion and Exile: The International Dimension (The Ratlines)

For the most notorious war criminals who faced certain prosecution at Nuremberg, the primary professional endeavor became evasion, facilitated by organized escape routes known as the “ratlines” (Rattenlinien).  

VI.A. The Mechanism of Escape

These ratlines mainly led to havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay, though Spain and Switzerland also served as interim destinations. These systems were supported by key clergy figures, such as Austrian Bishop Alois Hudal and Croatian priest Krunoslav Draganović, and often involved the complicity of the International Committee of the Red Cross and authoritarian governments. Notably, Argentine President Juan Perón reportedly coordinated these efforts, deciding to “save as many Nazi officials as possible” from the perceived “outrage” of the Nuremberg Trials.  

As many as 9,000 war criminals reportedly escaped via these routes. Prominent escapees included Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, former SS member Erich Priebke, and Gestapo leader Klaus Barbie.  

VI.B. Occupations of Fugitives

For high-profile fugitives, the “job” was often maintaining anonymity and utilizing their established connections to survive in seclusion, as was the case for Josef Mengele in Paraguay and Brazil.  

However, the specialized expertise of these individuals did not vanish; it was repurposed and exported. The skills in internal security, intelligence gathering, and repression acquired by Gestapo and SS personnel were highly valuable to authoritarian regimes overseas. Klaus Barbie, for example, was initially sheltered and utilized by U.S. intelligence via the Draganović network in exchange for his anti-communist services before he fled to Bolivia. In South America, such individuals often worked as security consultants, arms dealers, or clandestine operators for the host governments, exchanging their knowledge of torture, counter-insurgency, and political control for protected asylum. The professional opportunities in exile thus validated the enduring, transferable value of totalitarian security skills across geopolitical boundaries.

VII. Conclusion: A Dual Legacy of Opportunism and Compromise

The research confirms that the availability of professional opportunities for former SS and Gestapo personnel was intrinsically linked to the shifting geopolitical priorities of the post-war world. The Allied ambition of purging Nazi influence was swiftly superseded by the strategic demands of the Cold War, creating a fertile ground for the re-integration of the compromised elite.

Two overarching conclusions emerge from the synthesis of career outcomes:

First, the vast majority of former SS/Gestapo members who secured legitimate, visible employment benefited from the systemic reinstatement of the bureaucratic class (Law 131) and the West German political prioritization of economic recovery (Industry). This allowed for the quiet return of thousands of administrative and technical specialists into the fabric of the new democratic state, a political decision driven by the imperative for stability and efficiency.

Second, the most politically powerful and dangerous individuals, including known war criminals, found employment in security and intelligence roles, capitalizing directly on their anti-communist operational experience. The employment of figures like Hans Globke at the heart of the Chancellery and the mass recruitment of SS officers into the BND demonstrate a calculated policy of strategic compromise.

The lasting implication is that the founding decades of the West German state were structurally compromised. Key elements of the new administration and its intelligence network were built upon the existing framework of the Nazi bureaucracy and relied on the expertise of individuals whose loyalties and skills derived directly from the former regime. This necessary political compromise ensured stability and anti-communist defense but created a foundational challenge to West Germany’s democratic integrity for decades to come.

From Nazism to the Cold War

• Cold War Spies: General Reinhard Gehlen – Warfare History Network
• Hans Globke – Wikipedia
• Globke, Hans – Yad Vashem
• Denazification – Wikipedia
• Denazification – Allied Museum (AlliiertenMuseum)
• Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service – Holocaust Encyclopedia
• Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service – Wikipedia
• Siemens and National Socialism – Siemens History
• The Role of Business Elites – Holocaust Encyclopedia

Escape and Reintegration

• Ratlines (World War II) – Wikipedia
• The Perfect Hideout: Jewish and Nazi Havens in Latin America – Wiener Holocaust Library
• In East Germany, Did Any Veterans of the Gestapo Serve in the Stasi? – r/AskHistorians