Ludwig Erhard was a severely injured WW I veteran. I present data on his vita. Erhard’s education ended with a doctorate at the University of Frankfurt/Main with Franz Oppenheimer, the “liberal socialist,” in 1925. After some unsuccessful years in his father’s textile business at his hometown Fürth, he was employed by the Institute for Economic Observation of German Manufactured Goods in 1929 in Nuremberg. In 1943, Erhard founded his own Institute for Industrial Research. I provide evidence that he had twice shown political turncoat behavior: from a liberal in the European sense during the Weimar Republic to Nazi economic-policy doctrines until German military defeat in 1943 became a foregone conclusion, and thereafter to the American conception of market instead of government-controlled economic conditions. I discuss Erhard’s qualifications for public office as well as the strengths and weaknesses of Erhard’s character.

This chapter examines the development of Allied policy toward German courts in all four occupation zones. The chapter begins by analyzing the limitations in the denazification of the German legal profession. It then turns to the policies adopted by the four occupying powers toward granting German courts jurisdiction over Nazi crimes. Allied Control Council Law No. 10 of December 1945 allowed the occupation authorities to grant German courts jurisdiction over Nazi crimes against humanity, which included crimes against German citizens. In the British and French Zones, German courts were granted general jurisdiction over Nazi crimes against humanity. In the American zone, fears of German pushback led the Americans to authorize the Germans to prosecute Nazi crimes only under domestic law, not as crimes against humanity. In the Soviet Occupation Zone, a complex process of politicization took place. At first the Soviets allowed Germans to proseucte Nazi crimes against humanity in criminal courts. They the folded crimes against humanity prosecutions into the broader program of denazification. This led to an increased politicization of these trials, though they did not become complete sham trials until the so-called Waldheim Trials of 1950.

This chapter outlines Allied efforts at justice for Nazi crimes. It describes how the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg prioritized the prosecution of aggressive war and rendered Nazi atrocities secondary. The chapter then analyzes how subsequent American trials at Nuremberg did focus on Nazi atrocities, but how the defense attorneys successfully shaped the German public perception of the trials, so that they largely failed in their liberalizing pedagogy. The chapter also evaluates the national trial programs conducted by the Americans, British, French, and Soviets for “ordinary” German war crimes. It argues that these trials received only modest public attention, in comparison to the Nuremberg trials, and that, because these trials were focused overwhelmingly on crimes against Allied nationals, they had very limited impact on German political culture. Overall, the chapter concludes that the Allied trials did not have the kind of democratizing impact suggested by transitional justice theory.