Excerpt from the indictment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT).
The charges of “deportation for slave labor” and “enslavement” were listed among the key war crimes and crimes against humanity in the IMT indictment against the perpetrators.
Source: Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nürnberg 1947
London Debt Agreement, 27 February 1953.
In the London treaty, the Federal Republic of Germany was able to postpone negotiations on the majority of reparations claims until the signing of a final peace treaty, despite the existence of other reparations agreements. However, with Germany divided and the Cold War underway, a final peace treaty appeared a distant prospect at the time.
In August 1953, the Soviet Union relinquished all further claims for reparations and compensation against East Germany.
Source: Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin
Reparations and treaties.
The German delegation during the signing of the London Agreement on German External Debts, 27 February 1953.
Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo
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Conflict over Remembrance (section of the exhibition)
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In April 2008, former students of the Friedrich-Flick-Gymnasium, who had started an initiative to rename their old school in Kreuztal, launched a website with a guestbook. By the time the school was renamed “Städtisches Gymnasium Kreuztal” on 6 November 2008, 1,428 entries had been made in the guestbook.
Industry without responsibility?
At the Nuremberg Trials, the Allies treated forced labor as a “crime against humanity,” the first time in history that this view was taken. In later trials, however, forced labor hardly played a role. The Allies sentenced ten of the twenty-four principal defendants in the Nuremberg Trial to severe punishment for their involvement in the organization of forced labor. Soon the majority of Germans, like the defendants themselves, came to view the verdicts – and not the crimes – as being unjust. The sentences were already milder in the follow‑uptrials, and before long almost no one was being punished in connection with the forced labor system. Before German courts, the exploitation of forced laborers was not treated as a statutory offense. Only concrete cases of physical abuse in this context were tried. Citing bilateral global agreements, the authorities categorically denied former forced laborers’ demands for compensation.
Beginning in 1946, the US prosecution held twelve additional war crimes trials. Four of the trials addressed the issue of the industry’s responsibility for forced labor. The industrialists Friedrich Flick and five of his staff were charged in the Flick trial. The defendants received only mild sentences. Flick manager Odilo Burkhart, who had been acquitted, made a photo album on behalf of the top management after the trial.
New generation – New outlook
In December 1968, the industrialist Friedrich Flick donated 3 million Marks for the construction of a secondary school in his hometown, which later bore his name. In the early 1980s, the students at the school began asking questions about his role under National Socialism. Their questions turned into a 20-year battle over whether the school should be renamed. In November 2008, the Friedrich Flick Secondary School was renamed the Kreuztal Municipal Secondary School.