A new study highlighting the Nazi legacy in post-war Germany has revealed that until the 1970s the federal prosecutor’s office was full of former Nazi party members. The study commissioned by Germany’s Attorney General Peter Frank in 2018 found that In the decades after World War II, the country’s judicial system was largely staffed by lawyers who had been associated with the Nazi party, Deutsche Welle reported. The results of the study were published on Thursday, with Justice Minister Margaretha Sudhof warning "how manipulative ideologically-based legal systems are.” The report looked into the years 1950 to 1974. It found that in the 1950s, approximately 75 percent of the staff at the federal prosecutor’s office were former Nazi party members. In 1966, 10 out of 11 federal prosecutors tasked with criminal prosecutions were former Nazi party members. By 1974, the figure had dropped to 6 out of 15. Researchers found that rather than seeking applicants who were not affiliated with the Nazi regime in the past, the judiciary instead sought previous professional and legal expertise as the main hiring criteria. It noted that the mandate of the heads of the federal prosecutor’s office in the 1950s and early 1960s had mainly to due with the prosecution of communists and communist subversion, with the Cold War and the conflict between the West and the East dominating politics of the era. Researchers found that the office was essentially a "seamless continuation of what they had already practiced under National Socialism.” The study also found that the prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the time was minimal. Related articles: A German perspective on the Amsterdam pogrom Pro-Palestinian shouts 'From the river to the sea' ICJ to hear Nicaragua's case against Germany National soccer team redesigning numeral to avoid runic 'S'
