After World War II, individuals who collaborated with the Nazi regime during the war were pursued and apprehended. This article does not cover former members of the Nazi Party — who were not citizens of the Third Reich at the outbreak of World War II — and their fates after the war.
Background There were a number of motives for the apprehension of suspected collaborators, including vengeance for Holocaust victims (especially those who were murdered on ethnic grounds such as Jews, Poles, and Russians), bringing criminals to face legal justice (as in the Nuremberg trials), ensuring that the criminality was documented with evidence (with many acts being so unthinkable as to inspire denial), affirming sociocultural intolerance towards genocide (despite the inadequacy of existing laws), and to counter the escapes and resurgence of Nazis (as well as their imitators).
Means of pursuit The pursuit took many forms, both individual and organised. Several organisations and individuals (famous Nazi hunters) pursued ex-Nazis or Nazi collaborators who allegedly engaged in war crimes or crimes against humanity. Individuals reported seeing someone they recognised, now living under a false identity. Specific individuals were named and sought by groups or governments for their crimes during the war.
Others were subject to postwar spontaneous retaliation in occupied countries, which in some areas led to "witch hunts" for those suspected of having been collaborators, in which vigilantism and summary justice were common. After a first period of spontaneous pursuit, provisional governments took the matter into their own hands and brought suspected criminals to court. The Nuremberg Trial in Germany judged only the highest German Nazi authorities, and each country prosecuted and sentenced their own collaborationists. Pierre Laval in France was judged and sentenced to death, while Philippe Pétain was also sentenced to death, but Charles de Gaulle later commuted that to a life sentence. Governments investigated and interrogated people suspected of collaboration, for example the United States Department of Justice's Office of Special Investigations.
Some Nazis who fled Europe via the ratlines were pursued. However, many suspected war criminals were also given amnesty, and some reached high positions in postwar administrations (e.g. Maurice Papon, who became Police Prefect of Paris in charge during the Algerian War (1954–62); he was blamed for the 1961 Paris massacre). Others were never even tried, such as Robert de Foy who resumed his position as head of the Belgian State Security Service 1945–1958.
Pursuit in specific countries Argentina In March 1998, Ustasha Dinko Šakić, the former commandant of Jasenovac concentration camp (nicknamed the "Auschwitz of the Balkans"), was interviewed on national television in Argentina, where he had lived for over 50 years. During the interview, he admitted to his leadership position, but denied killing anyone. The interview caused a public uproar. In May 1998, Šakić was arrested by Argentine police. The following month, he was extradited to Croatia. In 1999, a Zagreb court sentenced him to 20 years in prison for his crimes. Šakić died in prison in 2008.
Australia Latvia applied to Australia to extradite Konrāds Kalējs, allegedly a senior officer in the pro-Nazi Arajs Commando, but he died on 8 November 2001 before he could be extradited. Kalējs migrated to Australia in 1950 and took citizenship.
Hungary applied for the extradition of Charles Zentai from Australia. He was accused of the murder of Peter Balazs, an 18-year-old Jewish man, in Budapest in November 1944, while serving in the Hungarian Army.
In 1987 the Australian government established the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) to investigate suspected Nazi war criminals living in Australia. From the unit's work, charges were made against Ivan Polyukhovich, Heinrich Wagner and Mikolay Berezowsky.
In 1990, Ivan Polyukhovich was charged after SIU investigators (led by Australian archaeologist Richard Wright) uncovered and exhumed a mass grave of over 500 Jewish execution victims in Serniki (Sernyky) Ukraine.
The SIU was actively investigating Australian citizen and suspected war criminal Karlis Ozols when the unit was closed in 1992 after three prosecutions, one trial and no convictions.
Belgium Belgium imprisoned Belgian nationals who had collaborated with the Nazis and executed some. One Belgian to be sentenced to execution was Pierre Daye; however, he was one of the first Nazi collaborators to escape Europe, and unusually by plane. He fled to Argentina with the help of Charles Lescat, also collaborator of Je suis partout. Once in Argentina he attended a meeting organised by Juan Perón in the Casa Rosada during which a network (colloquially called ratlines) was created, to organise the escape of collaborators and former Nazis. On 17 June 1947, Belgium requested his extradition from Argentina; however, the Argentine Government ignored this request. Now secure in his freedom, Pierre Daye resumed his writing activities, becoming the editor of an official Perónist review.Mark Falcoff, Perón's Nazi Ties, Time, 9 November 1998, vol 152, n°19
Henri de Man was one of the leading Belgian socialist theoreticians of his period, who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. After the liberation of Belgium, he crossed the border to Switzerland. (Google translation) He was convicted in absentia of treason after the war. He died on 20 June 1953, together with his wife, in a collision with a train in Murten, Switzerland.
Albert Luykx fled to the Republic of Ireland in 1948 and became an Irish citizen in 1954.
Czechoslovakia Actions against Nazi collaborators in Czechoslovakia, real or alleged, had two significant forms, by judiciary or by mob action. Immediately after the liberation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet and American armies, in an atmosphere of chaos, wild chases began. Individual acts of revenge, mob violence, and simply criminal acts motivated by the possibility to rob or loot targets, occurred. In some places were conducted, by organised groups of self-styled partisans, violence which resembled what is today known as ethnic cleansing. In most places this stopped when the provisional Czech government and local authorities took power. Other forms included legal action, undertaken by the state administration, after the war, until the regular Czech parliament was established. President Beneš ruled by issuing decrees, which were later ratified by parliament.
By decree 5/1945, property of untrustworthy persons was put under national administration. Untrustworthy were considered German and Hungarian nationals, and people who were active in destruction of the Czechoslovak state and its democratic government, supported Nazi occupation by any means, or were members of organisations considered fascist or collaborator. By the same decree, property of people of German and Hungarian nationality, who could prove they were anti-Nazi, could be returned to them.
By decree 12/1945 Sb., farm property of German and Hungarian nationals or citizens was confiscated, unless they could prove active resistance against Nazism. Property of traitors, and enemies of the republic was confiscated, regardless of nationality or citizenship. By decree 16/1945 Sb., special tribunals were started. These people's courts had right to sentence to long term imprisonment, life sentence or death. Prosecutions varied from verbal support to those who had committed crimes against humanity, no prosecution was based on ethnicity. By 33/1945 Sb. people of German and Hungarian nationality or ethnicity lost their Czechoslovak citizenship. However, they had right to apply for renewal.
Most problematic was the law 115/1946, concerning resistance to the Nazi regime, which shifted limit of immunity to the year 1946, effectively amnestying all crimes, acts of individual revenge and atrocities against Germans and Hungarians long after the war.
People who lost Czechoslovak citizenship and failed to apply or did not get it were transferred to Germany, many through the transfer camp established at Terezín, near the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Estonia In the Estonian war crimes trials of 1961 and 1962, several collaborators were sentenced for participation in the Estonian Holocaust. Many of the accused escaped punishment by escaping into exile or by suicide. The infamous Karl Linnas, who had been sentenced to death in absentia, was finally deported by the US in 1987, and died in a prison hospital shortly after.
France
After the liberation, France was briefly swept by a wave of executions of suspected collaborators. At least some of the women suspected of having romantic liaisons with Germans were publicly humiliated by having their heads shaved. Those who had engaged in the black market were also stigmatised as "war profiteers" (profiteurs de guerre). However, the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF, 1944–46) quickly reestablished order and brought collaborators before the courts. Many of the convicted were later granted amnesty under the Fourth Republic (1946–1954), while some prominent civil servants, such as Maurice Papon, escaped prosecution altogether and succeeded in holding important positions even under Charles de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic (1958 and afterward).
Between 1944 and 1951, official courts in France sentenced 6,763 people to death (3,910 in absentia) for treason and other offences, and 791 executions were actually carried out. More common was "national degradation," a loss of face and civil rights, which was meted out to 49,723 people.Judt, Tony, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Pimlico (London: 2007), p. 46.
Philippe Pétain, the former head of Vichy France, was charged with treason in July 1945. He was convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad, but Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Pierre Laval was however, executed after his trial. Most convicted people were given amnesty a few years later. In the police, collaborators often resumed official responsibilities. For example, Maurice Papon, who would be convicted in the 1990s for his role in the Vichy collaborationist government, was in the position of giving orders for the Paris massacre of 1961 as the head of the Parisian police.
The French members of the Waffen-SS Charlemagne Division who survived the war were regarded as traitors. Some of the more prominent officers were executed, while the rank-and-file were given prison terms; some of them were given the option of serving time in Indochina (1946–54) with the Foreign Legion instead of prison.
Many war criminals were judged only in the 1980s, including Paul Touvier, Klaus Barbie, Maurice Papon and his deputy Jean Leguay. The last two were both convicted for their roles in the July 1942 Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv, or Vel' d'Hiv Roundup. Famous Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld spent decades trying to bring them to justice. Former police chief René Bousquet, who had overseen the Vel' d'Hiv roundup, was indicted for his role in 1991 but was assassinated before his trial. A fair number of collaborationists joined the OAS terrorist movement during the Algerian War (1954–62). Others such as Abel Bonnard and Louis Darquier de Pellepoix fled to Francoist Spain where they were granted political asylum. Jacques de Bernonville escaped to Quebec, then Brazil. Jacques Ploncard d'Assac became a counselor of Salazar in Portugal.