Internments - Buchenwald Memorial

Clement Attlee, Harry S. Truman and Josef Stalin are sitting in wicker chairs. Behind them are their respective foreign ministers. — 1/2

Postdam, Clement Attlee, Harry S. Truman, and Josef Stalin with foreign ministers, 1945.
©Public domain

Plainly lettered title page of the Arrest Categories Handbook, published by the supreme headquarters allied expeditionary force. The title page reads Arrest Categories Handbook. — 2/2

SHAEF Arrest Categories Manual, 1945. ©Buchenwald Memorial

With the surrender of the German Reich on May 8, 1945, World War II came to an end in Europe. Under the National Socialists, Germany had occupied a large portion of Europe and conducted a war of plundering and terror. The majority of the German population had gone along with the racist policies.

Even while the war was still going on, the victorious powers agreed to the punishment of those responsible and means for providing security for the occupying forces. At the Conference of Potsdam in 1945, they decided: "Nazi leaders, influential Nazi supporters and high officials of Nazi organizations and institutions and any other persons dangerous to the occupation or its objectives shall be arrested and interned."

A total of over 400,000 Germans were interned in the four occupied zones. The basis for these detentions were not judicial processes but administrative decisions.

Map of the Allied internment camps in the four occupation zones — Internment camps in the four occupation zones ©Hinz und Kunst