 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (February 2024) |
Erich von Manstein (24 November 1887 – 9 June 1973) was a prominent commander of Nazi Germany's World War II army (Heer). In 1949, he was tried for war crimes in Hamburg, was convicted of nine of seventeen charges and sentenced to eighteen years in prison. He served only four years before being released.
Manstein was taken prisoner by the British in August 1945. He testified for the defence of the German General Staff and the Wehrmacht supreme command (the OKW), on trial at the Nuremberg trials of major Nazi war criminals and organisations in August 1946. Under pressure from the Soviet Union, the British cabinet decided in July 1948 to prosecute Manstein and several other senior officers who had been held in custody since the end of the war.
Manstein's trial was held in Hamburg from 23 August to 19 December 1949. He faced seventeen charges covering activities such as authorising or permitting the killing, deportation, and maltreatment of Jews and other civilians; maltreating and killing prisoners of war; illegally compelling prisoners to do dangerous work and work of a military nature; ordering the execution of Soviet political commissars in compliance with Hitler's Commissar Order; and issuing scorched earth orders while in retreat in the Crimea.
Manstein was found guilty on nine of the charges and was sentenced to eighteen years in prison. His early release on 7 May 1953 was partly because of recurring health problems, but also the result of pressure by Winston Churchill, Konrad Adenauer, B. H. Liddell Hart, and other supporters. The conduct of the trial was partly responsible for creating the myth of the clean Wehrmacht – the belief that members of the German armed forces acted in isolation, and were not involved or culpable for the events of the Holocaust.