In western Germany, three key centres emerged for dispatching condemned prisoners: Hameln in the British Zone, Rastatt in the French Zone and Landsberg in the American Zone. Collectively, these sites accounted for the execution of nearly 500 [Axis] war criminals.¹

At least for the Western Allies, disposing of about several hundred Fascist corpses was an uneasy process: surviving Fascists and concerned relatives wanted the remains to receive a respectful burial, rather than being unceremoniously buried or dumped in an undisclosed spot so as to prevent neofascist shrines. Returning a Fascist’s body to his family had the potential to result in spectacles like this one:

In June 1951, the return of Otto Ohlendorf’s body to Hildesheim (in the British Zone) attracted crowds of mourners and [Fascist] salutes.⁵² The U.S. Vice Counsel Ernest Ramsaur reported back to Washington, D.C. the presence of ‘right‐wing’ political groups and funeral wreathes bearing inscriptions such as ‘no more beautiful death in this world than to be struck down before the enemy’.⁵³

Yet as the (liberal) bourgeoisie increasingly turned its attention to the Eastern Bloc, the question of what to do with deceased Axis war criminals faded into irrelevance:

The matter was revived at the start of the 1950s amid a changing international political climate. Two separate German states had been established in 1949 and, as the Korean War marked the globalisation of the Cold War, the Federal Republic was increasingly recognised as an important ally in the fight against Communism.

This, together with greater temporal distance from the Second World War, helped soften attitudes towards the Germans and earlier fears about potential shrines to [Fascism] also appear to have diminished. In 1952, for example, a British Information Report concluded that ‘no undue demonstrations should be expected’ if deceased Spandau prisoners were handed over to relatives for burial.⁶⁶

Amid campaigns for a general amnesty for war criminals, members of the fledgling West German government were also taking an interest in the prison conditions at Spandau. An enquiry from Chancellor Adenauer about disposal procedures could be interpreted as a subtle form of pressure on the Allies.⁶⁷ The main impetus for policy revision, however, was the deteriorating health of von Neurath in 1951. Suddenly, the death of a prisoner went from an abstract possibility to an impending reality.

As the Allies were forced to make logistical decisions about hospital transport and family visits, the British, never entirely happy with the 1947 ruling, seized their opportunity to call for a change in disposal policy. They initiated a new round of discussions by re‐circulating the text of their original dissent regarding cremation.

Calls for prisoners to be released for familial burial were couched in terms of the changed political situation and the ‘humanity’ that had to be shown towards prisoners’ relatives, the latter theme no doubt amplified by the increased dialogue then underway between prison governors and von Neurath’s concerned relatives.

Certainly, the family endeavoured to arouse compassion for their cause, with Von Neurath’s wife appealing to another famous spouse, Clementine Churchill, to exert influence on the matter. Frau Neurath pleaded, ‘we have not been together on our golden wedding day but we hope to be together in death’.⁶⁸

Accordingly, the three western powers met in July 1951 to discuss the possibility of releasing bodies for burial. While the aim was to present a united front to the USSR, tripartite approval on the matter was hardly guaranteed. The French High Commissioner, André Francois‐Poncet, initially opposed the move, warning that ‘the return of bodies to families would give rise to further nationalistic demonstrations as […] occurred recently in the case of certain of the Landsberg war criminals’.⁶⁹

He was undoubtedly referring to the unfortunate scenes surrounding Ohlendorf’s burial the previous month. Unsurprisingly, U.S. High Commissioner John McCloy took issue with Francois‐Poncet’s statement, pointing out that such demonstrations had, technically, taken place in the British Zone rather than Landsberg, and arguing that determined nationalists ‘could equally make capital out of a cremated body’.⁷⁰

McCloy’s words seem to have swayed the French representative: Francois‐Poncet removed his objection and a new, western proposal based upon ‘reasons of humanity’ was consequently presented to the Soviets, calling for the body of a dead prisoner to be released to relatives for burial.⁷¹ The Soviets, however, were unmoved and merely reiterated the text of the 1947 agreement.⁷²

Thus, the bourgeoisie pressured the Soviets to release the bodies of Axis war criminals for proper burial, despite knowing the spectacles likely to ensue:

Undeterred, U.S., British and French representatives on the Allied High Commission spent the next three years plotting alternative courses of action to persuade the Soviets to reconsider. These included verbal approaches to key Russian personnel, the preparing of legal reports outlining precedents for releasing bodies and the drafting of preparatory press releases that, in the event of the sudden demise of a prisoner, would make it abundantly clear to the public that Soviet intransigence was to blame for next‐of‐kin being unable to bury their relative.⁷³

[…]

Finally, on 29 April 1954, a new quadripartite agreement was drawn up, stipulating that ‘in the case of the death of one of the major [Reich] war criminals, the body of the deceased must be buried in the territory of the Spandau Prison’.⁷⁶ While the original policy of cremation was dropped, the Soviets could not bring themselves to accede to western requests to release the body to next‐of‐kin, despite the British confessing that similar practices in Hameln had resulted in a lot of ‘agitation’.⁷⁷

Nonetheless, the absence of a proper burial did not prevent neofascists from honouring their heroes elsehow; West Germany never underwent an adequate defascistization:

A report sent to the Control Council in Berlin three days later proudly proclaimed that ‘no person other than the four members of your commission are aware of the time, place or method of dispersal’.²⁶ Subsequently, it has become commonly accepted that the ashes were scattered in the River Isar, a tale that has made its way into tourist literature, despite there being no documentary evidence for this.

Furthermore, the absence of human remains did not prevent physical markers to the [Axis] dead from springing up. Relatives of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Jodl and Wilhelm Keitel erected memorial stones to their loved one within their family cemetery plots. Their personal grief and desire to mourn is understandable, but, over the years, these sites have attracted others anxious to recall the [Fascist era].

The website findagrave.com, for example, displays a photograph of Jodl’s memorial but notes that the facility to leave ‘virtual flowers’ on the webpage is switched off ‘because it was being continually misused’.²⁸ Thus, despite the Allies’ best efforts to conceal the final disposal location of the executed IMT defendants, the imagined resting place of these most notorious [Axis] war criminals continues to excite fascination and acts of commemoration.

[…]

The failure to agree a common disposal policy across the whole of Germany generated unrest among the German people, having the reverse effect of what the Allies had intended. Rather than simply disappearing from the public consciousness, continual speculation about the whereabouts of [Fascist] graves and contested efforts at memorialisation, coupled with reburial campaigns, ensured that the names of the dead continued to be remembered.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)