GERMANY: Reprieve

At 9 o’clock on a foggy morning last week, the door of Landsberg Prison, where the U.S. holds some 500 German war criminals, swung open. Out came 29 men in rough-fitting ski pants, blue or grey jackets, no ties. They blinked at the waiting crowds. Berthold Krupp rushed up to older brother Alfried, heir to the bomb-shattered steel and munitions empire (only branch producing: the locomotive works), thrust a bouquet of daffodils and tulips into his hands. The two rode off in a black sedan to a champagne breakfast at Landsberg’s best hotel.

Said 43-year-old Alfried, head of the Krupp dynasty that had armed Germany in three wars: “I hope it will never be necessary to produce arms again.”

Krupp’s reprieve roused wide Allied apprehension. The Paris-Presse saw “all that the French detest in Germany—the Prussian spirit, pan-Germanism, militarism, industrial dumping—” walking abroad again.

In freeing Alfried Krupp (who had been condemned to twelve years’ imprisonment as a war criminal), and reviewing the sentences of 100 others, U.S. High Commissioner John McCloy and U.S. commander in Europe General Thomas Handy relied on the findings of an advisory board* on clemency. McCloy commuted to varying terms of imprisonment the sentences of 21 others who wore red jackets—Landsberg’s garb for men who are condemned to death.

Only seven men in Landsberg still wore the red jacket; they would hang within a week.

*Its members: the Hon. David W. Peck presiding justice, appellate division, New York Supreme Court, chairman; Commissioner Frederick A. Moran, chairman, New York Board of Parole; Brigadier General Conrad E. Snow assistant legal adviser, Department of State.