Russia not going to rehabilitate 70,000 WWII criminals - military prosecutors
MOSCOW. Nov 12 (Interfax) - Russian military prosecutors have reviewed Soviet-era archive dossiers against citizens of Nazi Germany and its allies accused of crimes during the Second World War, and found that their rehabilitation is not possible, Igor Shaboltanov, head of department at the Military Prosecutor General's Office, told Interfax.
"All these cases were reviewed by military prosecutors under the law 'On the rehabilitation of victims of political repressions', almost all of the convicts were found to be non-rehabilitatable. (...) According to the archival bodies, over 30,000 prisoners-of-war from hostile armies, most of them former German military servicemen, were convicted in the Soviet Union for war- and other crimes during and after the war," the official said.
In addition, nearly 40,000 Germans were prosecuted in the Soviets-occupied part of Germany for various crimes. One hundred thirty-seven German army generals were convicted during the repatriation of German prisoners-of-war.
"Starting from 1942, military prosecutors were involved in gathering and verifying documental data and evidence of the atrocities by Nazi criminals and the damage they inflicted, which subsequently were used as basic evidence of their guilt during trial," Shaboltanov said.
"Military prosecutors conducted criminal prosecution of German, Italian, Hungarian and Finnish fascists, Gestapo bosses, burgomasters, military commandants from towns and villages, heads of POW camps and other representatives of the fascist authorities and their abettors," the official said.
