Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung von NS-Verbrechen Ludwigsburg

Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung von NS-Verbrechen Ludwigsburg 

Concerned about the government’s ability to bring charges against suspected war criminal, the Bundesrepublik Deutschland created the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklärung von NS-Verbrechen Ludwigsburg. The Zentrale Stelle’s staff of lawyers and judges would investigate Nazi-era crimes and then turn its material over to individual German states for prosecution. The only crimes it could investigate were those that committed outside the Bundesrepublik Deutschland, and only those that could be prosecuted under German law. It could not deal with war crimes per se, though in 1964 the Zentrale Stelle was given the authority to investigate crimes committed in the territory of the Federal Public. In its first year of operation, the Zentrale Stelle opened four hundred investigations; by 1962, it had brought to trial more than 13,000 suspected war criminals and had convicted 5,000. The Zentrale Stelle eventually created a master list of 16,000 suspected war criminals.