How did the Federal Republic of Germany compensate for the victims of unprecedented NS crimes? How was robbed property returned? And are committed crimes even “make good again”? These and other questions are discussed in the new, three-part podcast “The German Reparation”, which is now available online. In three episodes, central aspects of restitution such as restitution and compensation are at the heart of NS persecuters, as well as dealing with the so-called “forgotten victims” using the example of Sinti and Roma. Experts from science and society, along with podcast host Nora Hespers, also on the basis of historical documents from the Federal Archives, illuminate the backgrounds of reparation. The podcast appears in a German and English version. “The German Reparation” was created on behalf of the Federal Archive for the online theme portal “Reparation of National Socialist Unright”. Since 2022, the thematic portal initiated by the Federal Ministry of Finance and designed by the Federal Archives has been providing central access to millions of files of the German reparation policy and is continually being developed into a comprehensive search and information site which, in addition to archive contents, also offers background information, podcasts and research aids. The theme portal is implemented together with the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, the Leibniz-Institut FIZ Karlsruhe and the portal Deutsche Digit

Immediately after the Nuremberg trials against the war criminals of the Second World War, the so-called Nuremberg succession processes started. In contrast to the main war criminal proceedings before an International Court of Justice, these proceedings, which took place in Nuremberg between 1946 and 1949, were negotiated exclusively before American military courts. 185 senior lawyers, medical professionals, industrialists, SS and police leaders, military, civil servants and diplomats were charged in a total of 12 trials. The processes showed to what extent the German leadership layer had contributed to the power system of the Nazi rule of violence. Of the 185 defendants, 24 received the death penalty, 20 were sentenced to life imprisonment, 98 received several years of imprisonment. 35 of the accused were acquitted. In the 1950s, pardons led to all convicted NS criminals being released from custody until 1957. Of the 24 death sentences, 13 were actually executed. New standards in the scientific work-up of the Nuremberg succession processes Over the course of the processes, approximately 2.5 million sheets of process files were produced, which are stored in the original state archive in Nuremberg: statements by witnesses, indictments, stenographic records, defence documents, interrogation protocols and other official and private documents. With the project “Digital Nuremberg Military Tribunals” (DigiNMT), BAdW, FAU and the Directorate-General of the Bavarian State