The man who freed the Nazis.
Six years after Nuremberg, one American had the power to undo it — and largely did. As US High Commissioner for Germany, John J. McCloy cut the sentences of the convicted Nazi war criminals, freed the industrialist who ran his empire on slave labour, and handed him back his fortune. Then he went home to run Chase, the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, and, by one biographer's title, the American establishment itself.
This is the postwar bookend to the finance-and-fascism story: the same establishment that banked German industry before the war rehabilitated its industrialists after it. The clemencies are documented fact. What's debated is why — and we grade the motive honestly rather than reach for the caricature.
McCloy grants clemency to the majority of the convicted Nazi war criminals held at Landsberg — including releasing industrialist Alfried Krupp and restoring his property
US High Commissioner for Germany (John J. McCloy) · Clemency decision (Landsberg) · January 31, 1951
The senior US official in occupied Germany used his clemency power to reduce or commute dozens of Nuremberg-tribunal sentences and to free the convicted industrialist Alfried Krupp with his fortune intact.
View source →What this page is about
John J. McCloy was, in the words of Kai Bird's biography, “the Chairman” of the American establishment: Assistant Secretary of War in WWII, president of the World Bank, US High Commissioner for Germany, chairman of Chase Manhattan, chairman of the Ford Foundation and the Council on Foreign Relations, a Warren Commission member, and an adviser to nine presidents. It is in the High Commissioner role (1949–1952) that he did the thing this page is about.
On January 31, 1951, McCloy announced sweeping clemency for the Nazi war criminals convicted at the Nuremberg Military Tribunals and held at Landsberg prison. He reduced or commuted the majority of the sentences — including commuting death sentences — and ordered the release of Alfried Krupp, the industrialist convicted of plunder and of working concentration-camp prisoners to death, with his confiscated fortune restored. This page grades what he did, and treats the harder question — why — with care.
The record, claim by claim
As High Commissioner, McCloy gutted the Nuremberg tribunal sentences.
FACTIn his January 31, 1951 Landsberg clemency decision, McCloy granted clemency to a large majority of the war criminals convicted by the Nuremberg Military Tribunals — reducing prison terms and commuting death sentences, including for men convicted in the Einsatzgruppen case (the mobile killing units responsible for mass shootings of Jews and others). Of the 142 convicted in the twelve tribunals, dozens received clemency. It is the single largest reversal of Nuremberg's judgments, and it was McCloy's to make.
He freed Alfried Krupp and gave him back his fortune.
FACTAlfried Krupp had been convicted at Nuremberg of plunder and of exploiting concentration-camp and forced labour in his steel-and-arms empire; his property was ordered confiscated. In 1951 McCloy commuted Krupp's sentence to time served and — extraordinarily — restored his confiscated wealth. Krupp walked out of Landsberg one of the richest men in Europe. The man whose factories consumed slave labourers was made whole; the labourers were not.
McCloy was, by his biographer's title, 'Chairman of the American Establishment.'
FACTThis isn't rhetoric — it's the documented résumé. Assistant Secretary of War; president of the World Bank; High Commissioner for Germany; chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank; chairman of the Ford Foundation and of the Council on Foreign Relations; a member of the Warren Commission; adviser to presidents from Roosevelt to Reagan. Kai Bird's standard biography is literally titled 'The Chairman: John J. McCloy, The Making of the American Establishment.'
- History Hit — the career of John J. McCloy
- Kai Bird, The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment (1992)
The clemencies were driven by Cold War politics, not by justice being served.
PROBABLY TRUEGraded PROBABLY TRUE with both sides stated. By 1951 Washington wanted West Germany rearmed and integrated against the Soviets, and the West German government and public were pressing hard for the Landsberg prisoners' release; historians widely read McCloy's clemency as Cold War pragmatism — buying German goodwill at the cost of Nuremberg's principle. McCloy's defenders counter that the reductions flowed from an advisory clemency board's case-by-case legal review, not a political edict, and that he upheld some sentences (a handful of executions did proceed). We present it as a contested motive: the effect is not in dispute; the intent is argued.
This is the postwar continuation of the finance-fascism story.
PROBABLY TRUEA synthesis, graded as such. The same American establishment world that — before the war — banked and lawyered German industry (the Sullivan & Cromwell / Schröder / Union Banking thread) is the world McCloy embodied when, after the war, he restored those industrialists to their fortunes and freedom. That is the throughline of the Wall Street's History of Fascism hub: financed on the way up, rehabilitated on the way out. We frame it as a documented pattern, not a coordinated plot.
The deed is certain; the motive is argued
- Effect vs. intent. That McCloy freed the industrialists and cut the sentences is documented and not in dispute. Why — cynical Cold War horse-trading, or a genuine (if catastrophic) legal-review judgment — is the contested part. We keep the certain thing certain and the argued thing argued.
- Not a sympathizer, not a cabal. Nothing here says McCloy admired the Nazis or conspired in secret. His authority was a public office and his decision ran through a review board. The disturbing part isn't a hidden motive — it's that the most establishment figure in America, acting openly and lawfully, could unwind Nuremberg for the men who profited from the camps.
- The through-line, not a grand unified theory. McCloy connects the pre-war financing of German industry to its postwar rehabilitation. That's a real, documented pattern in the same milieu — stated as a pattern, not as proof that one hand directed all of it.
Accountability, given and taken away
Nuremberg established that leaders and the industrialists who armed them could be held to account. Within six years, one American official substantially reversed it for the industrialists — and paid no price for doing so. McCloy belongs in The Dulles Blueprint because he is the establishment personified: the man who moved between the War Department, the World Bank, Chase, and the CIA-adjacent world of the Cold War consensus. And he cross-links to Wall Street's History of Fascism because his clemency is that story's last chapter: the money that financed Hitler's industry on the way up, made whole again on the way out.
Questions worth taking seriously
Did McCloy free the Nazis because he sympathized with them?
There's no evidence of that, and we don't claim it. The documented effect is that he freed them; the debated cause is Cold War pragmatism (rearming West Germany, appeasing German opinion) versus his defenders' account of a case-by-case clemency-board review. Both are on the page. “He was a secret Nazi” isn't supported.
Isn't 'Chairman of the American Establishment' just a conspiracy label?
No — it's the title of Kai Bird's mainstream biography, and it's earned by a documented résumé: War Department, World Bank, High Commissioner, Chase, Ford Foundation, CFR, Warren Commission. It describes open institutional power, not a secret society.
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This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.
The record
- Wikipedia — John J. McCloy (High Commissioner; the 1951 Landsberg clemency; Krupp release)
- The National WWII Museum — the Nuremberg Military Tribunals and postwar clemency
- History Hit — the career of John J. McCloy
- Kai Bird, The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment (1992)