A thread on the Thessaloniki butcher, Nazi Max Merten (inspired by @praxis_review ’s recent thread in Greek) 1/

Max Merten, NSDAP member since 1937, was the military administration councillor of the Nazi occupation forces in Thessaloniki between 1942-1944. He was in charge of organising the deportation of more than 50.000 Jews from the city. 2/

More than 90 per cent of them perished in the concentration camps. 3/

After the war, Merten was briefly imprisoned by American forces in Dachau. While the denazification process was still high in the cards, the American Military Administration offered his extradition to the Greek government. 4/

But the extradition never took place. It remains unclear whether it was the Greek government that refused it or the Americans. In any case, it is not until 1948 that the Greek War Crimes Bureau officially requested his extradition. 5/

Merten gets reinstated as a lawyer in Berlin in November 1950. Remarkably, and despite being sought as a war criminal, Merten returns to Greece in April 1957 in order to testify as a witness in the trial of his former interpreter Arthur Meißner. 6/

The German Embassy, which Merten had consulted before travelling to Greece, had assured him he would be safe. Possibly for that reason, he defends Meißner by taking responsibility for his actions and claiming that he was only following orders. 7/

After his testimony, however, he gets immediately arrested. 8/

The case is widely covered by the German press who “fail” to notice Merten’s background and interpret the arrest as a “Handelsobjekt” (trading card) by the Greek government which was, at the time, involved in negotiations with West Germany for economic assistance. 9/

Disagreements between the Finance and Economics ministry delay the final Agreement for Economic Cooperation, signed in November 1958. It consisted of a loan of aprox. 200 million DM and open access to German business in Greece. It was signed by Ludwig Erhard. 10/

Meanwhile Merten was in a solitary cell in the infamous Averof prison in central Athens. 11/

During the Metaxa dictatorship (1936-41) hundreds of left-wing men and women were imprisoned and tortured there, while during the Nazi occupation it was used for communists prisoners on death row. Hundreds were executed there. 12/