Did the Nazis that felt bad about what they did get punished?


 Even among senior Nazis who expressed regrets, they were punished, yet expressing regret tended to give them a lighter sentence. This is demonstrated in the case of Albert Speer.


The most infamous person who was convicted during the Nuremberg Trials was Speer, the architect of Hitler and the director of armaments of the Nazi regime. A twenty-year prison term was given to him, which he served. His vivid confession; telling he was simply a technician and had no knowledge of the Holocaust was what probably avoided the death penalty that most of the leaders were sentenced to.


When Speer was free, he became globally famous. He wrote best selling memoirs and the press promoted him as the only Nazi who ever confessed guilt. Over the decades the media presented him as a reformed man.


Journalist Gitta Sereny took years to research on his background and discovered that Speer lied. She located evidence of his awareness of the Holocaust, as well as his aid in the logistics of the Holocaust, such as orders of additional slave laborers. Sereny reasoned that the Nuremberg judges had they fully understood the truth, Speer would have been shot.


His fake repentance failed to get him any lighter sentence than the crimes deserved but earned him a much lighter sentence than was deserved.


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