Contrary to popular belief, many high-ranking Nazi commanders of the Third Reich transitioned seamlessly to occupy high-level positions within NATO—the “North Atlantic Treaty Organization”—the U.S.-led political-military alliance established on April 4, 1949. Here, we present a comprehensive list of these military figures from the German fascist regime who were recruited to serve the major Western powers. These powers forged NATO into their primary military apparatus for numerous interventions, acts of interference, and imperialist deployments across a wide range of contexts throughout the world—as occurred in “Our America,” where agents of West German intelligence (the BND) participated in the State Terrorism perpetrated by the region’s civil-military dictatorships. In this article, we list several of these Nazi leaders who transitioned into NATO.
NATO and Nazis: The Uncomfortable Roots of the Atlantic Alliance
On April 4, 1949—at the very outset of the Cold War—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formally established. From a perspective critical of Western imperialism, this military alliance was born not merely as an instrument of geopolitical domination for the United States and its allies, but was, in fact, directly structured by Nazi war criminals who had been systematically recruited by the CIA and the U.S. military.
Far from having ideologically defeated Nazism, the Western powers instead co-opted it. In practice, NATO emerged as a functional heir to the brutal anti-communism that had characterized the Third Reich.
Nazi Commanders at the Helm of NATO
One of the most emblematic cases is that of Adolf Heusinger, who served as Chief of the Army High Command of Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1944. Acting under Hitler’s orders, Heusinger planned the invasions of Poland, Norway, Denmark, and France. After the Second World War, rather than facing prosecution, he was shielded by the U.S., recruited by the CIA, and ultimately served as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee between 1961 and 1964. (Heusinger was also a member of Konrad Adenauer’s so-called “Government of Experts” in West Germany.)
The list is extensive and serves as evidence of the systematic decision to incorporate Nazis into NATO’s military apparatus:
Heinrich Trettner, an officer in the Nazi Condor Legion—the unit that bombed Guernica during the Spanish Civil War—served as Chief of NATO’s Logistics Department between 1956 and 1959.
Hans Speidel, a Lieutenant General and Chief of Staff in Hitler’s army, served as Supreme Commander of NATO’s Land Forces in Central Europe from 1957 to 1963.
Johannes Steinhoff, a Luftwaffe pilot highly decorated by Hitler, served as Commander of NATO’s Allied Air Forces in 1965 and later as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (1971–1974).
Jürgen Bennecke, an adjutant officer for Hitler’s Army Group Centre, served as NATO Commander-in-Chief for Central Europe (1968–1973) and was decorated for championing the alliance’s nuclear rearmament.
Ernst Ferber, Karl Schnell, Franz Joseph Schulze, Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin, and Leopold Chalupa—all high-ranking Nazi officers decorated by Hitler, many with the Iron Cross—successively held the position of Commander-in-Chief of NATO Allied Forces in Central Europe between 1973 and 1987:
Ernst Ferber, a Lieutenant Colonel on the General Staff of Nazi Germany, served as a commander at the Wehrmacht High Command from 1943 to 1945 and was a recipient of the Iron Cross, awarded personally by Adolf Hitler. He served as Commander of NATO Allied Forces in Central Europe from 1973 to 1975.
Karl Schnell, Chief of Staff of a Panzer Division, was responsible for up to seven subordinate divisions within the Nazi Wehrmacht and was a recipient of Hitler’s Iron Cross. In 1968, he served as Commander-in-Chief of NATO Allied Forces in Central Europe from 1975 to 1977.
Franz Joseph Schulze, First Lieutenant in the Nazi Luftwaffe and recipient of Hitler’s Iron Cross (the highest decoration of the German Reich) for his bombing raids against the USSR in 1944. He became commander of NATO’s Allied Forces in Central Europe from 1977 to 1979.
Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin, a member of the High Command of the Nazi Army, fought in the Battle of Stalingrad. His father was a General in the Armored Forces of the Nazi Wehrmacht. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief of NATO’s Allied Forces in Central Europe from 1979 to 1983.
Leopold Chalupa was the last of the Nazi war criminals to become a NATO commander, solely due to age limitations for leadership, having been a member of the Nazi Wehrmacht since the age of 17. He was appointed NATO’s Commander-in-Chief for Central Europe from 1983 to 1987.
Even Erich von Manstein (often misspelled as “Von Mainstein”), a Nazi field marshal convicted of war crimes, was released early for health reasons and hired as a NATO consultant, contributing to the myth that the Wehrmacht was “distinct” or “opposed” to the SS—a widely debunked historical falsehood.
Spies and intelligence agents: the Nazi network of the Cold War
Beyond military commanders, NATO and Western intelligence services integrated the leading figures of Nazi espionage into their structures.
The most notorious is Reinhard Gehlen, a major general in the Wehrmacht and Hitler’s head of counterintelligence on the Eastern Front, where he planned the extermination of millions of Jews, Roma, Poles, and communists. Recruited by the US as part of Operation Paperclip, Gehlen organized the Gehlen Network—a direct successor to the Nazi intelligence apparatus—and was the mastermind behind Operation Gladio, NATO’s covert permanent structure for sabotaging progressive movements in Western Europe. He later became the first president of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the West German intelligence service, which operated for decades as a hotbed of former Nazis.
Another paradigmatic case is that of Otto Skorzeny, an SS lieutenant colonel and commando who rescued Mussolini in 1943. Protected by the United Kingdom during the Dachau trials, he escaped from prison with US assistance and lived for 25 years in Francoist Spain. From there, he worked as a spy for the CIA, NATO, West Germany, Bolivia, Japan, and even the Israeli Mossad in 1963.
Finally, Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon,” head of the Gestapo in that city, responsible for personally torturing and murdering thousands of French resistance fighters, Jews, and political opponents, was recruited by US intelligence (CIC) to fight communists, and later fled to Bolivia, where he remained under protection until his extradition in 1983.
West Germany was the nerve center for all these Nazis. West Germany was never denazified; on the contrary, Nazis were protected and later recruited into NATO. This 1962 map shows the ambassadors with Nazi pasts on West Germany’s payroll:
Furthermore, within the framework of the Latin American civil-military dictatorships, all planned and controlled by the United States, numerous BND agents with Nazi pasts continued to commit crimes in various countries. This is the case, for example, of the German-Nazi enclave “Colonia Dignidad” or Villa Baviera in southern Chile.
Conclusion: neither West Germany nor the West as a whole carried out effective denazification.
West Germany was not denazified: it was the nerve center of this network of war criminals who, far from being brought to justice, were protected, promoted, and placed at the head of NATO. As the 1962 map of ambassadors with Nazi pasts on Bonn’s payroll shows, the continuity between the Third Reich and the Atlantic Alliance is a documented historical fact.
Therefore, from an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist perspective, it is nothing short of cynical that the United States and the United Kingdom present themselves today as “defenders of democracy” against “totalitarianism,” when it was they who protected and massively recruited the executioners of Europe to build their war machine against socialism. NATO was not born to defend freedom: it was born to ensure the impunity of fascism in exchange for its anti-communist loyalty.
Editor’s note: This article is based on declassified historical documentation, including CIA and BND files and testimonies from the Nuremberg trials. The selection of terms such as “heir to Nazism” or “war criminals” reflects the legal and historical characterization accepted by contemporary critical research.
La Marejada, Resumen Latinoamericano, April 6, 2026.