Behind the bleak, high-walled jail at Werl, the British hold reluctantly to the remnant symbols of a once-firm resolution. The remnants are 130 convicted Nazi war criminals. They are the surviving handful of men the British once vowed to punish. That British passion is now spent; in its place is a German passion to set the criminals free. Last week Henri Nannen, editor of a Hamburg picture weekly, Der Stern, shockingly dramatized the issue.
With great relish he broke a story that two war criminals had escaped from Werl. Luftwaffe Pilot Hans Kühn had murdered three Allied flyers who parachuted...