No surprise: Germans treat 3 months as Stasi trainee harsher than Nazi generals

The blogster does hope you, dear reader, are not surprised that a person who spent three months in training in the Stasi guard regiment is treated much harder, is getting vilified to a much greater extent than many a general who came out of the Nazi military and went on to enjoy a great career in the West German state.

The former Stasi man is Andrei Holm, who resigned in January 2017 from his post as a deputy secretary of the government of the state of Berlin (not to be confused with the federal government located in Berlin) after a mere five weeks in office.
Holm, now 46, began his military service in September 1989 as an 18 year old recruit of the Stasi's guard regiment in East Germany.

Three months later, East Germany ceased to exist.

Fast forward a quarter of a century. Elections in the state of Berlin allow the Social Democrats to form a coalition government with the Green party and the Left. The Left, of course, being the party that came out of a successor to the former East German socialist party as well as disenchanted former Social Democrats.

Mr. Holm,  not a member of any party, is tapped for the job of secretary of housing and urban development and instantly draws opposition from the losers of the election (Christian Democrats) and the free market FDP plus assorted media outlets.

Since Mr. Holm had never been one of the infamous Stasi informers, had had no career in East Germany and, above all, had always openly talked about the three months, the coalition partners gave him the job.

This emboldened critics, who embellished - not in a good way - what the regiment stood for, such as violence against demonstrators. The critics left out the small detail that Mr. Holm did not take part in that.

The Left party's first and only state prime minister, in Thuringia, Mr. Ramelow, emphasized that he had rejected any personnel with any Stasi history in the formation of his coalition government in 2014.  

The story of West Germany after World War II was a different matter.

Take Nazi general Gehlen (Wikipedia English) as one example. While Gehlen managed to get dismissed by Hitler in April 1945 because the war did not go too well, Gehlen walked over to the US counterintelligence command in Bavaria on 22 May 1945 and offered his services as anti-communist spymaster.

He was accepted, later became head of West Germany's foreign intelligence agency BND and retired from the West German civil service in 1968.

Another of many was Nazi general Heusinger (Wikipedia English), who went on to become Germany's top soldier.

The former nazis who worked in various post war government posts are simply too numerous to name. One of the most controversial re-cycled nazi officials was Hans Globke. who had worked on some of the most infamous Nazi legislation: the Nuremberg race laws that served as the legal cover for pursing Jews. This paper on Jstor says "He crafted an ambiguous image of himself during the Third Reich as both effective bureaucrat and daring resister by admitting only minor misjudgments."

The difference in treatment illustrates one thing more than anything else: After the collapse of East Germany, there were ample people from the West to take over and build the new states.

After WWII, it was hard to find enough untainted skilled folks. Although, of course, rabid anti-communism was a welcome trait.