The prosecution of Max Merten (1911–1971), the only Nazi war criminal accused of Holocaust involvement in Greece, coincided not only with the start of the Greek-German negotiations on victim compensation but also with the Eichmann trial. In 1959, the Merten Case provoked a massive public backlash, both because of the gravity of his crimes and because of his impending extradition to West Germany. We argue that in the Cold War atmosphere, when the Merten Case attracted international attention, the actions of internal and external power elites in the West deliberately departed from the concept of transitional justice to use this murky affair to their political advantage. Rather than a fair trial, the aim was to obstruct it in the interests of good relations, political self-preservation, and gradual social amnesia about Greek complicity during the German occupation. In contrast, the Eastern Bloc fed the opposite narrative of rotten capitalism by building on its proclaimed struggle against fascism. By combining archival sources and newspaper coverage of the Merten Case on both sides of the East-West conflict, our article explores which mechanisms were mobilised in public and which incentives were carried out behind the scenes. This allows us to examine multidirectional attitudes in a geopolitical sense, with the main aim of showing the discursive imposition of disinformation operating (in)formally through the channels of political institutions during the Cold War.

中文翻译：

---

希腊及其他地区反映的纳粹罪行、马克斯·默滕及其起诉

马克斯·梅尔滕（Max Merten，1911-1971）是唯一被指控参与希腊大屠杀的纳粹战犯，他的起诉不仅与希腊与德国关于受害者赔偿的谈判开始同时进行，也与艾希曼的审判同时发生。 1959 年，默滕案引起了公众的强烈反对，这既是因为他罪行的严重性，也是因为他即将被引渡到西德。我们认为，在冷战氛围下，当默滕案引起国际关注时，西方内外权力精英的所作所为刻意背离过渡正义理念，利用这一晦暗事件为自己谋取政治利益。其目的不是为了公平审判，而是为了良好关系、政治自我保护以及逐渐对希腊在德国占领期间的共谋行为进行社会遗忘，从而阻碍审判。相比之下，东方集团通过其宣称的反法西斯斗争，助长了腐朽资本主义的相反叙述。通过结合东西方冲突双方对默滕案的档案资料和报纸报道，我们的文章探讨了哪些机制是公开动员的，哪些激励措施是在幕后进行的。这使我们能够从地缘政治意义上审视多向态度，主要目的是展示冷战期间通过政治机构渠道正式（非正式）运作的虚假信息的话语强加。