[flohofwoe]

East Germany did that too in the early years for building up their "inofficial army" (called "Kasernierte Volkspolizei") before the "official" NVA (National People's Army) was founded in 1956. After that they mostly got rid of old Nazis in the army though, at least the high-ranking ones. In general, the more specialist and "valuable" an old Nazi was, the more it was likely that his history was quickly forgotten, also in the East.

[refurb]

Exactly. Both sides did this as it’s hard to defeat a country then build it back up when you exclude everyone who who was in the old govt (many who joined the Nazi party for non-ideological reasons).

If you dig into the history it’s pretty interesting. The USSR and France I believe were adamant about de-Nazification, but petered out quickly when they realized it was holding up rebuilding the country. The US and UK weren’t too worried about lower level Nazi’s once the leaders and major war criminals were handled.