Concerning post-war trials, the Moscow declaration of 1943 determined who was to be tried for what. In Moscow the leading Allied heads of state determined that most war criminals were to be tried by those countries where their crimes had been committed. Those criminals whose crimes were not confined to a specific location where to be tried by the Allies jointly.

This mode they found is the reason why for example the Allies had their own courts in the occupied zones of Germany and why for example the commander of Auschwitz was tried in Poland. Similarly, the new German states and Austria set up their own special courts for Nazis at first and then later on, had special provisions for the persecution of Nazi Crimes.

So what happened to you after the war if you had been a Nazi criminal depended on where you committed your crimes and who knew about it. West-German persecutorial practice for example highly favored people who had been part of the Einsatzgruppen or involved in Concentration Camps because those were the easiest to persecute.

There are also cases in which other countries tried German war criminals later than the immediate post-war era such as one case where the former military administrator of Saloniki was arrested while on holiday in Greece.

So, while there was a particular system that stated "if you were in x position you'd be tried in y way" beyond the obvious if you were part of the Reich Governement chances were good that you'd be tried by the IMT or in one of the NMT trials, the likelyhood of facing criminal persecution was higher if you were a high level in a camp or part of an Einsatzgruppe.

As for the normal soldier: As long as there wasn't a document that explicitly mentioned you by name as the guy who carried out a mass execution or the like, chances were slim that you'd face some kind of persecution. But even if there was such a document, the German justice system in the 60s and 70s would be very favorable towards you.

Sources:

• Peter Heigl: Nürnberger Prozesse – Nuremberg Trials. Carl, Nürnberg 2001.

• Edith Raim: Nazi Crimes against Jews and German Post-War Justice, 2015.

• Patricia Heberer, Jürgen Matthäus (ed.): Atrocities on Trial: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Prosecuting War Crimes, NebraskaU 2008.