The plaque, found at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, lists the names of 34 members of the Reich Court and the Reich prosecutor’s office who died in Soviet prisons after 1945.

It was unveiled in 1957 and an investigation in 1979 by Stern magazine found that 23 of the 34 members had been loyal Nazis.

President of the Supreme Court, Bettina Limperg, said she had initially wanted to remove the plaque but that her opinion had changed. She said: “I thought, oh God! It needs to go!”

But later presentations made her re-think her position. “It got me wondering whether it wouldn’t be just too easy to remove it, because it belongs to the BGH [Supreme Court] and its history,” she said.

The judge said the plaque would have notes added to indicate that some of those who died were avid Nazis.