This text analyzes the trials conducted by the US against representatives of German industry after World War II. Contrary to the existing literature in the fields of transitional justice and corporate accountability, the article takes an analytical approach and focuses on the economic-political ideas of order that underlie the proceedings. To this end, the analysis focuses on the concepts used in the judgments to assemble the evidence and materials into images of the violent past. Through a detailed reading of the legal reasoning regarding the charges of “war of aggression”, “slave labor” and “plunder” the text shows that judges project the liberal separation of state and economy onto the past as a normative positing, finding unlawful behavior by entrepreneurs where the totalitarian state violates the freedom of the economic sphere. Similar to ordoliberal theorizing, the trials locate the causes of violence associated with the corporations in the totalitarian state and, conversely, posit the free market economy as the guarantor of a democratic post-war order. The text concludes with reflections on the implications of this observation for current efforts to counter violence in the context of transnational accumulation processes by establishing human rights obligations for corporations.