He served his sentence in Landsberg prison. As part of the intensified discussion of West German rearmament after the outbreak of the Korean War in the summer of 1950, on 31 January 1951 High Commissioner for Germany John McCloy assessed the 15 death sentences handed down at Nuremberg on the recommendation of the "Advisory Board on Clemency for War Criminals". Four inmates had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment and six given prison sentences of between ten and twenty-five years, but confirmed that five of the death sentences should be still enforced. The judgment against Fendler was reduced to eight years. In December 1951 he was released from prison.