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Denazification (German: Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary and politics of any remnants of the Nazi regime. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering impotent the organizations associated with it. The program of denazification was launched after the end of the Second World War and solidified by the Potsdam Agreement.
Overview
Denazification in Germany was accomplished through a series of directives issued by the Allied Control Council, seated in Berlin, beginning in January 1946. "Denazification directives" identified specific people and groups and outlined judicial procedures and guidelines for handling them.
Though all the occupying forces had agreed on the initiative, the methods used for denazification and the intensity with which they were applied differed between the occupation zones.
Denazification also refers to the removal of the physical symbols of the Nazi regime. For example, in 1957 the German government re-issued World War II Iron Cross medals without the swastika in the center.
Application in the Allied Occupation Zones
American zone
The Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 directed General Eisenhower’s policy of denazification.
The United States initially pursued denazification in a committed though bureaucratic fashion. For this process five categories for anyone over the age of 18 residing in the US zone of occupation were identified: major offenders, offenders, lesser offenders, followers, and exonerated persons. Ultimately, the intention was the "re-education" of the German people.
In early 1947 90,000 Nazis were being held in concentration camps, another 1,900,000 were forbidden to work as anything but manual labourers.
A report of the Institute on re-education of the Axis Countries in June 1945 recommended: "Only an inflexible longterm occupation authority will be able to lead the Germans to a fundamental revision of their recent political philosophy." On 15 January 1946, however, a report of the Military Government (classified as restricted) stated: "The present procedure fails in practice to reach a substantial number of persons who supported or assisted the Nazis." On 1 April a special law therefore transferred the responsibility for the denazification process to the German administration which established 545 civilian courts (German Spruchkammern) to oversee 900,000 cases.
The denazification was now supervised by special German ministers like the Social Democrat Gottlob Kamm in Baden-Württemberg. By 1948, however, with the Cold War now clearly in progress, American attentions were directed increasingly to the threat of the Eastern Bloc; the remaining cases were tried through summary proceedings that left insufficient time to thoroughly investigate the accused, so that many of the judgments of this period have questionable judicial value. For example, by 1952 members of the SS like Otto Skorzeny could be declared formally "entnazifiziert" (denazified) in absentia by a German government arbitration board and without any proof that this was true.
In December 1945 U.S. President Harry S. Truman justified his refusal to alleviate the induced famine of the German population: “though all Germans might not be guilty for the war, it would be too difficult to try to single out for better treatment those who had nothing to do with the Nazi regime and its crimes.”
The Information Control Division of the U.S. army had by July 1946 taken control of 37 German newspapers, 6 radio stations, 314 theatres, 642 cinemas, 101 magazines, 237 book publishers, 7,384 book dealers and printers. Its main mission was democratisation but part of the agenda was also the prohibition on any criticism of the Allied forces of occupation..
In addition, on May 13, 1946 the Allied Control council issued a directive for the confiscation on all media that could contribute to Nazism or militarism. As a consequence a list was drawn up of over 30,000 book titles, ranging from school textbooks to poetry, which were now banned. All copies of books on the list were confiscated and destroyed; the possession of a book on the list was made a punishable offence. (See also Censorship in the Federal Republic of Germany)
Soviet zone
The most radical and rapid denazification occurred in the Soviet zone, as it was tied to a fundamental transformation of German society. In the invasion of eastern Germany by the Soviets and its immediate aftermath, Nazi officials were often shot outright. Later, members of the Nazi Party and its daughter organizations were removed from their positions without right of appeal, and more than 120,000 were interned in camps. About 40,000 inmates of these camps died between 1945–1950. Oversight of the process was handled by Soviet intelligence agencies and by Germans appointed by the Soviets. Soviet and German-led Soviet attempts at denazification were concluded in 1957.
The abandonment of stringent denazification in the West became a major theme of East German government propaganda, which often claimed that the West German government was nothing but an extension of the old Nazi regime. Such allegations appeared frequently in the official SED newspaper, Neues Deutschland. The June 17, 1953 riots in Berlin were officially blamed on Nazi agents provocateurs from West Berlin, whom Neues Deutschland alleged were then working in collaboration with the Western government.
The Berlin Wall was officially called the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall ("Anti-Fascist Security Wall") by the East German government, and was ostensibly built to protect East German society from the activities of Nazis in West Berlin.
Denazification in the "recovered territories"
At the end of the war when Poland annexed parts of Germany, these areas experienced the most rapid denazification of all. This was carried out by either the murder or deportment of all ethnic Germans, whether they were Nazis or not. It is estimated in this German exodus from Eastern Europe that 2 million people lost their lives, and more than 15 million were forced from their homes.
French and British zones
The French and British took a more measured approach and focused primarily on a removal of the elite, rather than pursuit of all those who collaborated with the regime.
Implications for the future German states
The culture of denazification strongly influenced the Parliamentary Council charged with the responsibility of drawing up a constitution for the occupation zones. This constitution, called the Grundgesetz ("Basic Law"), was finalized on May 8, 1949, ratified on May 23, and came into effect the next day. This date effectively marks the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The radical left in Germany during the 1960s–70s and Nazi allegations
Because the Cold War had curtailed the process of denazification in the West, certain radical leftist groups such as the Red Army Faction justified their use of violence against the West German government and society based on the argument that the West German establishment had benefitted from the Nazi period, and that it was still largely Nazi in outlook. They pointed out that many former Nazis held government posts, while the German Communist Party was illegal in this "democratic" nation. They argued that "What did you do in the war, daddy?" was not a question that many of the leaders of the generation who fought World War II and prospered in the postwar "Wirtschaftswunder" (German Economic Miracle) encouraged their children to ask.
For example, one of the major justifications that the Red Army Faction gave in 1977 for killing Hanns-Martin Schleyer, President of the German Employers' Association and perceived as one of the most powerful industrialists in West Germany, was that as a former member of the SS, he was part of an informal network of ex-Nazis who still had great economic power and political influence in Germany.
Today
The late confession of famous German writer Günter Grass, perceived by many as a protagonist of 'the nation's moral conscience', that he was a member of the Waffen SS reminded the German public that, even more than sixty years after the Third Reich had been destroyed, membership in Nazi organisations is still a taboo issue in public discourse. Statistically it is very highly likely that there are many more Germans of Grass' generation (also called the "Flakhelfer-Generation") with biographies not unlike his, who have never come clean about their involvement at the time.
Denazification in other countries
In practice, denazification was not limited to Germany and Austria; in every European country with a vigorous Nazi or Fascist party, such as the ones in France, effective measures of denazification were carried out.
Denazification was also practised in most countries which fell to German occupation, because in these countries Nazi-held puppet regimes were established with the support of local collaborationists. This is the case of countries such as Belgium, Norway, Greece or Yugoslavia. In Greece, for instance, Special Courts of Collaborators were created after 1945 to try former collaborationist individuals. The three Greek quisling prime ministers, for example, were convicted and sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Other collaborationists after German withdrawal underwent repression and public humiliation, besides being tried (mostly on treason charges). Some left Greece, while others disappeared from public life only to re-emerge in post-war politics.
Notes
- Herbert Hoover's press release of The President's Economic Mission to Germany and Austria, Report No. 1: German Agriculture and Food Requirements, February 28, 1947. pg. 2
- Steven Bela Vardy and T. Hunt Tooley, eds. Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe ISBN 0-88033-995-0. subsection by Richard Dominic Wiggers, “The United States and the Refusal to Feed German Civilians after World War II” pg. 281
- Karen Margolis: Who wasn't a Nazi?
See also
- Ex-Nazis
- Pursuit of Nazi collaborators
- List of former Nazis influential after 1945
- List of living Nazis
- Operation paperclip
Further reading
- Germany 1947-1949: The Story In Documents The Department of State Publication 3556. 1950, U.S. Government Printing Office
- Hentschel, Klaus with Ann M. Hentschel as translator The Mental Aftermath: The Mentality of German Physicists 1945 – 1949 (Oxford, 2007) ISBN 978-0-19-920566-0
External links
FEDERALISM, AND CONSTITUTIONALISM DURING THE OCCUPATION OF BAVARIA, 1945-47
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