Denazification
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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. 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, the Netherlands or Norway, effective measures of denazification were carried out. The program of denazification was launched after the end of the Second World War and solidified by the Potsdam Agreement.
Overview
Denazification 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 United States initially pursued denazification in a committed though bureaucratic fashion. For this process five categories of responsibility 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. 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 Württemberg-Baden. 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.Soviet zone
The most radical and rapid denazification occurred in the Soviet zone, as it was tied to a fundamental transformation of German society. 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 Russians. Finally, in deep disarray, Soviet and German-led Soviet attempts at denazification were abandoned in 1957.
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, 1949, and came into effect on May 24th, 1949. 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, in the late 1960s and 1970s the radical left who chose to use violence, e.g. Red Army Faction (RAF), against the West German government and society, used the argument that the West German establishment had benefited 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 RAF gave in 1977 for killing Hanns-Martin Schleyer, who was the President of the German Employers' Association (and thus 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.See also
External links
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