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Workers removing the signage from a former "Adolf Hitler Street"
Workers removing the signage from a former "Adolf Hitler Street"

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. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. In general allies are people groups or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German 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 was solidified by the Potsdam Agreement. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Potsdam Agreement was an agreement on policy for the occupation and reconstruction of Germany and other nations after fighting in the European Theatre of World War II

Contents

Overview

Denazification in Germany was accomplished through a series of directives issued by the Allied Control Council, seated in Berlin, beginning in January 1946. The Allied Control Council or Allied Control Authority, known in German as the Alliierter Kontrollrat, also referred to as the Four Powers (German Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. "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. For other meanings please see Iron Cross (disambiguation The Iron Cross ( was a Military decoration of the Kingdom of Prussia The swastika (from Sanskrit: svástika sa स्वस्तिक Hindu IS CORRECT if 'ि' is positioned incorrectly see -->) is

Application in the Allied Occupation Zones

American zone

The Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 directed U. The Morgenthau Plan was a plan for the occupation of Germany after World War II that advocated measures intended to remove Germany's ability to wage war S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s policy of denazification. Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (October 14 1890 – March 28 1969 was President of the United States from 1953 until 1961 and a five-star general

The United States initially pursued denazification in a committed though bureaucratic fashion. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Five categories were established to identify anyone over the age of 18 residing in the U.S. zone of occupation: major offenders, offenders, lesser offenders, followers, and exonerated persons. The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into four occupation zones for administrative 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. " Therefore, on 1 April, a special law transferred the responsibility for the denazification process to the German administration which established 545 civilian courts (German: Spruchkammern) to oversee 900,000 cases. Events 527 - Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne By 1948, however, with the Cold War 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. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the During the Cold War, the term Communist Bloc (or Soviet Bloc) was used to refer to the Soviet Union and countries it either controlled or that were 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. The ( German for "Protective Squadron" abbreviated SS - or ( Runic)- was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Otto Skorzeny ( June 12 1908 – July 6 1975) was an Obersturmbannführer in the German Waffen-SS The delicate task of distinguishing those truly complicit in or responsible for Nazi activities from mere "followers" made the work of the courts yet more difficult. U. S. President Harry S. Truman alluded to this problem in the justification for his refusal to alleviate the induced famine from which the German population suffered: “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. ” [1] Denazification was from then on supervised by special German ministers, like the Social Democrat Gottlob Kamm in Baden-Württemberg, with the support of the U. Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states ( Bundesländer) of the Federal Republic of Germany. S. occupation forces.

While judicial efforts were handed over to German authorities, the U. S. Army continued its efforts to denazify Germany through control of German media. 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. The Information Control Division was a department of the US Army during the early period of American occupation of Germany after World War II. The United States Army is a military organization whose primary mission is to "provide necessary forces and capabilities. [1] Its main mission was democratisation but part of the agenda was also the prohibition on any criticism of the Allied occupation forces. [2]. 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)

By early 1947, 90,000 Nazis were being held in concentration camps, another 1,900,000 were forbidden to work as anything but manual labourers. The Federal Republic of Germany guarantees freedom of speech, expression, and opinion to its citizens as per Article 5 of the constitution Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people commonly in large groups without trial [2]

Soviet zone

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. The German Democratic Republic ( GDR; Deutsche Demokratische Republik DDR; commonly known in English as East Germany) was a Socialist state West Germany ( Inf German: Westdeutschland or West-Deutschland) was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany ( Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Such allegations appeared frequently in the official Socialist Unity Party of Germany newspaper, Neues Deutschland. The Socialist Unity Party of Germany ( German: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) was the governing party of the German Democratic Neues Deutschland (ND ( English: New Germany is a national German daily Newspaper. The 1953 June 17 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 Uprising of 1953 in East Germany took place in June 1953 A strike by Berlin construction workers on June 16 Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. Traditionally an agent provocateur ( Plural: agents provocateurs, French for "inciting agent" is a person employed by the police or West Berlin was the name given to the western part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990

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. The Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer was a physical barrier separating West Berlin from the German Democratic Republic (GDR ( East Germany) including

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. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located

Implications for the future German states

The culture of denazification strongly influenced the parliamentary council charged with drawing up a constitution for those occupation zones that would become West Germany. West Germany ( Inf German: Westdeutschland or West-Deutschland) was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany ( This constitution, called the Grundgesetz ("Basic Law"), was finalized on May 8, 1949, ratified on May 23, and came into effect the next day. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland is the Constitution of Germany. This date effectively marks the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.

Efforts to end support for Nazism among German population

"In 1945 there was an Allied consensus—which no longer exists—on the doctrine of collective guilt, that all Germans shared the blame not only for the war but for Nazi atrocities as well. "[3]

Statements made by the British and U. S. governments, both before and immediately after Germany's surrender, indicate that the German nation as a whole was to be held responsible for the actions of the Nazi regime, often using the terms "collective guilt", and "collective responsibility. "[4] To that end, as the Allies began their post-war denazification efforts, the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) undertook a psychological propaganda campaign for the purpose of developing a German sense of collective responsibility. The Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF ( PWD/SHAEF) was a joint Anglo-American organisation set-up in World War II tasked with conducting principally Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (abbreviated as SHAEF, pronounced "shāf" was the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces [5] The Public Relations and Information Services Control Group of the British Element of the Allied Control Commission began in 1945 to issue directives to officers in charge of producing newspapers and radio broadcasts for the German population to emphasize "the moral responsibility of all Germans for Nazi crimes. "[6] Similarly, among U. S. authorities, such a sense of collective guilt was "considered a prerequisite to any long-term education of the German people. "[7]

Using the German press, which was under Allied control, as well as posters and pamphlets, a program acquainting ordinary Germans with what had take place in the concentration camps was conducted. A number of films showing the concentration camps were made and screened to the German public, such as "Die Todesmuhlen", released in the U. S. zone in January 1946, and "Welt im Film No. 5" in June, 1945. A film that was never finished due partly to delays and the existence of the other films was "Memory of the Camps," the object of which "was to shake and humiliate the Germans and prove to them beyond any possible challenge that these German crimes against humanity were committed and that the German people -- and not just the Nazis and SS -- bore responsibility. "[8]Immediately upon the liberation of the concentration camps many German civilians were forced to see the conditions in the camps, bury rotting corpses and exhume mass-graves. [9] On threat of death or withdrawal of food civilians were forced to provide their belongings to former concentration camp inmates[10]

Despite those campaigns support for Nazism and genocide among German population continued to exist in certain degree.

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 benefited from the Nazi period, and that it was still largely Nazi in outlook. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the The Red Army Faction or RAF ( German Rote Armee Fraktion) (in its early stages commonly known as Baader-Meinhof Group ''Gang'' was one West Germany ( Inf German: Westdeutschland or West-Deutschland) was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany ( They pointed out that many former Nazis held government posts, while the German Communist Party was illegal. The Communist Party of Germany ( German Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands &ndash KPD) was a major political party in Germany between 1918 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. The term ( German for "economic miracle" describes the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria

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. A business magnate, sometimes referred to as a mogul, tycoon, baron, or industrialist, is a person who has reached a prominent place in In the context of this article the term ex-Nazi, or more correctly ex-Nazi Party member refers either to those few who were once Nazis and resigned from the

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. Günter Wilhelm Grass (born 16 October 1927 is a Nobel Prize -winning German Author and Playwright. The Waffen-SS ( German for "Armed SS" literally "Weapons SS" was the Combat arm of the Schutzstaffel ("Protective Squadron" Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers 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. Luftwaffenhelfer (commonly Flakhelfer) are terms commonly used for German students deployed as Child soldiers during World War II. [3]

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 measures of denazification were carried out. Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology In France the process was called épuration légale ("legal cleansing"). This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The Épuration légale ( French "legal purge" was the wave of official trials that followed the Liberation of France and the fall of the Prisoners of war held in detention in Allied countries were also subject to denazification qualifications before their repatriation.

Denazification was also practised in many countries which fell to German occupation, including Belgium, Norway, Greece or Yugoslavia, because Nazi-held puppet regimes had been established in these countries with the support of local collaborationists. The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία See also Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Yugoslavia ( Serbo-Croatian 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. Quisling, after Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling, who assisted Nazi Germany to conquer his own country is a term used to describe traitors and Other collaborationists after German withdrawal underwent repression and public humiliation, besides being tried (mostly on treason charges). Some left Greece, others took part in the civil war that ensued, fighting for one or the other side. The term 'quisling' is in itself an embodiment of the Norwegian denazification efforts——demonizing the most prominent of the individuals that did partake in partisan Nazi activities before or during the war. Vidkun Quisling was himself shot after being sentenced to death for high treason. Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945 was a Norwegian army Officer and politician

Notes

  1. ^ 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
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ Karen Margolis: Who wasn't a Nazi?

See also

Further reading

External links

FEDERALISM, AND CONSTITUTIONALISM DURING THE OCCUPATION OF BAVARIA, 1945-47

Dictionary

denazification

-noun

  1. The process of the removal of Nazis from public office and positions of responsibility in Germany and Austria after World War II.
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