De-Nazification

[Journeyman916]

Does anyone know what constituted the de-nazification program at the end of the war? How long did it last? What did it involve? I’ve never read anything about it, only that ex party members had to complete it.

[OpanaPointer]

Start here: https://history.army.mil/html/books/011/11-3/index.html

Check the references for leads.

[Journeyman916]

OpanaPointer. Thanks for replying. Unfortunately the document doesn’t really answer my question. I’ll freely admit to not being an academic but I found no references to follow! I read the chapter titles and scan read some of those chapters that looked promising but didn’t even find the word ‘Nazi’! As part of the introduction points out:
‘ The scope of this volume encompasses only the pre-Germany-Japan phase of the war’. It is, from my brief reading, more about planning the administration of civil affairs in conquered or recovered territory. All I really wanted to understand was the format of the de-nazification program. Was it a series of lectures? Was it a set syllabus or tailored to the individual? Was it an interrogation (even getting physical)? Was there a test at the end of it?

The document linked was non the less interesting.

[Waleed Y. Majeed]

This might help
http://www.alliiertenmuseum.de/en/topic ... ation.html

Waleed

[steve248]

The denazification trials were basically that. De-nazification. Therefore the defendants were charged with membership of a criminal organization as defined by the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 1945-1946. The denazification trials were not war crimes trials; taking membership of the SS, Gestapo, the SD and Nazi Party apparatchiks (not simply Party members) as criminal organizations the defendants sort to limit their membership of these groups. Thus many Gestapo men who transferred from the Kriminalpolizei into the Gestapo sort to limit their involvement by saying they had been forcibly transferred ("against my will"). All stuff and nonsense of course since they did not mention the "perks of the job" - higher pay for Gestapo membership, kudos for being in the "elite" police force, better chance to travel even if it was to the East where of course, they did not go. And as there was no paperwork to say they did, who was to say they did? By being in the Gestapo, for example, the judges asked what they knew of the concentration camps and, of course, they knew nothing. If you had been a SS guard and Buchenwald or Auschwitz the game was up.
In the British Zone of Occupied Germany, the denazification program was known as "Operation Old Lace" and the British were appalled when senior Gestapo men, held in internment (i.e. imprisoned), were convicted of SS and Gestapo membership and given 2, 3 or 4 years imprisonment sentences reckoned as served in most cases by their internment. The denazification trial in the British Zone did not involve British judicial prosecutors or judges; the court official were entirely German with a British observer (who observed only).
The trials continued well into the 1950s in the British and US Zones, I do not know what happened in the French Zone or the Soviet Zones.

[history1]

[...] In the British Zone of Occupied Germany, the denazification program was known as "Operation Old Lace" and the British were appalled when senior Gestapo men, held in internment (i.e. imprisoned), were convicted of SS and Gestapo membership and given 2, 3 or 4 years imprisonment sentences reckoned as served in most cases by their internment. The denazification trial in the British Zone did not involve British judicial prosecutors or judges; the court official were entirely German with a British observer (who observed only).[...]

They were so appalled that they even did agree and support that war criminals were released earlier from jail.
It was the Allies who had the last word, not the Germans. Time to remember the facts.

[steve248]

If there is one thing I do is remember the facts. You are reading into my post things I did not mention. One of which was release. In fact many internees had already been released from internment camps during their denazification trial and most released soon afterwards - and all released in 1948 unless they were undergoing a war crimes trial or a witness at such trials. These comments refer only to the British Zone in Germany.

3-7 Nov 1948, Operation Old Lace trial of Karl Wolff before the Spruchgericht Bergedorf. He was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment “in view of considerable mitigating circumstances”. This was probably the last major case before denazification was decided in the British Zone to be a wholly West German problem. Wolff was released the same or the following day because he had been held in Allied captivity since May 1945. The "mitigating circumstances" had been agreed in 1945 after Wolff's surrender and arrest (two different events) in May 1945. I am not explaining them as it would take too long.

[Hans1906]

I have the whole "Entnazifizierung" documents from my grandfather Hans in my personal archive.

Several folders full of documents, a lot of material.

Hans, 1906-1967, was "denazified" under the british military government in north-west germany.
He became an NSDAP member at may 1st, 1937, NSDAP party number 5274155.

His last rank was "Arbeitsführer" (Major) in the Reichsarbeitsdienst.
(Personal "Adjutant" to at least one former "Generalarbeitsführer")

The grandfather was later classified as a so-called "follower" ("Mitläufer").
Contrary to the memories of his own family, the man was most certainly a convinced National Socialist.

The amount of documents from these years is overwhelming.
Hans was just a small light, a follower, nothing more.
Nevertheless very difficult to look at, even after all these decades, I will probably never want to see or read all this.


Hans1906

[Journeyman916]

Hans1906
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing