Exorcising Hitler

by Frederick Taylor

  Within months of the end of the war, denazification, initially quite popular among the disillusioned and angry German masses, had lost a lot of public support. In the early days, almost everyone rejoiced at the humiliation of former Nazi big shots, known as ‘golden pheasants’ for their ornate uniforms and lavish lifestyles. Now, leftists thought the purge didn’t go far enough, Nazis hated it for understandable reasons and non-Nazi conservatives came to see it as just another otherwise pointless ruse by the control-mad occupiers to ‘keep Germany down’.

  Half-starved, largely unemployed, seemingly with few prospects and looked down upon by the foreign bringers of ‘freedom’, ordinary Germans soon began to see themselves as victims and to reject the notion of indiscriminate ‘collective guilt’ that they saw as lying at the heart of denazification.

  It was this problem – the awareness that if one has ‘collective guilt’ then there is for the individual often no guilt – that led the Austrian-born liberal journalist Hans Habe, who had returned from exile as a GI in 1945 and almost immediately became the editor of the American-licensed German-language newspaper in Munich, to observe that ‘in fact, if the Germans were collectively guilty, we should have concealed it from them’. Habe was sceptical about the effectiveness of denazification in the form it took. The defensive reaction that it gave rise to would not produce genuine reflection and readiness for re-education on the part of the German people.12 The writer and political scientist Eugen Kogon, a devout Catholic who had spent six years in Buchenwald for his opposition to the Nazis, observed that the Allied mission to cleanse and re-educate the Germans was starting to have the opposite effect:

  Because of the awful clamour around it and because of its own blindness, they [the German people] wanted to hear nothing of self-examination. The voice of their conscience did not awaken.

  American polling in their zone saw approval of denazification slip from 54 per cent in early 1946 to 32 per cent in 1947. It would reach its lowest level in 1949 at 17 per cent.13

  Denazification was especially unloved in conservative, inward-looking rural communities, in essence for quite primitive, unpolitical reasons. There respected and trusted local figures were often among the accused, and community solidarity often – in fact usually – trumped the demands of a political justice that few locals, whether Nazi supporters or not, recognised. The doctor, the teacher, the policeman or the agricultural merchant may have been Nazis, but they were the people villagers relied on. To have them removed from such crucial positions in the community by a bunch of opportunists and/or un­­­patriotic German troublemakers – as rural folk often viewed the denazification tribunals – caused deep resentment.

  In many parts of the American Zone, those who served the denazification tribunal were treated as social lepers. It was therefore hardly surprising – especially given the shortage of lawyers and officials untainted by Nazi pasts – that there were serious shortages of qualified personnel; in fact, of any personnel at all. An American Special Branch report from October 1946 on the Spruchkammer at Steinach, a small town about an hour’s drive west of Nuremberg, summed up one particular tragicomic case:

  The Spruchkammer of this Landkreis is one of the most incompetent Spruchkammern in the entire Land. The chairman and Public Prosecutors are ordinary farmers who are practically illiterate. There is one young law student, who, until now, has carried by himself the entire responsibility for operations. Since neither the Public Prosecutor nor the Chairman are capable of drawing up anything approaching adequate charges or a decision, this man has alternated between writing charge sheets for the Public Prosecutor and decisions for the Chairman. Thus he has found himself in the peculiar position of first drafting up charges and then drafting a decision opposing his own charges. This legalistic ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ situation has been much of a strain and now, after four months of it, he is close to a nervous breakdown. In addition to his other duties, he has been in charge of all administrative matters.14

  By this time, cases of violent outrages against tribunal property and even tribunal members themselves had become fairly commonplace. Threats were also an everyday occurrence. In Schwetzingen, near Heidelberg, the head of the local denazification board received a letter in which he was warned about the ‘serious crime’ he had committed by taking on this role:

  Should an opportunity arise, you will have to bear the consequences of your actions. Think of your family.

  In another small town, tribunal members were warned that ‘a gallows will be erected in the market place . . . and all of you will hang there with heads down . . .’ At Mainburg, not so far from Steinbach, the deputy chairman of the tribunal resigned ‘because he was afraid of the consequences’. Tribunal offices were burgled and vandalised. There were even cases of a chairman’s car being blown up (a crime traced to some fanatical former Hitler Youth members) and of a prosecutor being stoned while visiting a village on tribunal business.15

  In the case of Vilsbiburg, a small community in the Alpine foothills, 100 kilometres or so north-east of Munich, there were indications that the local Nazis were taking on both the tribunal and the American occupation official in charge, and winning. A letter from a Lieutenant Colonel Bradford, Chief of the Governmental Structures Branch at Office of Military Governor, Munich, to Albert C. Schweizer, Director of Civil Affairs, on 10 October 1946 described the arrival of a delegation of anti-Nazis, including the local Landrat (District Supervisor), a former police chief, and the prosecutor from the denazification tribunal. They were in despair that the local American Public Safety Officer, a Lieutenant Brooks, obviously an ally of the anti-Nazis, seemed to have been withdrawn at the behest of the reactionaries in the town. Bradford wrote:

  They stated that the transfer of Lt. Brooks, former Public Safety Officer with that detachment, had been openly flouted [sic – probably an error for ‘flaunted’] by the Nazi elements in that community as a victory for them. The democratic elements, who have been trying to carry on their duties in that highly Nazified community are accordingly completely discouraged. It had been said to the Landrat ‘that if an American officer can be disposed of so rapidly it won’t be long before you will go also’. The public prosecutor of the Spruchkammer stated that unless something is done to strengthen the prestige of the anti-Nazi forces he would be forced to resign inasmuch as it would be impossible for him to carry on his task because of such open opposition.16

  Bradford called for immediate action.

  The undersigned officer is convinced that the transfer of Lt. Brooks by Military Government, no matter for what reasons, has resulted in a situation in this community entirely contrary to our policy. Some action must be taken to effectively continue the investigation and prosecution of the Nazi elements there that Lt. Brooks had begun in order to restore the confidence of the people in the strength and purpose of Military Government and in the democratic principles we are trying to inculcate in every community. This division has requested Col. Hastings to send Lt. Brooks back to Vilsbiburg to prosecute the charges against Herr Feistle, Bürgermeister of Vilsbiburg, in the forthcoming trial before a Military Government Intermediate Court. Col. Hastings has agreed. However, it is to be doubted that this in itself is all that is required to better the situation. Of the many Nazis in that area, some are firmly entrenched and much more effort will be required by a tough and thorough investigator before any true progress can be achieved in clearing up the highly disturbing condition that exists there.

  The next day, Bradford was able to inform Schweizer that Brooks had been intercepted just before he was due to return to the US. A coalition of the lieutenant colonel and three intelligence officers was able to prevail on Colonel Hastings to retain Brooks for another month, and for the Vilsbiburg mayor’s case to be brought forward. ‘Thus the Feistle case seems well taken care of,’ Bradford reported with limited satisfaction, ‘but the more long range problem of the other entrenched Nazis in Vilsbiburg still exists.’17 It might be supposed that this case was a su
ccessful exception. There is an air of hopelessness about many such reports.

  Worse, even if Nazis were properly arraigned, there were problems with proportionality in their punishments. The system of fines, for instance, took no account of the almost absolute worthlessness of the post-war Reich mark. Fifty Reich marks, which before the war might have constituted, for around two-thirds of German workers, the loss of almost two weeks’ wages,18 was now small change. Earlier in the summer of 1946, an editor at Hans Habe’s Neue Zeitung, Robert Lembke, complained to a government press conference:

  It is apparent from very many letters to our editorial department that people do not understand tribunal verdicts that inflict a fine of 50 Reich marks. They say, for 50 Reich marks we could have indulged ourselves too [i.e. we could have been Nazis]. If people are really guilty of so small an offence, maybe it would be better if we let them work off the penalty – rather than penalising them with this sum of 50 Reich marks, which feels like an absolute mockery, what these days almost anyone would spend on a pack of cigarettes.19

  A spot check by the Army Special Branch in Heidelberg showed that 80 per cent of those cases where Nazis had been sentenced as ‘fellow travellers’, probably leading to fines similar to the ones complained about by Robert Lembke, should have led to their being classified in more serious categories.

  In a survey of the progress of denazification, the AMG’s Weekly Information Bulletin, trying to take a positive tone despite acknowledged problems, tackled the case of a fifty-year-old teacher at an industrial school who appeared before a Bavarian denazification tribunal. The man had been:

  . . . a party member since 1 May 1933, propaganda leader from 1938 to 1945, member of the NS Lehrerbund (teachers’ organisation) 1935–1940 and its trustee 1937–40, NSV and NSKOV since 1934, and Reichskolonialbund 1935–38. He was engaged in the fortification programme in Italy from 1 September 1944 to 30 November 1944. He was an honorary cultural adviser in the state guild of painters from 1934 to 1937. Also he was a teacher at the Academy of Painting. He was made a civil servant by the city administration of Munich in 1935. He was active in the Ortsgruppe.20

  A middling fish, then, but definitely an active Nazi rather than a token one.

  The prosecutor had asked for the accused to be classified as an Offender – the second most serious category, liable for permanent exclusion from state employment and the professions – but the tribunal demurred, reducing their verdict to that of Lesser Offender. He was fined 5,000 Reich marks (or fifty days’ labour) and ordered to pay costs amounting to 7,000 Reich marks, but – most importantly – was simply sentenced to three years’ probation and exclusion from responsible posts, after which – presuming he behaved himself – he could resume his career. The tribunal’s reason for mitigation was that he ‘according to the evidence of reliable witnesses . . . proved to be of unselfish assistance to everyone without making propaganda for the party. He extended his help to a woman who had four children and, after having been denounced to the Gestapo, was arrested for a considerable period of time by a special court.’ He might, it concluded, ‘be expected, because of his character, after he has proved himself in a period of probation, to fulfil his duties as a citizen of a peaceful, democratic state’.21

  Soon, the denazification tribunals were overcome by a tidal wave of ‘mitigating circumstances’ – alleged favours done to dissidents and anti-Nazis, kindnesses shown to the poor and persecuted. Even dyed-in-the-wool Nazis could usually come up with someone to speak for them.

  Occasional dissolution of especially notorious tribunals, and attempts at intervention by Special Branch, seemed to have little effect. A directive in September 1946, insisting that German officials involved in denazification show ‘political and moral qualities capable of assisting in developing genuine democratic institutions in German’ made little difference.22 The next month, a selection of popular jokes reported from the Munich area showed the contempt in which the tribunals were widely held. One went:

  Question: What is the difference between a Spruchkammer and a fish-net?

  Answer: A fish-net catches the big ones and lets the little ones get away!

  A CIC agent in Berchtesgaden collected some more witticisms. People there were saying that ‘The erection of a monument to the Spruchkammer is being contemplated by grateful Nazis’ and ‘The salute “Heil Hitler!” being temporarily out of fashion, thankful Nazis suggest in its stead “Heil Hoegner!”.’23

  That an American appointee such as Hoegner, the ‘clean’ post-war Bavarian Prime Minister, could be mocked in this way was symptomatic of a serious problem. A few weeks later, in a speech to German politicians in the Länderrat, the all-zone political forum, Clay lashed out at these failures, declaring himself ‘sorely disappointed’. The General had personally investigated 575 cases of ‘major offenders’ put before the tribunals, he said, and found out that almost two-thirds had been reclassified as ‘fellow travellers’ and another forty-nine acquitted altogether. He declared a sixty-day deadline, beyond which, if the tribunals did not shape up, direct American control of the process would be reinstituted.

  During this time, there were intense discussions within the Military Government in Frankfurt about the degree of control that might be reintroduced, but in the end little came of it. Despite Clay’s threat, no one suggested taking the denazification process out of German hands. It was simply too difficult to contemplate. The most meaningful concrete decision was to forbid the tribunals from continuing to re­­­instate Nazis who had been dismissed by the Americans before German organs took charge in March 1946.24

  There was a distinct lack of natural justice in this last stipulation. It meant that those Nazis suffered most who, for some reason or another, had been the first in line for denazification. Any Nazis who, while just as deeply incriminated, had managed to evade the tentacles of the American denazification system until the spring of 1946, stood a good chance of suffering much less draconian punishment from their fellow countrymen after March of that year – and especially after June, when Schmitt, the communist zealot, was ejected from the minister’s office.

  Almost a million Germans resident in the American Zone were subject to the attentions of tribunals during the course of the denazification process, although not all had to appear in person. Of these, a mere 25,000 were classified as ‘major offenders’ or ‘offenders’, which involved mandatory exclusion from public life and from offices of responsibility. Almost 600,000 were put in the category of ‘lesser offenders’ or ‘followers’ and suffered mostly temporary suspensions from responsible employment, supplemented by fines, which were payable in near-worthless Reich marks. According to one set of AMG figures, one-third of ex-Nazis in the American Zone were dismissed from their employment between 1945 and 1947 – although almost all had been re-employed by the end of the latter year.25 The fact was, had this not been the case, the public and private infrastructure of the zone would have been faced with crippling difficulties, and possible total collapse.

  During the initial period, when denazification was being pursued with real determination by the US Army, another method of delaying (and thereby possibly avoiding) serious punishment had been to take refuge in the British Zone. Here things were very much less strict, even during the early stages of the occupation.

  It was not that the British did nothing. They were very determined, for instance, to find those Germans who had committed war crimes against British POWs or captured Allied aircrew.

  Mobile investigation teams swept through the British Zone in the late spring and summer of 1945. In one particular case, meticulously recorded in British files and including word-for-word transcripts of statements and of the trial itself, a German reserve policeman, Hans Renoth, was tried and convicted by a British military tribunal for the murder of an RAF pilot. The airman had crash-landed his aircraft, a single-seater fighter-bomber, in the north-west German countryside, not far from the Dutch border, on 16 September 1944.

  Although R
enoth, a reserve constable, admitted shooting the airman, the case was not straightforward. Several other officials had been involved. They had come from the small town of Elten, near Emmerich, after Renoth had taken a phone call from a farmer, who telephoned the police station to report the crashed plane. They drove to the crash scene in a car belonging to two signals captains who were based in the town. A senior constable and two customs officials who were also Nazi political leaders came in the signals captains’ car, too, making six officials at the crash site. At first, Renoth reported in his statement to the British investigators in July 1945:

  We saw the fallen aircraft but the pilot was not to be seen. During the search for the latter we had to take cover as other aircraft were flying over. After these aircraft had flown past, we continued our search for the pilot. The pilot was located about 50 metres from the aircraft in a ditch in the direction of the AA [anti-aircraft] site. I told him to come with me, which he immediately did. I searched him first but I found no weapons. I went with the pilot in the direction of the aircraft towards the captains. On the way the pilot was taken away from me by two soldiers, the two political leaders, and [Senior Constable] Pelgrim, with the remark ‘You want to be friendly with the dog who has murdered our women and children.’ I assume the soldiers came from the railway (or the main road). A beating ensued. The following were present: the two soldiers, the two political leaders and Pelgrim. The pilot was beaten nearly to death. I took no part in the beating, but withdrew and went to the captains. We conversed briefly; I can no longer remember the subject of the conversation. I saw that the rifle model 98 was broken in two pieces. (Pelgrim was in possession of the rifle.) It is my opinion that the pilot had been beaten so severely that the rifle broke. Captain Koerkes ordered me to give the pilot the coup de grace and I carried out this order. In accordance with my oath, I had to carry out the order. I made no protests but received a letter from Captain Koerkes. I passed this on to the Kreisführer of the Gendarmerie Harmann by name in Wesel at the office of the Landrat. I fired a shot into the pilot’s chest from a range of 5–7 metres. The pilot died immediately without uttering a sound.26