Adenauer S Germany And The Nazi Past

Frei chronicles the denazification process in Adenauer's 1950s Germany. The stopping of punishment for Nazi crimes formed the crux of a policitcs of the past which, to a large degree, revoked the consequences of the previous political expurgation.

Beginning with the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, Frei (modern history, Ruhr-U. Bochum, Germany) examines the path that German politicians took in dealing with issues of prosecution or amnesty for those who served the Nazi state. He argues that the government of Konrad Adenauer was faced with a conflict over the effort to confront the Nazi past versus the need for short-term stability of a country emerging from military occupation. He argues that the social reintegration of Nazi "fellow travelers" was both necessary and inevitable, but suggests that the form of negotiations over amnesty laws sheds light onto the political motivations of West German politicians and a collective societal wish to avoid seriously looking at the crimes of Nazi Germany. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Since the end of World War II, historians and psychologists have investigated the factors that motivated Germans to become Nazis before and during the war. While most studies have focused on the high-level figures who were tried at Nuremberg, much less is known about the hundreds of SS members, party functionaries, and intelligence agents who quietly navigated the transition to postwar life and successfully assimilated into a changed society after the war ended. In A Nazi Past, German and American scholars examine the lives and careers of men like Hans Globke—who not only escaped punishment for his prominent involvement in formulating the Third Reich's anti-Semitic legislation, but also forged a successful new political career. They also consider the story of Gestapo employee Gertrud Slottke, who exhibited high productivity and ambition in sending Dutch Jews to Auschwitz but eluded trial for fifteen years. Additionally, the contributors explore how a network of Nazi spies and diplomats who recast their identities in Franco's Spain, far from the denazification proceedings in Germany. Previous studies have emphasized how former Nazis hid or downplayed their wartime affiliations and actions as they struggled to invent a new life for themselves after 1945, but this fascinating work shows that many of these individuals actively used their pasts to recast themselves in a democratic, Cold War setting. Based on extensive archival research as well as recently declassified US intelligence, A Nazi Past contributes greatly to our understanding of the postwar politics of memory.

A significant new look at the legacy of the Nazi regime, this book exposes the workings of past beliefs and political interests on how--and how differently--the two Germanys have recalled the crimes of Nazism, from the anti-Nazi emigration of the 1930s through the establishment of a day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism in 1996.

The first history of postwar fears of a Nazi return to power in Western political, intellectual, and cultural life.

Hitler's Legacy is the first comprehensive look at the Nazi problem in Germany from 1945 until today. The work stresses the major personnel controversies that arose from the reappearance of Nazis in key positions and the payment of generous pensions to Third Reich officials by West German governments. The first comprehensive summary of Germany's own war-crime trials held since 1945, it also provides an overview of the allied postwar war crime trials at Nuremberg and elsewhere. Two case studies highlight the post-Nazi milieu of 1950s West Germany: Theodor Oberlaender and Hans Globke. Both men played significant roles in the Nazi regime and became more prominent in Adenauer's 1950s West German government.