Today, 75 years ago
(5th March 1946) The Act of Liberation from Nationalism and Militarism in the US-Zone transfers the right of denazification to German courts and as a second instance. All Germans older than 18 years old are asked to fill out a questionnaire in order to ascertain whether they count as guilty, incriminated, less incriminated, followers, exonerated or not affected.
Looking up “Denazification” on Wikipedia you find the following: after 1949 many of those who were deeply connected to the NS-past could pursue their careers unchecked in the Federal Republic of Germany. With Persil Bills that were handed to them by (suspected) victims on behalf of the judging commissions and courts of arbitration they returned to the fields of politics, justice, administration, police and universities; often wrong names were used and it was not infrequent that former networks, old comradeships and close buddies played a role.
Here an excerpt from Werner Keller’s book “Und sie wurden zerstreut unter alle Völker” (And they were scattered amongst all peoples).
No protest was heard when on 1st April 1933 the SA as thugs in “battle-times” incited a boycott against Jewish shop-owners in all cities. A few days later the idea was put to the test again. In the Reichstag on 7th April 1933 the “Law that restored the Professional Civil Service” was passed that put all civil servants of non-Aryan descent immediately into retirement. Two years later on 15th September 1935 Hitler announced the “Nürnberger Laws” in the city that in the Middle Ages had also proven itself as the breeding place of anti-Jewish sentiment. These included the “Reich Citizenship Law” and the “Law protecting German Blood and German Honour”. They officially degraded German Jews to second class citizens and stole from them their German citizenship forever. Marriage and extramarital sex between Aryans and Jewish was forbidden and Jews lost their active and passive voting rights. With immediate effect none of them were allowed to hold a public office…
… with one go more than half a million people were disenfranchised. Worst hit were the families of those working in intellectual professions, who lost their professional standing from one moment to the next: university professors – some world-famous –, doctors, lawyers, architects, writers and journalists. Educated Germany was silence. No flame of outrage flickered in the ranks of the bourgeoisie, neither was a storm of protest heard from the ranks of the teachers in secondary education when their Jewish colleagues were driven from their posts overnight. All levels of German society, even the most intelligent in all spheres, seemed bereft of their senses. Nowhere could open protest be heard against such unjust, scornful and immoral measures against one culture of peoples…
… Led by the SA-men in the night from the 9th to the 10th of November 1938 “sudden” heavy anti-Jewish riots occurred. Germany was the stage of a real pogrom: everywhere synagogues were set alight (the above picture shows the destruction of Wiesbaden’s synagogue). While nearly 600 houses of worship, including meeting houses and holy Jewish places on cemeteries were being reduced to dust and rubble, the brown rabble destroyed Jewish shops and warehouses. The extent of this destruction was tragically huge. Jewish property worth several millions of Reichsmark was pointlessly destroyed in that notorious Kristallnacht. But even that did not suffice the NS-leaders. In order to make “atonement” the German Jews had to pay fines of several billions of Reichsmark. Furthermore, the command was given that all still-existing Jews shops and companies be transferred into “Aryan” hands.
The civilised world shuddered and a storm of indignation swept through the international press. But nothing happened in Germany. No voice was raised that dared to publicly decry the criminal deeds. Had every legal awareness, every moral responsibility vanished from the “People of Poets and Thinkers“?
How did the Danes and the Dutch react to the anti-Jewish laws of the German occupiers? Quoting from page 500 of the book: … protests took place in Denmark. The populus flatly rejected the anti-Jewish measures, the King, so it was said, himself would proudly bear a Jewish Star of David should any of his subjects be forced to such a step. But when Germany took over Denmark’s administration in 1943 and secretly ordered that all non-Aryans be imprisoned, their plan came to nothing. Bold Danes had silently brought almost all the Jewish community in boats to Sweden…. In The Netherlands a general strike was declared in order to prevent the deportation of the Jews in February 1941.
For more than three thousand years Antisemitism has been a worldwide phenomenon. In the Middle Ages Jews were first driven out of England, then out of France and finally out of Spain and Portugal. It is not the hate of the Jews in German history that is so poignant and that is currently experiencing a revival in so many places. The real tragedy is the German perfection that managed to annihilate 5-6 million Jews within 3.5 years in such an organised way. This unbelievable feat of physical exertion became possible through the assistance of hundreds of thousands of conscientious Germans, be they train- or lorry-drivers, builders, plumbers, policemen and -women and secretaries in countless offices on all levels.
Everything went back to normal pretty quickly after the law was passed on 5th March 1946. And where was the outcry of the Christians? Was not Jesus himself a Jew? The Scholl siblings and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were devout Christians. But even among the millions of Christians one can almost count the opposition against the brown dictatorship on one hand.
The question remains: how would we have behaved, had we lived then? Our answer probably would be: in the same way. For we are all children of our times – now it is our turn. Now, today we are challenged to live and stand up for our beliefs. Hopefully we won’t fail the task that history puts to us. /KDJ
