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190-824: Werner Naumann (1909–1982), studied law and political science and earned a doctorate in 1936. A member of the Nazi Party from 1928, he became a skilled propagandist and SS- Brigadeführer and, from 1938, worked directly with Joseph Goebbels , the Reichsminister for Propaganda. Naumann rose to become the State Secretary in the Ministry in April 1944 and was named in the Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler as Goebbels' successor as Reichsminister . Escaping from

380-650: A fascist party with similar policies and objectives came into power in Italy, the National Fascist Party , under the leadership of the charismatic Benito Mussolini . The Fascists, like the Nazis, promoted a national rebirth of their country, as they opposed communism and liberalism; appealed to the working-class; opposed the Treaty of Versailles ; and advocated the territorial expansion of their country. Hitler

570-594: A foreign race ( Fremdvölkische ). The Nazis sought to strengthen the Germanic people, the " Aryan master race ", through racial purity and eugenics , broad social welfare programs, and a collective subordination of individual rights, which could be sacrificed for the good of the state on behalf of the people. To protect the supposed purity and strength of the Aryan race, the Nazis sought to disenfranchise, segregate, and eventually exterminate Jews , Romani , Slavs ,

760-505: A "racially pure" Aryan. Party members could not be related either directly or indirectly to a so-called "non-Aryan". Even before it had become legally forbidden by the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the Nazis banned sexual relations and marriages between party members and Jews. Party members found guilty of Rassenschande ("racial defilement") were persecuted heavily. Some members were even sentenced to death. Hitler quickly became

950-472: A Catholic monarch; and Westphalia , along with working-class "Red Berlin", were always the Nazis' weakest areas electorally, even during the Third Reich itself. The areas of strongest Nazi support were in rural Protestant areas such as Schleswig-Holstein , Mecklenburg , Pomerania and East Prussia . Depressed working-class areas such as Thuringia also produced a strong Nazi vote, while the workers of

1140-446: A Nazi and Militarist Nature". All confiscated literature was reduced to pulp instead of burning. It was also directed by Directive No. 30, "Liquidation of German Military and Nazi Memorials and Museums". An exception was made for tombstones "erected at the places where members of regular formations died on the field of battle". Artworks were under the same censorship as other media: "all collections of works of art related or dedicated to

1330-590: A bystander lay dead. Hitler, Ludendorff and a number of others were arrested and were tried for treason in March 1924. Hitler and his associates were given very lenient prison sentences. While Hitler was in prison, he wrote his semi-autobiographical political manifesto Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). The Nazi Party was banned on 9 November 1923; however, with the support of the nationalist Völkisch-Social Bloc ( Völkisch-Sozialer Block ), it continued to operate under

1520-612: A clear foreign policy (abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, a Greater Germany , Eastern expansion and exclusion of Jews from citizenship) and among his specific points were: confiscation of war profits , abolition of unearned incomes, the State to share profits of land and land for national needs to be taken away without compensation. In general, the manifesto was antisemitic , anti-capitalist , anti-democratic , anti-Marxist and anti-liberal . To increase its appeal to larger segments of

1710-582: A crime. Even before denazification was officially abandoned in West Germany , East German propaganda frequently portrayed itself as the only true anti-fascist state, and argued that the West German state was simply a continuation of the Nazi regime, employing the same officials that had administered the government during the Nazi dictatorship. From the 1950s, reasoning for these accusations focused on

1900-466: A desire to draw upon both left-wing and right-wing ideals, with "Socialist" and "Workers'" appealing to the left, and "National" and "German" appealing to the right. Nazi , the informal and originally derogatory term for a party member, abbreviates the party's name ( Nationalsozialist [natsi̯oˈnaːlzotsi̯aˌlɪst] ), and was coined in analogy with Sozi (pronounced [ˈzoːtsiː] ), an abbreviation of Sozialdemokrat (member of

2090-527: A development which was formally documented by the merger of the offices of Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police on 17 June 1936, as the position was held by Heinrich Himmler who derived his authority directly from Hitler. The Sicherheitsdienst (SD, formally the "Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS") that had been created in 1931 as an intraparty intelligence became

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2280-570: A failure; in 1951 the provisional West German government granted amnesties to lesser offenders and ended the program. While judicial efforts were handed over to German authorities, the US Army continued its efforts to denazify Germany through control of German media. The Information Control Division of the US Army had by July 1946 taken control of 37 German newspapers, six radio stations, 314 theaters, 642 cinemas, 101 magazines, 237 book publishers, and 7,384 book dealers and printers. Its main mission

2470-413: A false identity in 1945 in order to avoid prosecution. Naumann soon began making contact with other former Nazi functionaries. It has been estimated that he developed a very wide network of contacts numbering perhaps as many as 1,000; his address book alone contained over 700 names. He set about organizing these contacts into an underground organization. His correspondence stressed the need for secrecy, and

2660-454: A form of economic socialism , in order to create a popular nationalist-oriented workers' movement that could challenge the rise of communism and internationalist politics . These were all well-known themes popular with various Weimar paramilitary groups such as the Freikorps . Drexler's movement received attention and support from some influential figures. Supporter Dietrich Eckart ,

2850-417: A heated argument with a visitor, Professor Baumann, who questioned the soundness of Gottfried Feder 's arguments against capitalism; Baumann proposed that Bavaria should break away from Prussia and found a new South German nation with Austria . In vehemently attacking the man's arguments, Hitler made an impression on the other party members with his oratorical skills; according to Hitler, the "professor" left

3040-538: A ministerial-level post at any level in Germany. In 1931 the Nazi Party altered its strategy to engage in perpetual campaigning across the country, even outside of election time. During 1931 and into 1932, Germany's political crisis deepened. Hitler ran for president against the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg in March 1932, polling 30% in the first round and 37% in the second against Hindenburg's 49% and 53%. By now

3230-555: A month later. In January 1923, France occupied the Ruhr industrial region as a result of Germany's failure to meet its reparations payments. This led to economic chaos, the resignation of Wilhelm Cuno 's government and an attempt by the German Communist Party (KPD) to stage a revolution. The reaction to these events was an upsurge of nationalist sentiment. Nazi Party membership grew sharply to about 20,000, compared to

3420-579: A nationalist orientation that formed in the last years of World War I . In 1918, a league called the Freier Arbeiterausschuss für einen guten Frieden (Free Workers' Committee for a good Peace) was created in Bremen , Germany. On 7 March 1918, Anton Drexler , an avid German nationalist, formed a branch of this league in Munich . Drexler was a local locksmith who had been a member of

3610-522: A new political party should be formed, based on the political principles that he endorsed, by combining his branch of the Workers' Committee for a good Peace with the Political Workers' Circle. On 5 January 1919, Drexler created a new political party and proposed it should be named the "German Socialist Workers' Party", but Harrer objected to the term "socialist"; so the term was removed and

3800-463: A new publisher, but Der Skorpion was blocked and not widely distributed. Unable to publish his works, Richter founded Group 47 . The Allied costs for occupation were charged to the German people. A newspaper which revealed the charges (including, among other things, thirty thousand bras ) was banned by the occupation authorities for revealing this information. From the beginning, denazification in

3990-469: A number of reasons, than the other Western powers, not even using the term "denazification", instead calling it "épuration" (purification). At the same time, some French occupational commanders had served in the collaborationist Vichy regime during the war where they had formed friendly relationships with Germans. As a result, in the French zone mere membership in the Nazi Party was much less important than in

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4180-409: A period of five years. His nascent political career was thus effectively derailed. Investigations continued and, on 29 June 1954, the German prosecutors determined that there was sufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution of Naumann and Bornemann on charges of leading an unconstitutional organization. At the same time, they concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support charges against

4370-693: A political party set up by East German authorities upon the encouragement of Stalin explicitly to appeal to former Nazi members and sympathisers, and which functioned as a loyal satellite of the Socialist Unity Party . The British prepared a plan from 1942 onwards, assigning a number of quite junior civil servants to head the administration of liberated territory in the rear of the Armies, with draconian powers to remove from their post, in both public and private domains, anyone suspected, usually on behavioral grounds, of harboring Nazi sympathies. For

4560-615: A process known as denazification . Several top leaders were tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trials , and executed. The use of symbols associated with the party is still outlawed in many European countries, including Germany and Austria. The renaming of the German Worker's Party (DAP) to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) was partially driven by

4750-510: A protest, but had now drawn back from the prospect of actually putting him into power. The Nazis interpreted the result as a warning that they must seize power before their moment passed. Had the other parties united, this could have been prevented, but their shortsightedness made a united front impossible. Papen, his successor Kurt von Schleicher and the nationalist press magnate Alfred Hugenberg spent December and January in political intrigues that eventually persuaded President Hindenburg that it

4940-707: A psychological propaganda campaign for the purpose of developing a German sense of collective responsibility. In 1945, the Public Relations and Information Services Control Group of the British Element (CCG/BE) of the Allied Control Commission for Germany began in 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". Similarly, among US authorities, such

5130-620: A result of these various pressures, and following a January 15, 1946, report of the Military Government decrying the efficiency of denazification, saying, "The present procedure fails in practice to reach a substantial number of persons who supported or assisted the Nazis", it was decided to involve Germans in the process. In March 1946 the Law for Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism (German: Befreiungsgesetz ) came into effect, turning over responsibility for denazification to

5320-555: A single day to await processing. By December 1945, even though a full 500,000 forms had been processed, there remained a backlog of 4,000,000 forms from POWs and a potential case load of 7,000,000. The Fragebögen were, of course, filled out in German. The number of Americans working on denazification was inadequate to handle the workload, partly as a result of the demand in the US by families to have soldiers returned home. Replacements were mostly unskilled and poorly trained. In addition, there

5510-471: A small town". Artists were also restricted in which new art they were allowed to create; " OMGUS was setting explicit political limits on art and representation". The publication Der Ruf ( The Call ) was a popular literary magazine first published in 1945 by Alfred Andersch and edited by Hans Werner Richter . Der Ruf , also called Independent Pages of the New Generation , claimed to have

5700-558: A strong, unified force that eventually could supplant the established democratic parties. In addition, they sought to place adherents into leadership roles in the parties themselves, to enable them to influence and seize control of the parties from within. Naumann set about developing a plan to infiltrate existing political parties, with the main target being the Free Democratic Party (FDP), a secular, free-market oriented, centrist party. Two smaller more conservative parties,

5890-424: A traitor to the party. In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself and Esser to thunderous applause. Hitler's strategy proved successful; at a special party congress on 29 July 1921, he replaced Drexler as party chairman by a vote of 533   to   1. The committee was dissolved, and Hitler was granted nearly absolute powers in the party as its sole leader. He would hold

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6080-634: A way out of this impasse. The electoral result was the same, with the Nazis and the Communists winning 50% of the vote between them and more than half the seats, rendering this Reichstag no more workable than its predecessor. However, support for the Nazis had fallen to 33.1%, suggesting that the Nazi surge had passed its peak—possibly because the worst of the Depression had passed, possibly because some middle-class voters had supported Hitler in July as

6270-648: A well-to-do journalist, brought military figure Felix Graf von Bothmer , a prominent supporter of the concept of "national socialism", to address the movement. Later in 1918, Karl Harrer (a journalist and member of the Thule Society ) convinced Drexler and several others to form the Politischer Arbeiter-Zirkel (Political Workers' Circle). The members met periodically for discussions with themes of nationalism and racism directed against Jewish people. In December 1918, Drexler decided that

6460-565: Is a brilliant speaker, we can hold out the prospect of an extremely exciting evening". Over the following months, the party continued to attract new members, while remaining too small to have any real significance in German politics. By the end of the year, party membership was recorded at 2,000, many of whom Hitler and Röhm had brought into the party personally, or for whom Hitler's oratory had been their reason for joining. Hitler's talent as an orator and his ability to draw new members, combined with his characteristic ruthlessness, soon made him

6650-489: Is brown ) was published in the GDR. The ideas of collective guilt and collective punishment originated not with the US and British people, but on higher policy levels. Not until late in the war did the US public assign collective responsibility to the German people. The most notable policy document containing elements of collective guilt and collective punishment is JCS 1067 from early 1945. Eventually horrific footage from

6840-705: The Reichswehr (army) by Captain Mayr , the head of the Education and Propaganda Department (Dept Ib/P) in Bavaria . Hitler was assigned to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the DAP. While Hitler was initially unimpressed by the meetings and found them disorganised, he enjoyed the discussion that took place. While attending a party meeting on 12 September 1919 at Munich's Sterneckerbräu , Hitler became involved in

7030-601: The Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München . Such was the significance of this particular move in publicity that Karl Harrer resigned from the party in disagreement. It was in this speech that Hitler enunciated the twenty-five points of the German Workers' Party manifesto that had been drawn up by Drexler, Feder and himself. Through these points he gave the organisation a much bolder stratagem with

7220-607: The Reichswehr remained impartial. Nazi power over Germany remained virtual, not absolute. The Nazis embarked on a campaign of Gleichschaltung (coordination) to exert their control over all aspects of German government and society. During June and July 1933, all competing parties were either outlawed or dissolved themselves and subsequently the Law Against the Formation of Parties of 14 July 1933 legally established

7410-567: The Führerbunker in the closing days of the war, he went underground with an assumed name and worked as a farm worker, later completing an apprenticeship as a mason. He reemerged in early 1950 after an amnesty law had taken effect, and became the manager of an import-export company in Düsseldorf . The amnesty law was estimated to apply to some 800,000 individuals and it even applied to those Nazi officials and SS members who had assumed

7600-615: The Aryan " master race " ( Herrenvolk ). However, he also accused international capitalism of being a Jewish-dominated movement and denounced capitalists for war profiteering in World War I. Drexler saw the political violence and instability in Germany as the result of the Weimar Republic being out-of-touch with the masses, especially the lower classes. Drexler emphasised the need for a synthesis of völkisch nationalism with

7790-635: The Bolsheviks , resonated with wide sections of the electorate. At the September 1930 Reichstag elections , the Nazis won 18% of the votes and became the second-largest party in the Reichstag after the Social Democrats. Hitler proved to be a highly effective campaigner, pioneering the use of radio and aircraft for this purpose. His dismissal of Strasser and his appointment of Goebbels as

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7980-651: The Foreign Office and of embassies and consulates in leading position, 297 high police officers and officers of the Verfassungsschutz . The first brown book was seized in West Germany – on Frankfurt Book Fair – by judicial resolution. The contents of this book received substantial attention in West Germany and other countries. The West German government stated, at that time, that it was "all falsification". Later on, however, it became clear that

8170-648: The German Party (DP) and the All-German Bloc were also to be penetrated. Naumann targeted the FDP and the DP in particular because, as mainstream parties and participants in the first coalition cabinet of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer , they could prove to be viable vehicles for advancing his viewpoints and policies. This contrasted with the overtly neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party that, because of its extreme views,

8360-467: The Golden Party Badge number one. Anton Drexler drafted a letter to Hitler in 1940—which was never sent—that contradicts Hitler's later claim: No one knows better than you yourself, my Führer, that you were never the seventh member of the party, but at best the seventh member of the committee... And a few years ago I had to complain to a party office that your first proper membership card of

8550-507: The Great Depression , when worsening living standards and widespread unemployment drove Germans into political extremism. Central to Nazism were themes of racial segregation expressed in the idea of a "people's community" ( Volksgemeinschaft ). The party aimed to unite "racially desirable" Germans as national comrades while excluding those deemed to be either political dissidents, physically or intellectually inferior, or of

8740-664: The Liberal Democratic Party of Germany , three from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany , and three from political mass organizations (who were typically also supportive of the Socialist Unity Party). Former Nazi officials quickly realized that they would face fewer obstacles and investigations in the zones controlled by the Western Allies. Many of them saw a chance to defect to the West on

8930-765: The National Socialist German Workers' Party ( German : Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei   or NSDAP ), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism . Its precursor, the German Workers' Party ( Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ; DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist (" Völkisch nationalist "), racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against communist uprisings in post– World War I Germany. The party

9120-735: The National Socialist People's Welfare organization (17   million), the League of German Women , and others. It was through the Party and these organizations that the Nazi state was run, involving as many as 45   million Germans in total. In addition, Nazism found significant support among industrialists, who produced weapons or used slave labor, and large landowners, especially the Junkers in Prussia. Denazification after

9310-593: The Nuremberg trials of 1946. The program of denazification was launched after the end of the war and was solidified by the Potsdam Agreement in August 1945. The term denazification was first coined as a legal term in 1943 by the Pentagon , intended to be applied in a narrow sense with reference to the post-war German legal system. However, it later took on a broader meaning. In late 1945 and early 1946,

9500-685: The Ruhr and Hamburg largely remained loyal to the Social Democrats , the Communist Party of Germany or the Catholic Centre Party . Nuremberg remained a Nazi Party stronghold, and the first Nuremberg Rally was held there in 1927. These rallies soon became massive displays of Nazi paramilitary power and attracted many recruits. The Nazis' strongest appeal was to the lower middle-classes—farmers, public servants, teachers and small businessmen—who had suffered most from

9690-410: The SS or Waffen-SS . Eight served as parliamentary faction leaders and two became ministers in the state government. The proportion of former Nazis in the post-war years was particularly high in the FDP, with more than one in five FDP members of the state parliament having a Nazi past. Between 1955 and 1975, the FDP parliamentary faction was led by six former Nazis, including three SS men. The outlook

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9880-423: The de facto intelligence agency of Nazi Germany. It was put under the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939, which then coordinated SD, Gestapo and criminal police , therefore functioning as a hybrid organisation of state and party structures. Officially, Nazi Germany lasted only 12 years. The Instrument of Surrender was signed by representatives of the German High Command at Berlin , on 8 May 1945, when

10070-421: The physically and mentally disabled , homosexuals , Jehovah's Witnesses , and political opponents. The persecution reached its climax when the party-controlled German state set in motion the Final Solution – an industrial system of genocide that carried out mass murders of around 6 million Jews and millions of other targeted victims in what has become known as the Holocaust . Adolf Hitler ,

10260-404: The "Night of the Long Knives"), Hitler disempowered the SA's leadership—most of whom belonged to the Strasserist (national revolutionary) faction within the NSDAP—and ordered them killed. He accused them of having conspired to stage a coup d'état , but it is believed that this was only a pretense to justify the suppression of any intraparty opposition. The purge was executed by the SS, assisted by

10450-439: The All German Bloc. All three parties also employed as organizers or candidates many former functionaries of the recently-dissolved Socialist Reich Party. On the night of 14-15 January 1953, British security forces who had been surveilling the Naumann Circle and secretly wiretapping its telephone communications, acted on the orders of British High Commissioner Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick and arrested Naumann and six other members of

10640-444: The Americans had dismissed and reclassified 60% of senior Nazis. The denazification process lost a great deal of credibility, and there was often local hostility against Germans who helped administer the tribunals. By early 1947, the Allies held 90,000 Nazis in detention ; another 1,900,000 were forbidden to work as anything but manual laborers. From 1945 to 1950, the Allied powers detained over 400,000 Germans in internment camps in

10830-411: The Americans relinquishing responsibility for denazification and handing it over to the Germans arose from the fact that many of the American denazifiers were German Jews, former refugees returning to administer justice against the tormentors and killers of their relatives. It was felt, both among Germans and top American officials, that their objectivity might be contaminated by a desire for revenge. As

11020-453: The British and US 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 ". To that end, as the Allies began their post-war denazification efforts, the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force undertook

11210-422: The British government, the rebuilding of German economic power was more important than the imprisonment of Nazi criminals. Economically hard pressed at home after the war, they did not want the burden of feeding and otherwise administering Germany. In October 1945, in order to constitute a working legal system, and given that 90% of German lawyers had been members of the Nazi Party, the British decided that 50% of

11400-482: The British, French, and Soviets, interpreted this to apply to every German over the age of eighteen in their zone. Eisenhower initially estimated that the denazification process would take 50 years. When the nearly complete list of Nazi Party memberships was turned over to the Allies (by a German anti-Nazi who had rescued it from destruction in April 1945 as American troops advanced on Munich), it became possible to verify claims about participation or non-participation in

11590-442: The Control Council Law no. 2 Providing for the Termination and Liquidation of the Nazi Organization specified the abolition of 52 other Nazi affiliated and supervised organisations and outlawed their activities. The denazification was carried out in Germany and continued until the onset of the Cold War. Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazi Party led regime, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries,

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11780-450: The DAP advocated the belief that through profit-sharing instead of socialisation Germany should become a unified "people's community" ( Volksgemeinschaft ) rather than a society divided along class and party lines. This ideology was explicitly antisemitic. As early as 1920, the party was raising money by selling a tobacco called Anti-Semit . From the outset, the DAP was opposed to non-nationalist political movements, especially on

11970-595: The DAP, bearing the signatures of Schüssler and myself, was falsified, with the number 555 being erased and number 7 entered. Although Hitler initially wanted to form his own party, he claimed to have been convinced to join the DAP because it was small and he could eventually become its leader. He consequently encouraged the organisation to become less of a debating society, which it had been previously, and more of an active political party. Normally, enlisted army personnel were not allowed to join political parties. In this case, Hitler had Captain Karl Mayr 's permission to join

12160-437: The DAP. Further, Hitler was allowed to stay in the army and receive his weekly pay of 20 gold marks a week. Unlike many other members of the organisation, this continued employment provided him with enough money to dedicate himself more fully to the DAP. Hitler's first DAP speech was held in the Hofbräukeller on 16 October 1919. He was the second speaker of the evening, and spoke to 111 people. Hitler later declared that this

12350-420: The FDP demanded the release of all "so-called war criminals" and welcomed the establishment of the Verband deutscher Soldaten  [ de ] (German Soldiers' Association), an organization of former Wehrmacht and SS members, in order to advance the integration of former Nazi forces into the political system. In particular, the very nationalist FDP state association of North Rhine-Westphalia , under

12540-517: The FDP was on the way to transforming itself into a "nationalist and reactionary movement of the extreme right". The FDP, along with the DP, was viewed as part of an "extremist" bloc in an analysis by US intelligence officials. A study by Michael Klepsch in 2009 examined a total of 451 state Landtag deputies in North Rhine-Westphalia who had been at least 18 years old at the end of the war. His findings revealed 41 men with past Nazi Party membership, among whom were full-time Party officials and members of

12730-444: The Federal Republic: State, Economy, Administration, Army, Justice, Science ) is a book written by Albert Norden in 1965. In this book Norden detailed 1,800 Nazis who maintained high-ranking positions in postwar West Germany . Altogether 1,800 West German persons and their past were covered: especially 15 Ministers and state secretaries, 100 admirals and generals, 828 judges or state lawyers and high law officers, 245 officials of

12920-501: The German Legal Civil Service could be staffed by "nominal" Nazis. Similar pressures caused them to relax the restriction even further in April 1946. In industry, especially in the economically crucial Ruhr area, the British began by being lenient about who owned or operated businesses, turning stricter by autumn of 1945. To reduce the power of industrialists, the British expanded the role of trade unions, giving them some decision-making powers. They were, however, especially zealous during

13110-500: The German government, the usage of "Nazi" diminished in Germany, although Austrian anti-Nazis continued to use the term. The use of " Nazi Germany " and "Nazi regime" was popularised by anti-Nazis and German exiles abroad. Thereafter, the term spread into other languages and eventually was brought back to Germany after World War II. In English, the term is not considered slang and has such derivatives as Nazism and denazification . The Nazi Party grew out of smaller political groups with

13300-569: The Germans to a fundamental revision of their recent political philosophy." The United States military pursued denazification in a zealous and bureaucratic fashion, especially during the first months of the occupation. It had been agreed among the Allies that denazification would begin by requiring Germans to fill in a questionnaire (German: Fragebogen ) about their activities and memberships during Nazi rule. Five categories were established: Major Offenders , Offenders , Lesser Offenders , Followers , and Exonerated Persons . The Americans, unlike

13490-423: The Germans. Each zone had a Minister of Denazification. On April 1, 1946, a special law established 545 civilian tribunals under German administration (German: Spruchkammern ), with a staff of 22,000 of mostly lay judges, enough, perhaps, to start to work but too many for all the staff themselves to be thoroughly investigated and cleared. They had a case load of 900,000. Several new regulations came into effect in

13680-658: The Gestapo and Reichswehr units. Aside from Strasserist Nazis, they also murdered anti-Nazi conservative figures like former chancellor von Schleicher. After this, the SA continued to exist but lost much of its importance, while the role of the SS grew significantly. Formerly only a sub-organisation of the SA, it was made into a separate organisation of the NSDAP in July 1934. Upon the death of President Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, Hitler merged

13870-477: The Nazi Party might never have come to power had it not been for the Great Depression and its effects on Germany. By 1930, the German economy was beset with mass unemployment and widespread business failures. The Social Democrats and Communists were bitterly divided and unable to formulate an effective solution: this gave the Nazis their opportunity and Hitler's message, blaming the crisis on the Jewish financiers and

14060-558: The Nazi Party's monopoly. On 1 December 1933, the Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State entered into force, which was the base for a progressive intertwining of party structures and state apparatus. By this law, the SA—actually a party division—was given quasi-governmental authority and their Stabschef became a cabinet minister without portfolio . By virtue of the 30 January 1934 Law on

14250-583: The Nazi Party. Notable ex-Nazis who eventually became prominent East German politicians included Kurt Nier , a deputy minister for foreign affairs, and Arno Von Lenski , a parliamentarian and major-general in the East German army who had worked in Roland Freisler 's notorious Volksgerichthof trying opponents of the Nazi government as an effective "kangaroo court". Von Lenski was a member of the NPPD ,

14440-575: The Party. The 1.5   million Germans who had joined before Hitler came to power were deemed to be hard-core Nazis. Progress was slowed by the overwhelming numbers of Germans to be processed, but also by difficulties such as incompatible power systems and power outages, as with the Hollerith IBM data machine that held the American vetting list in Paris. As many as 40,000 forms could arrive in

14630-539: The Propaganda Ministry and many high-ranking Schutzstaffel (SS) officers, some of whom had been convicted of war crimes. The following is a partial list of the most prominent known members and associates: The primary aim of the organization was to work in the background to place a few hundred trusted men into key positions in military veterans associations, in organizations of farmers and small businessmen and in local administrations, and to turn them into

14820-754: The Reconstruction of the Reich , the Länder (states) lost their sovereignty and were demoted to administrative divisions of the Reich government. Effectively, they lost most of their power to the Gaue that were originally just regional divisions of the party, but took over most competencies of the state administration in their respective sectors. During the Röhm Purge of 30 June to 2 July 1934 (also known as

15010-482: The SA had 400,000 members and its running street battles with the SPD and Communist paramilitaries (who also fought each other) reduced some German cities to combat zones. Paradoxically, although the Nazis were among the main instigators of this disorder, part of Hitler's appeal to a frightened and demoralised middle class was his promise to restore law and order. Overt antisemitism was played down in official Nazi rhetoric, but

15200-725: The SA retained some autonomy. Being composed largely of unemployed workers, many SA men took the Nazis' socialist rhetoric seriously. At this time, the Hitler salute (borrowed from the Italian fascists ) and the greeting "Heil Hitler!" were adopted throughout the party. The Nazis contested elections to the national parliament (the Reichstag ) and to the state legislature (the Landtage ) from 1924, although at first with little success. The " National Socialist Freedom Movement " polled 3% of

15390-789: The Second World War. Some were transferred into the Intelligence Corps and sent back to Germany and Austria in British uniform. However, German-speakers were small in number in the British zone, which was hampered by the language deficit. Due to its large German-American population, the US authorities were able to bring a larger number of German-speakers to the task of working in the Allied Military Government , although many were poorly trained. They were assigned to all aspects of military administration,

15580-602: The Soviet zone was considered a critical element of the transformation into a socialist society and was quickly and effectively put into practice. Members of the Nazi Party and its organizations were arrested and interned. The NKVD was directly in charge of this process, and oversaw the camps. In 1948, the camps were placed under the same administration as the gulag in the Soviet government. According to official records, 122,600 people were interned. 34,700 of those interned in this process were considered to be Soviet citizens, with

15770-537: The US CIA reported that, although his plans had not yet progressed to the point that he could direct their activities, he could expect their support whenever he decided to openly enter into political activities. In addition to Naumann, the circle included many individuals who had held positions of responsibility in Nazi Germany , including seven of the forty-three Gauleiter , a number of his former colleagues in

15960-622: The Weimar Republic government. Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. The Reichstag fire on 27 February 1933 gave Hitler a pretext for suppressing his political opponents. The following day he persuaded the Reich's President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree , which suspended most civil liberties . The NSDAP won the parliamentary election on 5 March 1933 with 44% of votes, but failed to win an absolute majority. After

16150-461: The aim of educating the German people about democracy. In 1947 its publication was blocked by the American forces for being overly critical of occupational government. Richter attempted to print many of the controversial pieces in a volume entitled Der Skorpion ( The Scorpion ). The occupational government blocked publication of Der Skorpion before it began, saying that the volume was too "nihilistic". Publication of Der Ruf resumed in 1948 under

16340-520: The approximate 6,000 at the beginning of 1923. By November 1923, Hitler had decided that the time was right for an attempt to seize power in Munich, in the hope that the Reichswehr (the post-war German military) would mutiny against the Berlin government and join his revolt. In this, he was influenced by former General Erich Ludendorff , who had become a supporter—though not a member—of the Nazis. On

16530-650: The basis of their reserved powers under the Occupation Statute . They alleged that Naumann and his associates were engaged in a plot to overthrow the German government and, thereby, endangered the security of the Allied troops. The British High Commissioner informed the Adenauer government, including federal FDP politicians Theodor Heuss (Federal President), Thomas Dehler (Federal Justice Minister) and Franz Blücher (Vice-Chancellor and FDP Chairman) about what

16720-511: The business of denazification in the French zone was considered a "golden mean between an excessive degree of severity and an inadequate standard of leniency", laying the groundwork for an enduring reconciliation between France and Germany. In the French zone only thirteen Germans were categorized as "major offenders". Braunbuch – Kriegs- und Naziverbrecher in der Bundesrepublik: Staat – Wirtschaft – Verwaltung – Armee – Justiz – Wissenschaft (English title: Brown Book – War and Nazi Criminals in

16910-426: The concentration camps would serve to harden public opinion and bring it more in line with that of policymakers. As early as 1944, prominent US opinion makers had initiated a domestic propaganda campaign (which was to continue until 1948) arguing for a harsh peace for Germany, with a particular aim to end the apparent habit in the US of viewing the Nazis and the German people as separate entities. Statements made by

17100-585: The data of the book were largely correct. Hanns Martin Schleyer , for example, really had been a member of the SS . The book was translated into 10 languages. Amongst the reactions to it was also a similar West German book of the same name, covering the topic of Nazis re-emerging in high-level positions in the GDR. In addition to the Braunbuch the educational booklet Das ganze System ist braun ( The whole system

17290-530: The denazification effort in the West was the concern to keep enough good will of the German population to prevent the growth of communism. The denazification process was often completely disregarded by both the Soviets and the Western powers for German rocket scientists and other technical experts, who were taken out of Germany to work on projects in the victors' own countries or simply seized in order to prevent

17480-667: The discredited Social Democrats and the Zentrum, whose leader, Heinrich Brüning , headed a weak minority government. The inability of the democratic parties to form a united front, the self-imposed isolation of the Communists and the continued decline of the economy, all played into Hitler's hands. He now came to be seen as de facto leader of the opposition and donations poured into the Nazi Party's coffers. Some major business figures, such as Fritz Thyssen , were Nazi supporters and gave generously and some Wall Street figures were allegedly involved, but many other businessmen were suspicious of

17670-453: The dominant figure. However, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin in June 1921, a mutiny broke out within the party in Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP). Upon returning to Munich on 11 July, Hitler angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that his resignation would mean the end of

17860-467: The early months of occupation in bringing to justice anyone, soldiers or civilians, who had committed war crimes against POWs or captured Allied aircrew. In June 1945 an interrogation center at Bad Nenndorf was opened, where detainees were allegedly tortured via buckets of cold water, beatings, being burnt with lit cigarettes, etc. A public scandal ensued, with the center eventually being closed down. The British to some extent avoided being overwhelmed by

18050-403: The economic and political situation had stabilised and the extremist upsurge of 1923 had faded, so there was no prospect of further revolutionary adventures. Instead, Hitler intended to alter the party's strategy to achieving power through what he called the "path of legality". The Nazi Party of 1925 was divided into the "Leadership Corps" ( Korps der politischen Leiter ) appointed by Hitler and

18240-420: The election, hundreds of thousands of new members joined the party for opportunistic reasons, most of them civil servants and white-collar workers. They were nicknamed the "casualties of March" (German: Märzgefallenen ) or "March violets" (German: Märzveilchen ). To protect the party from too many non-ideological turncoats who were viewed by the so-called "old fighters" (alte Kämpfer) with some mistrust,

18430-826: The emergence of the Cold War and the economic importance of Germany caused the United States in particular to lose interest in the program, somewhat mirroring the Reverse Course in American-occupied Japan . The British handed over denazification panels to the Germans in January 1946, while the Americans did likewise in March 1946. The French ran the mildest denazification effort. Denazification

18620-464: The evidence did not demonstrate any results. The FDP formed its own internal three-person investigative commission headed by Justice Minister Dehler, which focused on the state association of North Rhine-Westphalia. At the end of April 1953, the national leadership forced Achenbach to step down as head of the FDP Committee on Foreign Policy; however, his expulsion from the Party sought by Dehler

18810-504: The extreme nationalist tendencies of the Nazis and preferred to support the traditional conservative parties instead. In 1930, as the price for joining a coalition government of the Land (state) of Thuringia , the Nazi Party received the state ministries of the Interior and Education. On 23 January 1930, Wilhelm Frick was appointed to these ministries, becoming the first Nazi to hold

19000-514: The fact that many former functionaries of Nazi regime were employed in positions in the West German government. However, East German propaganda also attempted to denounce as Nazis even politicians such as Kurt Schumacher , who had been imprisoned by the Nazi regime himself. Such allegations appeared frequently in the official Socialist Unity Party of Germany newspaper, the Neues Deutschland . The East German uprising of 1953 in Berlin

19190-591: The first federal politicians to be denounced in the GDR. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia by the GDR in April 1960, and in July 1963. The president of West Germany Heinrich Lübke , in particular, was denounced during the official commemorations of the liberation of the concentration camps of Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen held at the GDR's National Memorials. However, in reality substantial numbers of former Nazis rose to senior levels in East Germany. For example, those who had collaborated after

19380-613: The formation of a majority government impossible. The result was weak ministries governing by decree. Under Comintern directives, the Communists maintained their policy of treating the Social Democrats as the main enemy, calling them " social fascists ", thereby splintering opposition to the Nazis. Later, both the Social Democrats and the Communists accused each other of having facilitated Hitler's rise to power by their unwillingness to compromise. Chancellor Franz von Papen called another Reichstag election in November, hoping to find

19570-705: The general membership ( Parteimitglieder ). The party and the SA were kept separate and the legal aspect of the party's work was emphasised. In a sign of this, the party began to admit women. The SA and the SS members (the latter founded in 1925 as Hitler's bodyguard, and known originally as the Schutzkommando ) had to all be regular party members. In the 1920s the Nazi Party expanded beyond its Bavarian base. At this time, it began surveying voters in order to determine what they were dissatisfied with in Germany, allowing Nazi propaganda to be altered accordingly. Catholic Bavaria maintained its right-wing nostalgia for

19760-483: The hall acknowledging unequivocal defeat. Drexler encouraged him to join the DAP. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party and within a week was accepted as party member 555 (the party began counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much larger party). Among the party's earlier members were Ernst Röhm of the Army's District Command VII; Dietrich Eckart, who has been called

19950-590: The imposition of the 5-year political and civil prohibitions against Naumann, they were lifted by the government of North Rhine-Westphalia, which determined that after the formal ending of the Allied occupation, the Allied Control Council directives that had vested the denazification authority in the state government were now deprived of effect. Despite this, Naumann never stood for election again, and he died in 1982. Nazi Party Final solution Parties The Nazi Party , officially

20140-509: The inflation of the 1920s, so who feared Bolshevism more than anything else. The small business class was receptive to Hitler's antisemitism, since it blamed Jewish big business for its economic problems. University students, disappointed at being too young to have served in the War of 1914–1918 and attracted by the Nazis' radical rhetoric, also became a strong Nazi constituency. By 1929, the party had 130,000 members. The party's nominal Deputy Leader

20330-625: The interrogation of prisoners of war , collecting evidence for the War Crimes Investigation Unit, and the search for war criminals . The Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 directed US Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower 's policy of denazification. A report of the Institute on Re-education of the Axis Countries in June 1945 recommended: "Only an inflexible long-term occupation authority will be able to lead

20520-465: The last two detainees could be set free, as it was unlikely that they would be able to conceal their identity or escape. On 5 August 1953, barely a week after his release, Naumann declared his intention to run for a seat in the Bundestag as a candidate of the right-wing Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP) and he was supported by DRP Chairman Adolf von Thadden . Because of his incendiary rhetoric, Naumann

20710-573: The laundry and whitening detergent Persil . There was corruption in the system, with Nazis buying and selling denazification certificates on the black market. Nazis who were found guilty were often punished with fines assessed in Reichsmarks , which had become nearly worthless. In Bavaria, the Denazification Minister, Anton Pfeiffer, bridled under the "victor's justice", and presided over a system that reinstated 75% of officials

20900-409: The leadership of Friedrich Middelhauve , enthusiastically welcomed ex-servicemen and former Nazi Party members in order to expand its voter base to the right. Ernst Achenbach, as a state Landtag member, together with Werner Best, coordinated a campaign to advocate for a general amnesty for war criminals. He and Middelhauve envisioned creating a unified organization of all the right wing parties along

21090-712: The left, including the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Members of the DAP saw themselves as fighting against " Bolshevism " and anyone considered a part of or aiding so-called " international Jewry ". The DAP was also deeply opposed to the Treaty of Versailles . The DAP did not attempt to make itself public and meetings were kept in relative secrecy, with public speakers discussing what they thought of Germany's present state of affairs , or writing to like-minded societies in Northern Germany . The DAP

21280-632: The lesser-known participants: Scharping and Haselmeyer on 2 April, Siepen on 25 April and Scheel and Zimmermann on 16 June. That left in custody only Naumann and Karl Friedrich Bornemann (who had been at large in the American Occupation Zone , and surrendered himself to German authorities in April). Finally on 28 July, after six hours of deliberations, the Federal Constitutional Court at Karlsruhe determined that

21470-524: The lines of the Weimar Republic -era Harzburg Front , an effort they dubbed the Nationale Sammlung (National Collective). In the summer of 1952, Middelhauve presented to the state party conference in Bielefeld the so-called "German Program", which had been formulated largely with input from Naumann, Best, Fritzsche and Six. The text included revanchist ideas such as refusing to renounce

21660-415: The militarist Fatherland Party during World War I and was bitterly opposed to the armistice of November 1918 and the revolutionary upheavals that followed. Drexler followed the views of militant nationalists of the day, such as opposing the Treaty of Versailles , having antisemitic , anti-monarchist and anti-Marxist views, as well as believing in the superiority of Germans whom they claimed to be part of

21850-713: The millions of copies of these books were to be confiscated and destroyed; the possession of a book on the list was made a punishable offense. The representative of the Military Directorate admitted that the order was in principle no different from the Nazi book burnings . The censorship in the US zone was regulated by the occupation directive JCS 1067 (valid until July 1947) and in the May 1946 order valid for all zones (rescinded in 1950), Allied Control Authority Order No. 4, "No. 4 – Confiscation of Literature and Material of

22040-548: The most notable cases involved Wernher von Braun , who was among other German scientists recruited by the United States through Operation Paperclip and later occupied key positions in the American space program . About 8   million Germans, or 10% of the population, had been members of the Nazi Party. Nazi-related organizations also had huge memberships, such as the German Labor Front (25   million),

22230-474: The name "German Party" ( Deutsche Partei or DP) from 1924 to 1925. The Nazis failed to remain unified in the DP, as in the north, the right-wing Volkish nationalist supporters of the Nazis moved to the new German Völkisch Freedom Party , leaving the north's left-wing Nazi members, such as Joseph Goebbels retaining support for the party. Pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court, Hitler

22420-532: The name of denazification. By 1948, the Cold War was clearly in progress and the US began to worry more about a threat from the Eastern Bloc rather than the latent Nazism within occupied Germany. 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. US President Harry S. Truman alluded to this problem: "though all Germans might not be guilty for

22610-501: The necessity of a slow trial in open court, which was required for those belonging to the most serious categories, more than 90% of cases were judged not to belong to the serious categories and therefore were dealt with more quickly. More "efficiencies" followed. The tribunals accepted statements from other people regarding the accused's involvement in Nazism. These statements earned the nickname of Persilscheine , after advertisements for

22800-591: The next few years and that they not only were in contact with foreign Nazi elements in Spain and South America, but that they were receiving foreign financial assistance from supporters in Britain, France and Belgium. The government announced its intention to prosecute the accused on the basis of "forming a secret alliance endangering the security of the State and being members of an unconstitutional association". The German government released from pre-trial detention five of

22990-472: The night of 8 November, the Nazis used a patriotic rally in a Munich beer hall to launch an attempted putsch ("coup d'état"). This so-called Beer Hall Putsch attempt failed almost at once when the local Reichswehr commanders refused to support it. On the morning of 9 November, the Nazis staged a march of about 2,000 supporters through Munich in an attempt to rally support. The two groups exchanged fire, after which 15 putschists, four police officers, and

23180-818: The offices of party leader, head of state and chief of government in one, taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler by passage of the Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich . The Chancellery of the Führer , officially an organisation of the Nazi Party, took over the functions of the Office of the President (a government agency), blurring the distinction between structures of party and state even further. The SS increasingly exerted police functions,

23370-496: The organization (Haselmeyer, Kaufmann, Scharping, Scheel, Siepen and Zimmermann) in Düsseldorf and Hamburg . They were held in captivity by the British at Werl Prison . Evidence seized in the raids included the manuscripts of two speeches that Naumann had delivered to his circle of intimates in November 1952, his diary going back to 1950, note books with appointments and a great deal of other correspondence. The British acted on

23560-538: The organization made use of personal couriers, false addresses and code names. A series of regular monthly meetings began in February 1952. Naumann's contacts were not limited to Germany, but also included many Nazis who had fled abroad via the ratlines , such as Otto Skorzeny in Spain and Eberhard Fritsch , Johann von Leers and Hans-Ulrich Rudel in Argentina. He maintained frequent contact with these émigrés and

23750-406: The other side from taking them. The US took 785 scientists and engineers from Germany to the United States, some of whom formed the backbone of the US space program (see Operation Paperclip ). In the case of the top-ranking Nazis, such as Göring , Hess , Ribbentrop , Streicher , and Speer , the initial proposal by the British was simply to arrest them and shoot them, but that course of action

23940-498: The other six members of the group. Just over five months later, on 3 December 1954, the criminal court in Karlsruhe found that the evidence did not support the charge of "ringleadership in an anti-constitutional organization" and the criminal proceedings were dismissed. The court concluded that although the two defendants had espoused National Socialist and anti-constitutional ideas, their organization had no political effectiveness and

24130-456: The other zones. Because teachers had been strongly Nazified, the French began by removing three-quarters of all teachers from their jobs. However, finding that the schools could not be run without them, they were soon rehired, although subject to easy dismissal. A similar process governed technical experts. The French were the first to turn over the vetting process to Germans, while maintaining French power to reverse any German decision. Overall,

24320-646: The party issued a freeze on admissions that remained in force from May 1933 to 1937. On 23 March, the parliament passed the Enabling Act of 1933 , which gave the cabinet the right to enact laws without the consent of parliament. In effect, this gave Hitler dictatorial powers. Now possessing virtually absolute power, the Nazis established totalitarian control as they abolished labour unions and other political parties and imprisoned their political opponents, first at wilde Lager , improvised camps, then in concentration camps . Nazi Germany had been established, yet

24510-583: The party treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz and business manager Max Amann . The party had a capable propaganda head in Gregor Strasser , who was promoted to national organizational leader in January 1928. These men gave the party efficient recruitment and organizational structures. The party also owed its growth to the gradual fading away of competitor nationalist groups, such as the German National People's Party (DNVP). As Hitler became

24700-441: The party was named the German Workers' Party ( Deutsche Arbeiterpartei , DAP). To ease concerns among potential middle-class supporters, Drexler made clear that unlike Marxists the party supported the middle-class and that its socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to German citizens deemed part of the Aryan race. They became one of many völkisch movements that existed in Germany. Like other völkisch groups,

24890-435: The party were always German nationalist expansionism and antisemitism . These two goals were fused in his mind by his belief that Germany's external enemies—Britain, France and the Soviet Union—were controlled by the Jews and that Germany's future wars of national expansion would necessarily entail a war of annihilation against them. For Hitler and his principal lieutenants, national and racial issues were always dominant. This

25080-443: The party's leader since 1921, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, and quickly seized power afterwards. Hitler established a totalitarian regime known as the Third Reich and became dictator with absolute power . Following the military defeat of Germany in World War II , the party was declared illegal. The Allies attempted to purge German society of Nazi elements in

25270-439: The party's most active orator, appearing in public as a speaker 31 times within the first year after his self-discovery. Crowds began to flock to hear his speeches. Hitler always spoke about the same subjects: the Treaty of Versailles and the Jewish question . This deliberate technique and effective publicising of the party contributed significantly to his early success, about which a contemporary poster wrote: "Since Herr Hitler

25460-405: The party's propaganda chief were major factors. While Strasser had used his position to promote his own leftish version of national socialism, Goebbels was completely loyal to Hitler, and worked only to improve Hitler's image. The 1930 elections changed the German political landscape by weakening the traditional nationalist parties, the DNVP and the DVP, leaving the Nazis as the chief alternative to

25650-423: The party. Hitler announced he would rejoin on condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July as member 3,680. Hitler continued to face some opposition within the NSDAP, as his opponents had Hermann Esser expelled from the party and they printed 3,000 copies of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as

25840-413: The perpetuation of German militarism or Nazism will be closed permanently and taken into custody." The directives were very broadly interpreted, leading to the destruction of thousands of paintings and thousands more were shipped to deposits in the US. Those confiscated paintings still surviving in US custody include for example a painting "depicting a couple of middle aged women talking in a sunlit street in

26030-407: The physically and mentally disabled. The National Socialist Programme was a formulation of the policies of the party. It contained 25 points and is therefore also known as the "25-point plan" or "25-point programme". It was the official party programme, with minor changes, from its proclamation as such by Hitler in 1920, when the party was still the German Workers' Party, until its dissolution. At

26220-405: The population, on the same day as Hitler's Hofbräuhaus speech on 24 February 1920, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ("National Socialist German Workers' Party", or Nazi Party). The name was intended to draw upon both left-wing and right-wing ideals, with "Socialist" and "Workers'" appealing to the left, and "National" and "German" appealing to

26410-438: The post for the remainder of his life. Hitler soon acquired the title Führer ("leader") and after a series of sharp internal conflicts it was accepted that the party would be governed by the Führerprinzip ("leader principle"). Under this principle, the party was a highly centralised entity that functioned strictly from the top down, with Hitler at the apex. Hitler saw the party as a revolutionary organisation, whose aim

26600-442: The potential numbers of denazification investigations by requiring that no one need fill in the Fragebogen unless they were applying for an official or responsible position. This difference between American and British policy was decried by the Americans and caused some Nazis to seek shelter in the British zone. In January 1946, the British handed over their denazification panels to the Germans. The French were less vigorous, for

26790-408: The pretext of anti-communism . Conditions in the internment camps were terrible, and between 42,000 and 80,000 prisoners died. When the camps were closed in 1950, prisoners were handed over to the East German government. Because many of the functionaries of the Soviet occupation zone were themselves formerly prosecuted by the Nazi regime, mere former membership in the NSDAP was initially judged as

26980-553: The punishments for Nazi involvement was to be barred from public office and/or restricted to manual labor or "simple work". At the end of 1945, 3.5   million former Nazis awaited classification, many of them barred from work in the meantime. By the end of the winter of 1945–1946, 42% of public officials had been dismissed. Malnutrition was widespread, and the economy needed leaders and workers to help clear away debris, rebuild infrastructure, and get foreign exchange to buy food and other essential resources. Another concern leading to

27170-431: The recognised head of the German nationalists, other groups declined or were absorbed. In the late 1920s, seeing the party's lack of breakthrough into the mainstream, Goebbels proposed that instead of focusing all of their propaganda in major cities where there was competition from other political movements, they should instead begin holding rallies in rural areas where they would be more effective. Despite these strengths,

27360-437: The rest being German. This process happened at the same time as the expropriation of large landowners and Junkers , who were also often former Nazi supporters. Because part of the intended goal of denazification in the Soviet zone was also the removal of anti-socialist sentiment, the committees in charge of the process were politically skewed. A typical panel would have one member from the Christian Democratic Union , one from

27550-409: The right of expelled Germans to return to their home territories, and also voiced objections to the Allies judgments of former soldiers. Middelhauve presented the program at the FDP federal party conference at Bad Ems in November 1952 but it was not adopted at the federal level, in order to forestall a split in the party. Nevertheless, Middelhauve emerged from the party conference strengthened when he

27740-400: The right. The word "Socialist" was added by the party's executive committee (at the suggestion of Rudolf Jung ), over Hitler's initial objections, in order to help appeal to left-wing workers. In 1920, the Nazi Party officially announced that only persons of "pure Aryan descent [ rein arischer Abkunft ]" could become party members and if the person had a spouse, the spouse also had to be

27930-435: The rise of the party, these terms had been used as colloquial and derogatory words for a backward peasant , or an awkward and clumsy person. It derived from Ignaz, a shortened version of Ignatius , which was a common name in the Nazis' home region of Bavaria . Opponents seized on this, and the long-existing Sozi , to attach a dismissive nickname to the National Socialists. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler assumed power in

28120-474: The rival Social Democratic Party of Germany ). Members of the party referred to themselves as Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists), but some did occasionally embrace the colloquial Nazi (so Leopold von Mildenstein in his article series Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina published in Der Angriff in 1934). The term Parteigenosse (party member) was commonly used among Nazis, with its corresponding feminine form Parteigenossin . Before

28310-421: The setting up of the German-run tribunals, including the idea that the aim of denazification was now rehabilitation rather than merely punishment, and that someone whose guilt might meet the formal criteria could also have their specific actions taken into consideration for mitigation. Efficiency thus improved, while rigor declined. Many people had to fill in a new background form, called a Meldebogen (replacing

28500-413: The spiritual father of National Socialism; then- University of Munich student Rudolf Hess ; Freikorps soldier Hans Frank ; and Alfred Rosenberg , often credited as the philosopher of the movement. All were later prominent in the Nazi regime. Hitler later claimed to be the seventh party member. He was, in fact, the seventh executive member of the party's central committee and he would later wear

28690-449: The surrender of Germany was thus an enormous undertaking, fraught with many difficulties. The first difficulty was the enormous number of Germans who might have to be first investigated, then penalized if found to have supported the Nazi state to an unacceptable degree. In the early months of denazification there was a great desire to be utterly thorough, to investigate every suspect and hold every supporter of Nazism accountable; however, it

28880-425: The surveillance had uncovered. There was indignation at the perceived encroachment on German national sovereignty in the public and the press. The initial reaction by the German government was skepticism and a degree of hostility. Interior Minister Robert Lehr stated that the group was well known to the government, that it was numerically small and that that it did not appear to the German authorities that intervention

29070-445: The top of the Nazi Party was the party chairman (" Der Führer "), who held absolute power and full command over the party. All other party offices were subordinate to his position and had to depend on his instructions. In 1934, Hitler founded a separate body for the chairman, Chancellery of the Führer , with its own sub-units. Denazification Final solution Parties Denazification (German: Entnazifizierung )

29260-426: The vast majority of Party members were determined to be "followers" or "exonerated" and never faced criminal prosecution or civil penalties. These individuals joined various political parties, including the FDP. The FDP Bundestag members at the end of 1950 voted in favor of ending the denazification process altogether, thus attracting additional support from former Nazis. At their party conference in Munich in 1951

29450-425: The vote in the December 1924 Reichstag elections and this fell to 2.6% in 1928 . State elections produced similar results. Despite these poor results and despite Germany's relative political stability and prosperity during the later 1920s, the Nazi Party continued to grow. This was partly because Hitler, who had no administrative ability, left the party organisation to the head of the secretariat, Philipp Bouhler ,

29640-431: The war ended in Europe. The party was formally abolished on 10 October 1945 by the Allied Control Council , followed by the process of denazification along with trials of major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg. Part of the Potsdam Agreement called for the destruction of the Nazi Party alongside the requirement for the reconstruction of the German political life. In addition,

29830-478: The war with the Soviet occupation forces could protect Nazi members from prosecution, enabling them to continue working. Having special connections with the occupiers in order to have someone vouch for them could also shield a person from the denazification laws. In particular, the districts of Gera , Erfurt , and Suhl had significant amounts of former Nazi Party members in their government, whilst 13.6% of senior SED officials in Thuringia were former members of

30020-428: 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." Denazification was from then on supervised by special German ministers, like the Social Democrat Gottlob Kamm in Baden-Württemberg, with the support of the US occupation forces. Contemporary American critics of denazification denounced it as a "counterproductive witch hunt " and

30210-446: The widely disliked Fragebogen ), and were given over to justice under a Spruchkammer , which assigned them to one of five categories: Again because the caseload was impossibly large, the German tribunals began to look for ways to speed up the process. Unless their crimes were serious, members of the Nazi Party born after 1919 were exempted on the grounds that they had been brainwashed . Disabled veterans were also exempted. To avoid

30400-410: Was Gauleiter of Franconia , where he published his antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer . Beneath the Gauleiter were lower-level officials, the Kreisleiter ("county leaders"), Zellenleiter ("cell leaders") and Blockleiter ("block leaders"). This was a strictly hierarchical structure in which orders flowed from the top and unquestioning loyalty was given to superiors. Only

30590-450: Was Rudolf Hess , but he had no real power in the party. By the early 1930s, the senior leaders of the party after Hitler were Heinrich Himmler , Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring . Beneath the Leadership Corps were the party's regional leaders, the Gauleiters , each of whom commanded the party in his Gau ("region"). Goebbels began his ascent through the party hierarchy as Gauleiter of Berlin-Brandenburg in 1926. Streicher

30780-471: Was a backlash against socialist and liberal politics in Bavaria as Germany's economic problems deepened and the weakness of the Weimar regime became apparent. The party recruited former World War I soldiers, to whom Hitler as a decorated frontline veteran could particularly appeal, as well as small businessmen and disaffected former members of rival parties. Nazi rallies were often held in beer halls, where downtrodden men could get free beer. The Hitler Youth

30970-407: Was a comparatively small group with fewer than 60 members. Nevertheless, it attracted the attention of the German authorities, who were suspicious of any organisation that appeared to have subversive tendencies. In July 1919, while stationed in Munich , army Gefreiter Adolf Hitler was appointed a Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance unit) of

31160-415: Was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War . It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Party or SS members from positions of power and influence, by disbanding or rendering impotent the organizations associated with Nazism, and by trying prominent Nazis for war crimes in

31350-501: Was banned from speaking in Dortmund , Munich , Hesse and Hamburg , and was briefly arrested for violating the ban in Hamburg. Then, on 23 August, just two weeks before the election, the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, acting as a denazification tribunal, classified him as a Category II offender. As such, he was prohibited from belonging to any political party, engaging in any political activity, holding any political office, or working as an author, journalist or broadcaster for

31540-432: Was called for. The British authorities concluded their investigation and, though they released Kaufmann on grounds of ill health, on 1 April they turned over the remaining detainees to the German government for possible trial. After reviewing the documentary evidence that had been seized, the German attitude toward the affair changed, with Adenauer releasing a statement that the accused had been plotting to seize power within

31730-432: Was carried out in an increasingly lenient and lukewarm way until being officially abolished in 1951. Additionally, the program was hugely unpopular in West Germany , where many Nazis maintained positions of power. Denazification was opposed by the new West German government of Konrad Adenauer , who declared that ending the process was necessary for West German rearmament . On the other hand, denazification in East Germany

31920-420: Was considered a critical element of the transformation into a socialist society , and the country was stricter in opposing Nazism than its counterpart. However, not all former Nazis faced judgment. Doing special tasks for the occupation governments could protect Nazi members from prosecution, enabling them to continue working and in some cases reach prominence, as did special connections with the occupiers. One of

32110-401: Was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti– big business , anti- bourgeois , and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. The party had little popular support until

32300-439: Was decided that the numbers simply made this goal impractical. The Morgenthau Plan had recommended that the Allies create a post-war Germany with all its industrial capacity destroyed, reduced to a level of subsistence farming; however, that plan was soon abandoned as unrealistic and, because of its excessive punitive measures, liable to give rise to German anger and aggression. As time went on, another consideration that moderated

32490-411: Was democratization but part of the agenda was also the prohibition of any criticism of the Allied occupation forces. In addition, on May 13, 1946, the Allied Control Council issued a directive for the confiscation of 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 then banned. All

32680-475: Was elected as one of two deputy party leaders. In the municipal elections of November 1952, some fifty former Nazi officials in North Rhine Westphalia were elected to office as candidates of the FDP. Many observers were alarmed by the FDP's rightward shift. The Frankfurter Rundschau characterized the events at the party conference as the "intra-party January 30th of the FDP", referring to Adolf Hitler 's 1933 assumption of power; France's Le Monde stated that

32870-443: Was formed after the 1949 election, won 5.9% of the vote and entered the Bundestag for the first time. All three parties joined the center-right coalition of Adenauer's second administration . The DRP, the most right-wing entity and banned from participating in three of the nine states (Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Baden-Württemberg ), won only 1.1% and lost all five of its seats. On 23 September 1955, just over two years after

33060-507: Was formed for the children of party members. The party also formed groups in other parts of Germany. Julius Streicher in Nuremberg was an early recruit and became editor of the racist magazine Der Stürmer . In December 1920, the Nazi Party had acquired a newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter , of which its leading ideologist Alfred Rosenberg became editor. Others to join the party around this time were Heinrich Himmler and World War I flying ace Hermann Göring . On 31 October 1922,

33250-441: Was found to be unconstitutional and was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court on 23 October 1952 on the basis of being a successor organization to the Nazi Party. After the defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945, former members of the Nazi Party underwent denazification procedures. This resulted in those judged to be "offenders" either being jailed, paying fines or being banned from participation in electoral politics. However,

33440-447: Was inspired by Mussolini and the Fascists, beginning to adopt elements of their program for the Nazi Party and himself. The Italian Fascists also used a straight-armed Roman salute and wore black-shirted uniforms; Hitler would later borrow their use of the straight-armed salute as a Nazi salute . When the Fascists took control of Italy through their coup d'état called the " March on Rome ", Hitler began planning his own coup less than

33630-414: Was never far from the surface. Germans voted for Hitler primarily because of his promises to revive the economy (by unspecified means), to restore German greatness and overturn the Treaty of Versailles and to save Germany from communism. On 24 April 1932, the Free State of Prussia elections to the Landtag resulted in 36% of the votes and 162 seats for the NSDAP. On 20 July 1932, the Prussian government

33820-523: Was not approved. North Rhine-Westphalia State Chairman Middelhauve retained his position, though his personal secretary, Diwerge, and two other officials lost their posts. There was no massive purge, and the great majority of former Nazi adherents who had infiltrated the organization were left in place. In the Bundestag election of 6 September 1953 , the FDP won 9.5% of the vote, down from 11.9% in 1949 and they lost four seats. The DP won 3.25%, down from 4.0% and they lost two seats. The All-German Bloc, which

34010-424: Was not exclusively for any class and indicated that it favoured neither the left nor the right, but preserved "pure" elements from both "camps" by stating: "From the camp of bourgeois tradition, it takes national resolve, and from the materialism of the Marxist dogma, living, creative Socialism". The votes that the Nazis received in the 1932 elections established the Nazi Party as the largest parliamentary faction of

34200-543: Was officially blamed on Nazi agents provocateurs from West Berlin , who the Neues Deutschland alleged were then working in collaboration with the Western government with the ultimate aim of restoring Nazi rule throughout Germany. The Berlin Wall was officially called the Anti-Fascist Security Wall (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall ) by the East German government. As part of the propagandistic campaign against West Germany, Theodor Oberländer and Hans Globke , both former Nazi leaders involved in genocide, were among

34390-435: Was ousted by a coup, the Preussenschlag ; a few days later at the July 1932 Reichstag election the Nazis made another leap forward, polling 37% and becoming the largest party in parliament by a wide margin. Furthermore, the Nazis and the Communists between them won 52% of the vote and a majority of seats. Since both parties opposed the established political system and neither would join or support any ministry, this made

34580-481: Was released from prison on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections. On 16 February 1925, Hitler convinced the Bavarian authorities to lift the ban on the NSDAP and the party was formally refounded on 26 February 1925, with Hitler as its undisputed leader. It was at this time Hitler began referring to himself as " der Führer ". The new Nazi Party was no longer a paramilitary organisation and disavowed any intention of taking power by force. In any case,

34770-464: Was replaced by putting them on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials in order to publicize their crimes while demonstrating, especially to the German people, that the trials and the sentences were just. However, the legal foundations of the trials were questioned, and many Germans were not convinced that the trials were anything more than " victors' justice ". Many refugees from Nazism were Germans and Austrians, and some had fought for Britain in

34960-418: Was responsible for the deaths of at least eleven million people, including 5.5 to 6 million Jews (representing two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe), and between 200,000 and 1,500,000 Romani people . The estimated total number includes the killing of nearly two million non-Jewish Poles , over three million Soviet prisoners of war , communists , and other political opponents, homosexuals,

35150-493: Was safe to appoint Hitler as Reich Chancellor, at the head of a cabinet including only a minority of Nazi ministers—which he did on 30 January 1933. In Mein Kampf , Hitler directly attacked both left-wing and right-wing politics in Germany. However, a majority of scholars identify Nazism in practice as being a far-right form of politics. When asked in an interview in 1934 whether the Nazis were "bourgeois right-wing" as alleged by their opponents, Hitler responded that Nazism

35340-532: Was similar in the FDP party organizations in the states of Lower Saxony and Hesse . In Lower Saxony, the FDP state manager was Horst Huisgen  [ de ] , a former employee of the Propaganda Ministry and once the Hitler Youth leader of Upper Silesia . In Hesse, from December 1952 the DP state chairman was Helmuth Schranz  [ de ] , the former Oberbürgermeister and Nazi Party Kreisleiter of Offenbach am Main . Numerous former Nazi officials were active in both these parties as well as in

35530-444: Was symbolised by the adoption as the party emblem of the swastika . In German nationalist circles, the swastika was considered a symbol of an " Aryan race " and it symbolised the replacement of the Christian Cross with allegiance to a National Socialist State. The Nazi Party grew significantly during 1921 and 1922, partly through Hitler's oratorical skills, partly through the SA's appeal to unemployed young men, and partly because there

35720-403: Was the overthrow of the Weimar Republic , which he saw as controlled by the socialists, Jews and the " November criminals ", a term invented to describe alleged elements of society who had 'betrayed the German soldiers' in 1918. The SA ("storm troopers", also known as "Brownshirts") were founded as a party militia in 1921 and began violent attacks on other parties. For Hitler, the twin goals of

35910-417: Was too much work to be done to complete the process of denazification by 1947, the year American troops were expected to be completely withdrawn from Europe. Pressure also came from the need to find Germans to run their own country. In January 1946 a directive came from the Control Council entitled "Removal from Office and from Positions of Responsibility of Nazis and Persons Hostile to Allied Purposes". One of

36100-428: Was when he realised he could really "make a good speech". At first, Hitler spoke only to relatively small groups, but his considerable oratory and propaganda skills were appreciated by the party leadership. With the support of Anton Drexler, Hitler became chief of propaganda for the party in early 1920. Hitler began to make the party more public, and organised its biggest meeting yet of 2,000 people on 24 February 1920 in

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