The impact of the Cold War and Korea on American denazification in Germany, 1945-1951

Abstract

The Cold War and Korean Conflict played a vital role in helping the Germans to end denazification. Such legal proceedings had been instituted at the end of World War Two by wartime Allies consisting of the Americans, British, French and Russians. The four power implemented the denazification program as a means to rid the German populace of the Nazi element which had produce atrocities prior to, and during, the course of the war. Numerous conferences were held by the leaders of the Allies in order to develop the program to punish Nazis who participated in criminal acts. Hence, as soon as Nazi German surrendered, top Nazis were indicted and proceedings were set into motion by the Allies to rid German of Nazi influence through the burning of Nazi books, the dismissing of civil servants such as teachers who were instruments of Nazi indoctrination, and the utilization of denazification courts to try lesser Nazi war criminals in hopes of discouraging any future revival of war atrocities. Following the completion in 1946 of the rials of the major Nazi war criminals held at Nuremberg, Germany, by the Allied powers it was agreed, also in 1946, that further trials would be held by each in its own sector of occupied Germany. The Americans thus began, along with the British and French, to implement their denazification programs with the objective of preparing the Germans for an eventual democratic republic. The Russians, however, did not seek a democratic German nation but one which conformed to their ideology of Communism. Thus, differences between the Soviet Union and the rest of the major war allies began to widen and Germany became the site of tensions between the Russians and Western Allies.

Cold War tensions, such as the Berlin Blockade of 1948-1949, caused the West, especially the Americans, to seek new sources of power to counter the threats of Communist aggression. West Germany was seen as possessing a potential for trained military manpower which could be utilized by the Americans to assist them in preventing a Russian military take over of Western Europe. In order to win approval from the West German people the Western powers permitted them to establish self-government over the combined British, French, and American zones of occupied Germany. After the Korean attack, the West Germans, however, sought more in return for their participation in European defenses against the Communist bloc. They wanted an end to the denazification program which they hated. Since 1946, those proceedings had not only dislodged many prominent Nazis from positions of importance in German daily life but also resulted in the processing of the population in order to ferret out those accused of criminal acts during the war. Millions of West Germans were screened by anti-Nazi Germans to determine who was to face trail by German denazification courts under American Military Government supervision. Those who were determined by Military Government Governor, General Lucius D. Clay and the American prosecutor, General Telford Taylor, to have had a more prominent role in the Nazi atrocities were tried by American Military Tribunals in a series of 12 cases that ended in April 1949.

As the Cold war tensions began to become extreme and a hot war seemed likely, the Americans handed the Germans more authority in the denazification program. The result was that the West Germans, under leadership of Konrad Adenauer, sought to put denazification under complete German control. Also, pressure was applied on the Americans not only to become more lenient in their trials but to terminate them as well as release previously sentenced criminals. High Commissioner John J. McCloy, who replaced the retired Clay in June 1949, served as a review officer regarding the deferral of sentences of prominent Nazis. Hence, when the Korean Conflict erupted in June 1950, the United States had already begun to appease the West Germans in order to gain their support against the Russians who were now the enemy. The Korean War and Cold War problems distracted the United States from other issues such as denazification. That permitted many German Courts to do virtually nothing in the matter of trying war criminals. In fact, former criminals were permitted to regain posts of importance in the West German Government; many criminals escaped punishment. Consequently, many atrocities committed by some Nazis, such as mass murdering of European Jews, went unanswered in terms of justice because West German denazification proceedings became too lenient and seemed to go into a dormant state.

Perhaps if the Cold War as well as Korean Conflict did not occur there would not have been any disruption of the American Denazification Program and justice would have been carried through as originally intended. Hopefully, some of the tarnish the West Germans placed on previous denazification proceedings will be removed through the revival of German conducted trials such as the Majdanek Trial that began in Duesseldorf, Germany, on November 26, 1975.