Comment on YSK: Denazification in West Germany was lenient and ultimately abandoned, with many Nazis remaining in positions of power.

ViatorOmnium@piefed.social ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• bearboiblake@pawb.social ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  That’s interesting, do you have a source for that? I’d like to learn more, I did a quick search and I didn’t find anything, and the Wikipedia article said this:

  In contrast, in the Soviet occupation zone and later East Germany, denazification was considered a critical element of the transformation into a socialist society, and the country was stricter in opposing Nazism than its counterpart.

  I’m not defending the USSR by any means, just to be clear, I know Lemmy has a bunch of tankies, I’m not one of them! I just would like to learn more.

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  • Zwiebel@feddit.org ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The soviets declared the denazification to be complete in '48, before the GDR was even formed in '49

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  • halfdane@piefed.social ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    While I’m not overly educated in the history of denazification in East Germany, I know that at least later, it was more of a proclamation than something actually happening. That’s why so many neo-nazis “suddenly appeared” in the supposedly nazi-free zone after the unification of the germanies.

    Supported by the fascists in the west that had never gone away, the unified right made quick progress in their organization.

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    • ViatorOmnium@piefed.social ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      One example I found is https://www.dw.com/en/book-claims-stasi-employed-nazis-as-spies/a-1760980, but I have seen other sources in the past too.

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• ohulancutash@feddit.uk ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  At some point the occupation administration realised that if they got rid of all the nazis there wouldn’t be a functioning government, legal system or military.

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  • stsquad@lemmy.ml ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The western nations had a similar problem with debathification in Iraq. When a system invades and takes over a state how do you keep things running while ripping it’s influence out?

    There’s a scene at the end of Band of Brothers where the guy from Easy company is taking to a German who’s recollecting the countries he’s visited while at war. It’s a reminder that not everyone in Germany was a Nazi but it was hard to sit it out in a nation committed to Total War. It might be easy to say you’d never sign up to the party but if the choice was between staying in the civil service or being shipped off into the meat grinder? Where else could you go?

    We never really have the luxury of tearing down whole societies and rebuilding from scratch in a more prefect form. Generally the countries that have gone through such radical changes have paid for it with a lot of suffering.

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  • bearboiblake@pawb.social ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    This is no excuse. The Allied powers could and should have trained up anti-fascists to fulfil those roles.

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    • thethrilloftime69@feddit.online ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      They wouldn’t do that because the only durable anti fascists are leftists and they spent decades trying to destroy leftism.

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    • yucandu@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You mean like the Mossad?

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      • bearboiblake@pawb.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Can you explain what you mean?

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  • quick_snail@feddit.nl ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    And the anarchists would finally have utopia

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• leftascenter@jlai.lu ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  France wasn’t clean either:

  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Papon

  en.wikipedia.org/…/33rd_Waffen_Grenadier_Division…

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