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

yucandu@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

East Germany, in contrast, declared everyone that opposed the state to be a ‘nazi’ and had them imprisoned.

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, the reasoning for these accusations focused on the fact that many former functionaries of the 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.[34] Such allegations appeared frequently in the official Socialist Unity Party of Germany newspaper, the Neues Deutschland. The East German uprising of 1953 in Berlin 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

Yeah that’s right, I can quote wikipedia too.

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