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Collective guilt campaign

 

Allied troops commonly forced German civilians at gun point to tour concentration camps and in some cases to exhume mass graves of Nazi victims.

 

Diese Schandtaten: Eure Schuld! ("These atrocities: Your Fault!") One of the posters distributed by U.S. occupation authorities in the summer of 1945 for the purpose of instilling a sense of collective guilt.^[1]

In 1969 Time Magazine stated that

[i]n 1945 there was an Allied consensus—which no longer exists—on the doctrine of collective guilt, that all Germans shared the blame not only for the war but for Nazi atrocities as well.^[2][3]

The ideas of collective guilt and collective punishment originated not with the US and British people, but on higher policy levels.^[4] Not until late in the war did the US public assign collective responsibility to the German people.^[4] The most notable policy document containing elements of collective guilt and collective punishment is JCS 1067 from early 1945.^[4] Eventually horrific footage from the concentration camps would serve to harden public opinion and bring it more in line with that of policymakers.^[4]

Already in 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.^[5]

Statements made by the British and U.S. 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".^[6]

To that end, as the Allies began their post-war denazification efforts, the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) undertook a psychological propaganda campaign for the purpose of developing a German sense of collective responsibility.^[7] The Public Relations and Information Services Control Group of the British Element of the Allied Control Commission began in 1945 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."^[8] Similarly, among U.S. authorities, such a sense of collective guilt was "considered a prerequisite to any long-term education of the German people."^[7]

Using the German press, which was under Allied control, as well as posters and pamphlets, a program acquainting ordinary Germans with what had taken place in the concentration camps was conducted. For example using posters with images of concentration camp victims coupled to text such as "YOU ARE GUILTY OF THIS!"^[9][10] or "These atrocities: Your Guilt!!"^[11] A number of films showing the concentration camps were made and screened to the German public, such as "Die Todesmühlen", released in the U.S. zone in January 1946, and "Welt im Film No. 5" in June 1945. A film that was never finished due partly to delays and the existence of the other films was "Memory of the Camps". According to Sidney Bernstein, chief of PWD, the object of the film

...was to shake and humiliate the Germans and prove to them beyond any possible challenge that these German crimes against humanity were committed and that the German people – and not just the Nazis and SS – bore responsibility.^[12]

English writer James Stern recounted an example in a German town soon after the German surrender.

"[a] crowd is gathered around a series of photographs which though initially seeming to depict garbage instead reveal dead human bodies. Each photograph has a heading 'WHO IS GUILTY?'. The spectators are silent, appearing hypnotised and eventually retreat one by one. The placards are later replaced with clearer photographs and placards proclaiming 'THIS TOWN IS GUILTY! YOU ARE GUILTY!'"^[13]

On July 20, 1945 — the first anniversary of the failed attempt to kill Hitler — no mention what-so ever was made of the event. This was because reminding the German population of the fact that there had been active German resistance to Hitler would undermine the Allied efforts to instill a sense of collective guilt in the German populace.^[14] (see also German resistance)

Immediately upon the liberation of the concentration camps many German civilians were forced to see the conditions in the camps, bury rotting corpses and exhume mass-graves.^[15] On threat of death or withdrawal of food, civilians were also forced to provide their belongings to former concentration camp inmates.^[15]

sondaggi

Gli USA condussero dei sondaggi d'opinione nella Germania occupata. Tony Judt nel suo libro Postwar : a History of Europe since 1945 ne ha estratti ed usati alcuni:

• negli anni 1945-49 la maggioranza affermò che il nazionalsocialismo poteva essere una buona idea, ma era stata mal applicata.
• Nel 1946, 6% dei tedeschi pensava che il processo di Norimberga fosse stato ingiusto.
• Nel 1946, 37% della popolazione nella zona di occupazione americana disse a proposito dell'Olocausto che lo sterminio degli ebrei, dei polacchi e dei non-ariani era necessaria per la sicurezza della Germania.
• Nel 1946, 1 su 3 nella zona statunitense affermò che gli ebrei non avrebbero dovuto avere gli stessi diritti degli appartenenti alla razza ariana.
• Nel 1950, 1 su 3 disse che il processo di Norimberga era stato ingiusto.
• Nel 1952, il 37% disse che la Germania sarebbe stata migliore senza gli ebrei.
• Nel 1952, il 25% aveva una buona opinione di Hitler.

However, in Hitler, Germans, and the 'Jewish Question,' Sarah Ann Gordon notes the difficulty of drawing conclusions from the surveys. For example, respondents were given three alternatives from which to choose, as in question 1:

Statement	Percentage agreeing
Hitler was right in his treatment of the Jews:	0%
Hitler went too far in his treatment of the Jews, but something had to be done to keep them in bounds:	19%
The actions against the Jews were in no way justified:	77%

To the question of whether an Aryan who marries a Jew should be condemned, 91% responded "No". To the question of whether "All those who ordered the murder of civilians or participated in the murdering should be made to stand trial," 94% responded "Yes".^[16] Gordon singles out the question "Extermination of the Jews and Poles and other non-Aryans was not necessary for the security of the Germans", which included an implicit double negative to which the response was either yes or no. She concludes that this question was confusingly phrased:

Some interviewees may have responded "no" they did not agree with the statement, when they actually did agree that the extermination was not necessary.^[17]

She further highlights the discrepancy between the antisemitic implications of the survey results (such as those later identified by Judt) with the 77% percent of interviewees who responded that actions against Jews were in no way justified.^[17].

Gordon states that if the 77 percent result is to be believed then an "overwhelming majority" of Germans disapproved of extermination, and if the 37 percent result is believed to be correct then over one third of Germans were willing to exterminate Poles and Jews and others for German security^[17]. She concludes that the phrasing of the question on German security lowers the confidence in the later interpretation.^[17].

Gordon follows this with another survey where interviewees were asked if Nazism was good or bad (53% chose bad) and reasons for their answer. Among the nine possible choices on why it was bad, 21% chose the effects on the German people before the war, while 3-4 percent chose the answer "race policy, atrocities, pogroms"^[17] However, Gordon highlight the issue that it is difficult to pin-down at which point in time respondents became aware of the exterminations, before or after they were interviewed. e.g. questionaire reports indicate that a sinificant minority had no knowledge until the Nuremberg trials. She also notes that when confronted with the exterminations there was an element of denial, disbelief, and confusion. Asked about concentration camps, very few Germans associated them with the jews, leading to the conclusion that they did not understand how they had been used against the Jews during the war and instead continued to think of them as they were before the war, the place where political opponents to the Nazis were kept. "This naivete is only understandable if large numbers of Germans were truly ignorant of the existance of these camps".^[18] A British study on the same attitudes concluded that

"Those who said National Socialism was a good idea pointed to social welfare plans, the lack of unemployment, the great construction plans of the Nazis....Nearly all those who thought it a good idea nevertheless rejected Nazi racial theories and disagreed with the inhumanity of the concentration camps and the 'SS'.^[18]

Sarah Gordon writes that a majority of Germans appeared to approve of nonviolent removal of Jews from civil service and professions and German life.^[17]. The German public also accepted the Nuremberg laws because they thought they would act as stabilizers and end violence against Jews.^[18] The German public had as a result of the Nazi antisemitic propaganda hardened their attitudes between 1935 and 1938 from the originally fairly favorable. By 1938 the propaganda had had effect and antisemitic policies were accepted, provided no violence was involved.^[18] The Kristallnacht caused German opposition to antisemitism to peak, with the vast majority of Germans rejecting the violence and destruction, and many Germans aiding the jews.^[18] The Nazis responded by intimidation in order to discourage oposition, those aiding jews were victims of large scale arrests and intimidation.^[18] With the start of the war the anti semitic minority that approved of restrictions on Jewish domestic activities was growing, but there is no evidence that the general public had any acceptance for labor camps or extermination.^[18] And as the number of antisemites grew, so too did the number of Germans opposed to racial persecution, and rumors of deportations and shootings in the east led to snowballing critizism of the Nazis. Gordon states that "one can probably conclude that labor camps, concentration camps, and extermination were opposed by a majority of Germans."^[18]

Gordon concludes her analysis on German public opinion based German SD-reports during the war and the Allied questionnaires during the occupation, with:

..it would appear that a majority of Germans supported elimination of Jews from the civil service; quotas on Jews in professions, academic institutions, and commercial fields; restrictions on intermarriage; and voluntary emigration of Jews. However, the rabid antisemites' demands for violent boycotts, illegal expropriation, destruction of Jewish property, pogroms, deportation, and extermination were probably rejected by a majority of Germans. They apparently wanted to restrict Jewish rights substantially, but not to annihilate Jews.^[18]

The radical left in Germany during the 1960s–70s and Nazi allegations

Because the Cold War had curtailed the process of denazification in the West, certain radical leftist groups such as the Red Army Faction justified their use of violence against the West German government and society based on the argument that the West German establishment had benefited from the Nazi period, and that it was still largely Nazi in outlook. They pointed out that many former Nazis held government posts, while the German Communist Party was illegal. They argued that "What did you do in the war, daddy?" was not a question that many of the leaders of the generation who fought World War II and prospered in the postwar "Wirtschaftswunder" (German Economic Miracle) encouraged their children to ask.

One of the major justifications that the Red Army Faction gave in 1977 for killing Hanns-Martin Schleyer, President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) and perceived as one of the most powerful industrialists in West Germany, was that as a former member of the SS he was part of an informal network of ex-Nazis who still had great economic power and political influence in West Germany.

Today

The late admission of famous German writer Günter Grass, perceived by many as a protagonist of 'the nation's moral conscience', that he had been a member of the Waffen SS reminded the German public that, even more than sixty years after the Third Reich had ended, membership in Nazi organisations is still a taboo issue in public discourse. Statistically it is highly likely that there are many more Germans of Grass' generation (also called the "Flakhelfer-Generation") with biographies not unlike his, who have never found cause to reveal their wartime record in the context of total ideological blackout.^[19]

Denazification in other countries

In practice, denazification was not limited to Germany and Austria; in every European country with a vigorous Nazi or Fascist party measures of denazification were carried out. In France the process was called épuration légale (Template:Lang-en). Prisoners of war held in detention in Allied countries were also subject to denazification qualifications before their repatriation.

Denazification was also practised in many countries which came under German occupation, including Belgium, Norway, Greece and Yugoslavia, because satellite regimes had been established in these countries with the support of local collaborators.

In Greece, for instance, Special Courts of Collaborators were created after 1945 to try former collaborators. The three Greek 'quisling' prime ministers were convicted and sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Other Greek collaborators after German withdrawal underwent repression and public humiliation, besides being tried (mostly on treason charges). In the context of the emerging Greek Civil War however, most wartime figures from the civil service, the Greek Gendarmerie and the notorious Security Battalions were quickly integrated into the strongly anti-Communist postwar establishment.

1. ^ Jeffrey K. Olick, "In the house of the hangman: the agonies of German defeat, 1943-1949", p.98, footnote 12(books google)
2. ^ Time Magazine article
3. ^ See also Guilt (law) and Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt.
4. Francis R. Nicosia,Jonathan Huener "Business and industry in Nazi Germany", p.130,131
5. ^ Steven Casey, (2005), The Campaign to sell a harsh peace for Germany to the American public, 1944 - 1948, [online]. London: LSE Research Online. [Available online at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/archive/00000736] Originally published in History, 90 (297). pp. 62-92 (2005) Blackwell Publishing, "Indeed, in 1944 their main motive for launching a propaganda campaign was to try to put an end to the persistent American habit 'of setting the Nazis apart from the German people'"
6. ^ Balfour, pg 264
7. Janowitz, 1946
8. ^ Balfour, pg 263
9. ^ Marcuse pg 61
10. ^ [http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj77/maitles.htm Book Review of Hitler's Willing Executioners
11. ^ Eric Voegelin, Brenden Purcell "Hitler and the Germans", Footnote 12, p.5 "In the summer of 1945, the Allies publicly displayed horrifying posters and reports from the Dachau and Belsen concentratrion camps with the accusatory headline 'Diese Schandtaten: Eure Schuld!' ("These atrocities: Your guilt!). See Christoph Klessmann, Die doppelte Staatsgrundung:Deutsche Geschichte, 1945-1955, p. 308
12. ^ PBS Story
13. ^ Therese O'Donnell "Executioners, bystanders and victims: collective guilt, the legacy of denazification and the birth of twentieth-century transitional justice", Legal Studies Volume 25 Issue 4, Pages 627 - 667 URL
14. ^ Michael R. Beschloss, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941–1945 ISBN 0-7432-4454-0 p.258 "At a moment when they were trying to establish a sense of collective guilt for Hitler's horrors, they did not wish to confuse the issue by reminding the world that some Germans had risked their lives, however belatedly and for whatever reasons, to stop the Fuhrer."
15. Marcuse, pg 128
16. ^ Sarah Ann Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the 'Jewish Question, Princeton University Press, (March 1, 1984), pp. 202 - 205, ISBN 0691101620.
17. Sarah Ann Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the 'Jewish Question, Princeton University Press, (March 1, 1984), pp. 199–200, ISBN 0691101620.
18. Sarah Ann Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the 'Jewish Question, Princeton University Press, (March 1, 1984), pp. 201–208, ISBN 0691101620.
19. ^ Karen Margolis: Who wasn't a Nazi?