• Silver Needle
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    2 days ago

    Denazification was a formal effort. It was never the spectacular purge people imagine it to have been, nor was it ever meant as such.

    • bearboiblake@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      This thread inspired me to create a post about it on the YouShouldKnow community, but I’ll quote a section of the Wikipedia article about denazification here:

      Very soon after the program started, due to the emergence of the Cold War, the western powers and the United States in particular began to lose interest in the program, somewhat mirroring the Reverse Course in American-occupied Japan.

      Denazification was carried out in an increasingly lenient and lukewarm way until being officially abolished in 1951. The American government soon came to view the program as ineffective and counterproductive. Additionally, the program was highly unpopular in West Germany, where many Nazis maintained positions of power.