Denazificatlon

Abstract

Abstract Clemens Vollnhals’ assessment of the impact of denazification is representative of a generally critical attitude of most German scholars to the process.If the judicial settling of accounts-beginning with the main trial before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg’-was by its nature focused on the past, then in the case of denazification the motive of general retribution and that of general prevention were directly linked. Did the change of political system and the removal from power of the old leadership caste make for an adequate break with the National Socialist past? Or was it not far more the case that the eradication of Nazism would falter halfway as long as the millions of former party members remained in high office and honour? If denazification was primarily to facilitate the replacement of elites as part of a limited political purge, then the main focus had to be on the occupation of a broadly defined set of key positions in politics, administration, economy, and cultural life with reliable democrats.