Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi past : the politics of amnesty and integration / Norbert Frei ; translated by Joel Golb.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Frei, Norbert.

Contributor:

Golb, Joel, translator.

Standardized Title:

Vergangenheitspolitik. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Denazification.

Germany (West)--Politics and government.

Germany (West).

Germany--Politics and government--1945-1990.

Germany.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 479 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Columbia University Press 2002

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file

PDF

Summary:

Of all the aspects of recovery in postwar Germany perhaps none was as critical or as complicated as the matter of dealing with Nazi criminals, and, more broadly, with the Nazi past. While on the international stage German officials spoke with contrition of their nation's burden of guilt, at home questions of responsibility and retribution were not so clear. In this masterful examination of Germany under Adenauer, Norbert Frei shows that, beginning in 1949, the West German government dramatically reversed the denazification policies of the immediate postwar period and initiated a new "Vergangenheitspolitik," or "policy for the past," which has had enormous consequences reaching into the present. Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past chronicles how amnesty laws for Nazi officials were passed unanimously and civil servants who had been dismissed in 1945 were reinstated liberally-and how a massive popular outcry led to the release of war criminals who had been condemned by the Allies. These measures and movements represented more than just the rehabilitation of particular individuals. Frei argues that the amnesty process delegitimized the previous political expurgation administered by the Allies and, on a deeper level, served to satisfy the collective psychic needs of a society longing for a clean break with the unparalleled political and moral catastrophe it had undergone in the 1940's. Thus the era of Adenauer devolved into a scandal-ridden period of reintegration at any cost. Frei's work brilliantly and chillingly explores how the collective will of the German people, expressed through mass allegiance to new consensus-oriented democratic parties, cast off responsibility for the horrors of the war and Holocaust, effectively silencing engagement with the enormities of the Nazi past.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

PART I. A Legislation for the Past

PART II. A Past-Political Obsession: The Problem of the War Criminals

PART III. Fixing Past-Political Limits: Judicial Norms and Allied Intervention

CONCLUSION

POSTSCRIPT FOR THE AMERICAN EDITION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

SOURCES AND LITERATURE

INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 417-459) and index.

Description based upon print version of record.

Related Work:

Translation of: Frei, Norbert. Vergangenheitspolitik.

ISBN:

9786613791702

9781281817495

128181749X

9780231507905

0231507909

OCLC:

213304802