Hate 2.0

Created by: Francesco Sacca

Hello everyone!

It is an absolute pleasure to welcome you to another week of interesting material surrounding the “lessons and legacies of fascism”. In this week I will be mentioning four scholars and their sources (which will be posted at the bottom of this article) so with no more delay let us discuss the material.

This weeks material and sources were specifically challagening, not in their length but in their substance and effect. these authors particularly focus on the reactions of the GDR (or East Germany) and FRG ( or West Germany) and their sources review the different responses by Germany to the development and the eventual failure of the Nazi fascist government in 1945. Each source aids the reader in laying the foundations for the aftermath and how the GDR and FRG operated very differently in their responses to such things as judicial process, governmental adaptation, and legislation. However, out of all of these sources, one struck me as being particularly (while also gruesome in its details) fascinating, this was Mary Fulbrook and her articles titled, “Discomfort Zones” and “Voices of the Victims”, in the text Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice. In these articles, Fulbrook describes results of certain cases of German SS officers and their commanders. These accounts were not only shocking due to the the recounting of the atrocities committed during World War 2 but also in how the GDR and FRG had tried the SS soldiers that had been located years after the war in court differently. Her accounts of Holocaust survivors was also very revealing as the validity of their claims were often challenged and the borders of who could claim the position of a “survivor” were also (originally) quite thin.

In essence, these materials were truly an eye opener when it came to understanding the fallout of Nazism in Germany (and elsewhere) and the solutions that were made to ensure that the fascist class were not to return.

Image of a mandatory 1945 Fragebogen.

Sources:

Mary Fulbrook, “Discomfort Zones” and “Voices of the Victims” in Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp: 314-336, 361-377.

W. Sollors, “Everybody Gets Fragebogened Sooner or Later’: The Denazification Questionnaire as Cultural Text.” German Life & Letters. Vol 71, Issue 2 (2018): 139-153.

Joachim Häberlen, “(Not) Narrating the History of the Federal Republic: Reflections on the Place of the New Left in West German History and Historiography” Central European History Vol. 52, Issue 1 (March 2019): 107-124.

Robert Moeller, “How to Judge Stanley Kramer’s Judgement at Nuremberg” German History Vol. 31, Issue 4 (December 2013): 497-522.

Megan MacRae

I feel that much of my knowledge about Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, the struggles of Jewish people etc. comes from studying these experiences as they occurred during and leading up to World War II. Therefore, I enjoyed this week’s discussion as it centered around what the treatment and experiences of Jewish people were like during the postwar era. 

Specifically, I enjoyed Mary Fulbrook’s take on how the postwar era transformed from a time which scrutinized the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, into a period that saw widespread empathy towards these individuals who survived Nazi Concentration Camps, Jewish Ghettos etc. Apart of me finds it difficult to understand why, after so much destruction, postwar Germany continued to view the voices of Holocaust survivors in a doubtful manner. There was evident loss, death, and devastation during the Holocaust so I would have assumed that during any Nazi trial, the word of the victim would be held with the most importance and respect. However, then I reflect on the position of a victim, who is a part of a minority group, in any justice system and it becomes clear that these individuals are often met with skepticism solely because of their identity. We see this with racialized groups, women, those apart of the 2SLGBTQ+ community etc. 

Therefore, although Germany’s postwar era eventually does transform into one that values the oral testimonies of survivors, it can be understood that there was skepticism surrounding the testimony of Jewish survivors due to the historical and contemporary treatment of victims within the justice system.

Aleksander Bracken

One of the aspects of de-Nazification that stood out to me was the degree to which American and Allied expectations and needs of the time affected it. Moeller’s piece on the Judgement of Nuremberg highlights that the American bought into the “dream” of Janning’s confession as the embodiment of the enormity of the crimes committed by Germany and as a confession of guilt that provided the possibility for forgiveness, despite the fact that this confession was not actually something that happened historically. There was also the idea of the Fragebogen as a “bureaucratic process of revolution by decree,” since it was expected that a 131 question questionnaire could alone “de-nazify” West Germany. Thus, the West leaned heavily into the perception that Germany was quickly heading down the path towards de-Nazification.

But these two articles highlight several instances where Germans were not on the same page as their Western allies/occupiers. While Willy Brandt somewhat embraced a critical view of his country’s past and the need for reconciliation, German film critics harked on the films historical inaccuracies and were less critical of their nation’s wrongdoings. Some respondents of the Fragebogen also scoffed at the questionnaire, feeling that some aspects of it were reminiscent of Nazi scrutiny (i.e. physical characteristics and ancestry certificates). Furthermore, Americans were boasting a 92% denazification rate in areas like Bad Weisse (147). But as Moeller highlights, radical neo-Nazi antisemitic acts – like attacks on synagogues and Jewish cemeteries – occurred in major cities, like Cologne in 1959. Thus, the American dream of de-Nazification was built on a shaky foundation at best.

These texts demonstrate that German discourse and perspectives did not echo the dreams put forward by Americans, suggesting that West Germans’ relationship with their past in the first two post-war decades was not sufficiently critical to purge Nazism from the body politic and prevent the rise of new Nazi-inspired movements.

By Lauren McCoy

An interesting theme from this week’s readings was the malleability of history, where shifting cultural/political contexts and individual interpretations can heavily shape how we represent the recent past. Added to the pliability of memory, it seems impossible for us to create a stable view of the past, especially when the subject is as complex and morally-charged as the Holocaust.

An interesting pattern across the readings was how the past was employed or re-invented to meet the needs of present actors – ranging from Nazis trying to reconcile their involvement in the Third Reich to American directors trying to take the moral lessons of German history and connect it to his own national challenges. Though for different purposes, both cases forward a plausible but ultimately inaccurate version of the past, deviating from “historical fact” to better fit a simplified narrative or to serve their needs in the present.

 While I think it’s easy for us to be suspicious of representations of the past that aren’t “accurate”, I think there is an interesting space here for “imagined possibilities” of the past. I’m not trying to suggest that representations or understandings shouldn’t be grounded on factual evidence or to encourage people to falsify the past for their own benefit (which, as previous classes have shown, is common in fascist regimes). However, I think it may be useful considering the complexity of Holocaust experiences to use “imagined possibilities”, where perhaps an event didn’t occur exactly how it is represented but is grounded in real history or combines several historical experiences for a more “complete” narrative. The film Judgment at Nuremberg showcases this, straying from official trial transcripts to create a plausible situation that spoke more to the American context. I think this is common within the history of slavery, where the lack of resources by enslaved peoples has forced historians to use what evidence is available and “fictionalize” historical experience.

I’d be interested to hear what you guys think!

After the tremendous destruction that was brought upon all of Germany during the last years of the second World war, reality was hammered in the German conscientiousness. With the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany, they would have to go back to square one, a more liberal and democratic regime, a post Great war repeat of the Republic of Weimar in the 1920-30s. But instead of instead of seeing it fail once again due to disastrous economic and political reasons, West Germany was able to make it work by deconstructing the ideology of Nazism as it was argued by Joachim C. Häberlen. One of the ways to do so was trough the popular culture and it was very interesting to see that things such as the Allies denazification questionnaire was introduced to change the population’s perception of it. The answers highlighted by Werner Sollors were confirming a point that was foreseeable, that Nazism after the war was already getting rejected as an ideology. Still, it shows that no one was really sure of what would actually happen in the late 1940s and 1950s as political instability was omnipresent since the start of the 20^th century. Americans while trying to help the German society radically change as fast as possible may have also slowed the process a bit because of initiative like the questionnaire that was perceived as a bit much. It is also shown in the German culture that they were ready to move on from this period of Nazism when Stanley Kramer, an American cineaste, was able to present a movie which dove in the trial of Nuremberg that left no stone unturned.

• Louis Lacroix