Everyday Denazification in Postwar Germany
The Fragebogen and Political Screening during the Allied Occupation

A grassroots history of the Allied campaign to purge Nazism from German society after the Second World War.

Mikkel Dack (Author)

9781009216333, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 March 2023

350 pages
23.5 x 15.4 x 2.1 cm, 0.65 kg

'This is a fascinating study of everyday denazification on the basis of the answers to the 131 questions of the Allied questionnaire that sought to identify former Nazi perpetrators in the German population after the defeat of the Third Reich.' Konrad H. Jarausch, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In the wake of World War II, the victorious Allied armies implemented a radical program to purge Nazism from Germany and preserve peace in Europe. Between 1945 and 1949, 20 million political questionnaires, or Fragebögen, were distributed by American, British, French, and Soviet armies to anxious Germans who had to prove their non-Nazi status to gain employment. Drafted by university professors and social scientists, these surveys de?ned much of the denazi?cation experience and were immensely consequential to the material and emotional recovery of Germans. In Everyday Denazi?cation in Postwar Germany, Mikkel Dack draws the curtain to reveal what denazi?cation looked like on the ground and in practice and how the highly criticized vetting program impacted the lives of individual Germans and their families as they recovered from the war. Accessing recently declassi?ed documents, this book challenges traditional interpretations by illustrating the positive elements of the denazi?cation campaign and recounting a more comprehensive history, one of mid-level Allied planners, civil affairs soldiers, and regular German citizens. The Fragebogen functions as a window into this everyday history.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. An Army of Academics: Planning the Denazification of Germany
2. 'A Miserable Paper Substitute for a Spontaneous Revolution': Drafting the Questionnaire
3. 'Land of the Fragebogen': Screening the German Population
4. The 'Little Man's Nuremberg': Germans and Denazification
5: Writing Away Culpability: The Unintended Outcomes of Denazification
Conclusion
Appendices: The Fragebogen Questions
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Political structures: totalitarianism & dictatorship [JPHX], Fascism & Nazism [JPFQ], Second World War [HBWQ], Military history [HBW], European history [HBJD]