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Denazifying Germany: German Protestantism and the Response to Denazification in the American Zone, 1945-1948

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Denazifying Germany: German Protestantism and the Response to Denazification in the American Zone, 1945-1948 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by White Rose E-theses Online Denazifying Germany: German Protestantism and the Response to Denazification in the American Zone, 1945-1948 By Malcolm Coates University of York Department of History Master of Arts by Research September 2014 Abstract Following the Second World War, Germany underwent a process designed to remove elements of Nazism from its population called denazification, and this process was the most far reaching in the United States’ Zone. As Germany lay in ruins, the Church experienced a surge in popularity, and the Protestant church in particular began to explore issues of guilt and judgment. In this dissertation, I aim to explore the relationship between the US Military Government, led by General Lucius Clay, and the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD), led by Bishop Theophil Wurm, Martin Niemöller and others, on this issue of denazification. The first phase of denazification, which lasted from May 1945 – March 1946 was administered by the United States. This was the harshest phase of the process, where everyone in the US Zone had to defend their time during the war years, and many were arrested without trial simply for having an affiliation with Nazism. Due to the size of the task and the return home of many American troops, however, denazification was transferred over to German administration in 1946, and generally made more lenient thereafter. Although the council of the EKD accepted their own guilt at Stuttgart, they believed that denazification could not morally rehabilitate the Germans into society. They fought against denazification in letters, statements, sermons, testimony, and numerous other ways that I will explain in my work. I aim to complete a picture started by other historians and explain the relationship between US Military Government and the EKD drawing heavily on German, British and American sources found in archives, memoirs, memorandums, laws, newspapers, and secondary historical works. The aim is to give equal focus to both the German Protestant church’s moves against denazification and the US Military Government’s response. Table of Contents Introduction 6 Chapter 1: The Confessing Church 30 and Occupied State Chapter 2: Terror: Military 61 Government and Denazification, May 1945 – March 1946 Chapter 3: In the hands of 96 Germans: Denazification after the Law for Liberation March 1946 – May 1948 Epilogue: War Crimes, the Federal 144 Republic, and the Legacy of the Protestant Church and Denazification: 1949 – 1953 Appendix 1: Stuttgart Declaration 157 of Guilt Appendix 2: Agreement by the 158 churches and Military Government on how to denazify May 1946 Bibliography 159 Acknowledgments As I have spent a year researching and writing this dissertation, I have many people whom I would like to acknowledge. I would like to begin by thanking Dr. Geoffrey Cubitt, my supervisor at the University of York. Geoff remembered me from my time as an undergraduate visiting student at York, and helped me to get into this MA programme, and has subsequently monitored my research, telling me when I am thinking too big, and when I am thinking too small. He has lent me books, reviewed whatever writing I have had available, and met with me on numerous occasions. Without him I would probably be lost trying to write a comprehensive history of post-war Germany, instead of writing this more manageable dissertation. I would also like to thank Dr. Peter Beier at the Zentralarchiv in Berlin. I had been in contact with Dr. Beier through e-mail, and when I arrived he already had a list of books that he thought I would find useful. Over the next few days, he sat down with me and helped me to best utilise the archive to get all of the information I needed from it. He also helped me to think about the topic in a different way, reminding me how what happened in the American Zone affected the others. I also would like to thank the Göbel family, a family that gave me a place to stay and food to eat while I researched in Berlin. Also from York I would like to thank Dr. Richard Bessel, who reviewed an early draft of my dissertation and helped me think critically about several of the points I was trying to make. From my undergraduate years I would like to thank Professor Josh Kavaloski, my German Professor for four years, he did not simply teach how to speak German, he taught Germany. It is because of him that I have such an interest and understanding of that nation. My family deserves every bit of gratitude that I can give them. My mother, Suzanne Schafer-Coates and brother Henry Coates are both seminary graduates. It is because of them that I was able to understand the religious nuances of my project. My brother was particularly helpful in tracking down some church sources that I had trouble finding. I must also thank my father, David Coates, another lifelong student of history, who was able to recommend some books and ideas. Long suffering, he took on the task of photocopying a two hundred-page memorandum to mail to me, as well as take a trip to the Columbia University archives to get another primary source mailed to me. He has always been an invaluable resource for me, and I hope that by giving him some recognition that I show how truly appreciative of his help I am. I would like to thank a couple friends here in York as well. Paul Holgate, a former vicar, leant me a few religious texts and helped me to understand Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a wider context. My friend Phil Coventry helped me to find citation guides and research resources that the University provided that I did not otherwise know existed. My girlfriend, Lucy Curzon, was always up for a trip to the British Library, and was always interested in hearing me talk about my MA. Several other friends simply listened to me talk out some ideas, which was much needed. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. George Wham, who sixty-nine years ago served as an economics officer during the occupation of Germany. Wham was my grandfather’s closest friend, and the interview that he granted helped me to see a deeper human element to my research, being able to put a face that I was familiar with and connect it to what I was reading. Author’s Declaration I confirm that the work contained herein is my own and has not been previously submitted at this or any other institution for another award. 6 Introduction “Almost the entire world indicts Germany and the Germans. Our guilt is discussed in terms of outrage, horror, hatred, and scorn. Punishment and retribution are desired, not by the victors alone but also by some of the German émigrés and even by citizens of neutral countries. In Germany there are some who admit guilt, including their own, and many who hold themselves guiltless but pronounce others guilty. The temptation to evade this question is obvious…”1 - Karl Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt “World history is the world’s court of justice.”2 -Friedrich Schiller, Resignation In 1945, shortly after the fall of the Third Reich, the philosopher, psychiatrist, and theologian Karl Jaspers began a series of public lectures that asked the question that would define the occupation years: “Are the German people guilty?”3 In these lectures, Jaspers’ main argument was that “[t]he guilt question is more than a question put to us by others, it is one we put to ourselves. The way we answer it will be decisive for our present approach to the world and ourselves.”4 Jaspers was a committed anti-Nazi who had lost his teaching position in 1937 for writings that criticised racism and nationalism, and for having a Jewish wife.5 From his perspective there were varying degrees and types of guilt, and these differences were the basis for his lectures. His ideas were condensed in 1947 in his short book Die Schuldfrage, or The Question of [German] Guilt, which stood not as an “evasive apology nor a thorough condemnation” but rather an examination of 1 Karl Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt, trans. E. B. Ashton (Fordham University Press: New York, 2000), 21. 2 “Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht”. 3 Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt, vii-viii. 4 Ibid, 22. 5 Ibid, xvi. 7 degrees and types of guilt to explain how Germans might carry criminal, political, moral, and metaphysical guilt.6 Of these, he found metaphysical guilt the most interesting; his definition for it was that “[t]here exists a solidarity among men as human beings that makes each co-responsible for every wrong and every injustice in the world, especially for crimes committed in his presence or with his knowledge. If I fail to do whatever I can to prevent them, I too am guilty.”7 His conclusion was that the only way to create a new Germany was to confess German guilt to the world, and restructure society with God at the centre. Then, what was the process known as denazification? Was it anything more than a foreign attempt to force individual Germans to reflect and be punished for their own roles within the Third Reich? Or more pragmatically, was it simply an effort to ensure that people with Nazi sympathies were removed from positions of influence? Jaspers said that if one had adapted himself or herself to the party and enjoyed those benefits, they should not complain when they were later disadvantaged.8 However, denazification was not a process which dealt with a few individuals, but rather with millions; he acknowledged that “[d]enazification throws countless numbers out of their past course.”9 Jaspers argued against the policy by saying that it did not make sense to charge an entire people with these crimes, rather, “[t]he criminal is always only an individual” because “there is no 6 Ibid, 25-26.
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