Denazification in Soviet-Occupied Germany:
Brandenburg 1945-1948
Timothy R. Vogt, Denazification in Soviet-Occupied Germany: Brandenburg 1945-1948.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. 336 pp. $52.50.
Timothy Vogt's book on denazification in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany (SBZ) focuses
on the process of determining who was a "nominal" Nazi and thus freed of responsibility for his or
her past and who was punishable for Nazi activism. Using a large sample of records from
representative denazification commissions in the province of Brandenburg, Vogt explores how the
Soviet and German authorities in the east vetted local Nazis and reviewed their petitions for
clemency. At the same time, this is not a genuine local history of denazification, one that would
reconstruct the meaning of these campaigns for individuals and families in concrete towns and
communities, whether in Brandenburg or elsewhere. Moreover, Vogt does not use Russianlanguage archives or published documents; as a result, the book can reveal little about the Soviet
authorities' intentions, expectations, or policy decisions. Vogt is also not particularly interested in
broad questions of the denazification of German culture or the politics of denazification as they
relate to the development of party struggles or social organizations in the zone. In short, despite
the title of the book, Vogt has not produced a definitive history of denazification in the SBZ. It is,
instead, a study with limited goals based on highly focused archival research.
The advantages of Vogt's strategy are as notable as its limits. The reader learns a great deal
about the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) and the way it attracted Germans
to its ranks. With regard to the postwar period, the book analyzes interesting information about
"average" Germans in the east—workers, shopkeepers, professionals—and how they thought
about their involvement and that of their friends and neighbors in the Nazi party and its related
organizations. In addition to exploring the mentality of former party members through their
petitions, appeals, [End Page 140] and interrogations by local commission members, the book
makes an important contribution to our understanding of how local politics, justice, and
administration functioned in the Soviet zone. Despite pressure from provincial authorities (who in
turn were pressured from the center), the local denazification commissions in Brandenburg
tended to judge individual cases on their own merits. Clearly politics played a role, but not an
overwhelming one. Instead, local issues made a huge difference—who denounced whom and
who testified on behalf of whom; the concrete circumstances under which an individual joined the
party; the behavior of party members; and the reaction of petitioners to the end of the war, the
occupation of the Soviet army, and, most critically, the task of rebuilding.
In Vogt's treatment, the Soviet Military Administration and the leadership of the Socialist Unity
Party of Germany (SED) seem very far away from the functioning of the local commissions. The
provincial authorities carried out periodic inspections, and some of the SBZ leaders were
annoyed that denazification moved at such a slow pace and had such a relatively innocuous
effect. But the higher authorities could not force the commissions to abandon their generally
sympathetic approach to the situation of "nominal" party members, people who by force of
circumstance and pragmatism had joined the NSDAP, the Hitlerjugend, and related organizations.
If, as Vogt suggests, the local commissions in Brandenburg were typical of the entire zone, the
process of denazification was far less politicized and much more fair-minded than the earlier
historiography has led us to believe. Vogt provides some data to back up this argument. From a
sample of 2,740 cases he finds that there was no particular bias against certain professions
versus others. To be sure, the critical need for physicians in postwar eastern Germany meant that
their cases were handled more favorably than those of other professions. Still, middle-class
shopkeepers and workers were treated largely the same by the commissions. Of course, it helped
to be a member of the SED when one appeared before a denazification commission, but party
membership did not necessarily determine the outcome. Youth were more favorably treated than
older people; adult women were judged more leniently than men; and denazification in the
agricultural sector as a whole had a "negligible effect"(p. 173).
There were several reasons that denazification had such a desultory history and was abruptly
halted, at least as a formal campaign, in March 1948. Although the public was generally
indifferent to the campaign, many Germans, even in the antifascist parties, felt a measure of
solidarity with the "nominal" NSDAP members. Although Soviet and higher SED officials
sporadically sought punishment and retribution, the bulk of German society in the east (and west)
was more interested in understanding and forgetting. The members of the Brandenburg
commissions, though they often belonged to antifascist parties and social organizations, were no
different in this regard. Moreover, they received mixed signals from the top. According to Vogt,
Walter Ulbricht's mania for rebuilding the administration, the East German infrastructure, and
East German industry took priority over chasing down small-time Nazis. In Ulbricht's view,
worrying about the past political affiliation of Germans was tantamount to indulging in "ancient
history"(p. 235). In both phases of denazification in the Soviet zone—from 1946 to September
1947 under the influence of Allied Control [End Page 141] Council Directive 24 and from October
1947 to March 1948 in connection with Order No. 201 of the Soviet Military Administration—
Ulbricht was anxious to speed up the process, punish the worst perpetrators, and get back to
other work. Meanwhile, German Communists like Johannes Becher, the poet and Kulturbund
leader, urged a more thoroughgoing approach to denazification, one that would turn political and
social life into a permanent confrontation with Germany's terrible past. The Soviet authorities
themselves were typically inconsistent in this connection. The result was a great deal of
autonomy for the local commissions.
Formal denazification procedures were abandoned in the SBZ in March 1948. In May 1948 the
National Democratic Party of Germany, the party of the so-called "little Nazis," was formed. In this
connection denazification was declared completed, and there was to be no more talk of Nazis in
government, industry, and the police. Although Erich Mielke and his secret police continued to
chase down ex-Nazis, the East German regime basked in self-satisfied triumphalism about its
antifascist purity. Meanwhile in West Germany, under the glare of a free press and subject to
genuine oppositional politics, very similar formal processes of denazification were roundly
condemned as cosmetic and were subjected to critical scrutiny. Vogt's book balances the picture.
The most egregious criminals of the Third Reich were tried, interned, and removed from political
and economic life; but, on the whole, the formal denazifica- tion of German society was not
successful in either east or west.
Norman M. Naimark
Stanford University