Post-war German public opinion

As far as I'm aware, the majority of the German population saw the Nuremberg Trials as a "victor's justice" rather than a fair trial, but, I think most Germans couldn't care less about the fate of the Defendants either, since they blamed them as responsible for the situation they were in right after the unconditional surrender. They blamed the German Nazi leadership for plunging their country into a total war they couldn't win.

It's interesting to notice that, according to the Allied Occupation poll inquiry, between the years of 1945-49, a significant majority of the Western German population still held the opinion that Nazism "was a good idea that was badly applied". This is after the WWII defeat; this is after millions of Germans and other Europeans died in the conflict that Hitler started; after millions of Jews, Poles, Soviet citizens, and Roma people were exterminated; after the camps had been liberated and pictures of emaciated corpses were posted in newspaper headlines all over the world.
Even according to a 1952 poll report, 25% of respondents still admitted having a "favorable opinion" of Hitler (Judt 2005: 80-3).


- Judt, Tony (2005). Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin Press: London, UK.

Dsmichel said:

Did the German people in 1945-50 generally favor trials for the Nazis, or were summary executions acceptable?

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My father was part of the british army of occupation working in the Courts Marshall office in northern Germany. From what he told me, the defeat was so total it was a profound shock and what followed was fear starvation. For a long time the german civilian population were concerned with finding food and, hopefully, some sort of job. News was controlled by the alllies

There were huge numbers of displaced peoples of many nationalities who had to be processed so there wasn't much time for careful investigation. I know of one elderly german who had been a hair stylist throughout the war but in 1945 he was required to work as an employee at the Celle railway station. The original workers had been taken into the army to fight. When the british arrived, he was taken prisoner as he was wearing a uniform, albeit a railway uniform. He was handed over to the americans and had to spend the next three years picking grapes in California. It was called War Reparations. His wife was more concerned about how she was going to survive without a husband, income and black market prices rather than the criminal activities of politicians and their henchmen. It was a few years before POW returned.

With somewhere between 2 and 4 million civilian deaths, most people had family to grieve and many only had ruins to live in. They weren't discussing politics and if so, it was just in passing. Others, like my german mother, a school .... at the time, had suspicions about Hitler after events such as the death of Rommel who had been very popular. They didn't buy the propaganda and would, privately, speculate about the truth. A man I knew of had been a colonel in the Imperial Army during the Great War. He was a staunch monarchist and wanted the Kaiser back on the throne. He even took part in the Kapp Putsch. Lord knows what he and others of the old 'prussian elite' thought of this corporal from Austria running the country and the war but I guess when he and his colleagues got together there would be an air of Schadenfreude. Generally, after a handul of years and as life started to adopt a routine, most people seem to want to concentrate on the future.

The man behind the wheel in this photo is the British Major Ivan Hirst he set about getting Volkswagen on its feet after the war. He sold beetles to the british army as staff cars. He is still commemorated in Wolfsburg and the company paid for and attended his funeral in Saddleworth in 2000. People were motivated by a return to normality and grateful to the british for organisational help.

robto said:

It's interesting to notice that, according to the Allied Occupation poll inquiry, between the years of 1945-49, a significant majority of the Western German population still held the opinion that Nazism "was a good idea that was badly applied". This is after the WWII defeat; this is after millions of Germans and other Europeans died in the conflict that Hitler started; after millions of Jews, Poles, Soviet citizens, and Roma people were exterminated; after the camps had been liberated and pictures of emaciated corpses were posted in newspaper headlines all over the world.
Even according to a 1952 poll report, 25% of respondents still admitted having a "favorable opinion" of Hitler (Judt 2005: 80-3).


- Judt, Tony (2005). Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin Press: London, UK.

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This was a way for Germans to deny any responsibility for their situation. If Nazism was a bad idea, then anybody who had supported it (i.e. most Germans) bore responsibility for what had happened to their country. If Nazism was "a good idea badly applied", then it wasn't their fault for supporting Nazism, it was the leadership's fault for executing it badly.

Remember, most Germans weren't angry with the Nazis for starting the war, just for losing it.

Dsmichel said:

Did the German people in 1945-50 generally favor trials for the Nazis, or were summary executions acceptable?

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The trials happened because the Americans wanted them. Nobody cared what the German people thought about anything.

delta1 said:

This was a way for Germans to deny any responsibility for their situation. If Nazism was a bad idea, then anybody who had supported it (i.e. most Germans) bore responsibility for what had happened to their country. If Nazism was "a good idea badly applied", then it wasn't their fault for supporting Nazism, it was the leadership's fault for executing it badly.

Remember, most Germans weren't angry with the Nazis for starting the war, just for losing it.

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To be honest, I think any population would act the same way if given the same circunstances.

delta1 said:

The trials happened because the Americans wanted them. Nobody cared what the German people thought about anything.

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The Russians were against the trails just wanted about 20k officers summarily executed.

Did the German people in 1945-50 generally favor trials for the Nazis, or were summary executions acceptable?

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No they did not. In Postwar, the book a section of which Robto quoted above, was specific that the large majority of Germans supported the Nazis virtually to the end and afterwards tended to explain away the horrendous war crimes of the Nazis. That aspect of the book was a surprise to me as my parents (both deceased) came to North America in the early 1950s. Both were what could be called holocaust deniers in that they either said the murder of 6 million plus never happened or was greatly exaggerated by the Allies, particularly the Soviets. They also often said the Jewish people were at least partly responsible for various and dubious reasons. My immediate Aunts and Uncles basically said the same. When I read Judt's book it astonished me that he wrote that the views of my parents were common in Germany in the immediate postwar years. In their last years my parents recanted these opinions and accepted the holocaust as fact.

The Nuremburg trials were primarily to try senior Nazis and other German officials and there were other trials conducted by the administrators of the each occupation Western occupation zones for lesser officials and other criminals. In the Soviet zone very few middle and lower officials were tried. The German communist part was so small and inexperienced with governance it felt there was no option but to offer such offenders employment as members of the party or be executed. You can guess what most decided. In the 1950s once Germany was again governed by Germans, most of the former Nazis found guilty & imprisoned just several years before were pardoned and released. By around 1960 the Adenauer government began to understand the problem the popular consensus was and only then did it begin the program of education and acceptance of Germany guilt. Of course many Germans such as my parents or those in the east were not exposed to this policy. In the east the official government position was the common Germans were victims of a capitalist and fascist conspiracy so most East Germans were " excused" of blame.

The Generalist said:

No they did not. In Postwar, the book a section of which Robto quoted above, was specific that the large majority of Germans supported the Nazis virtually to the end and afterwards tended to explain away the horrendous war crimes of the Nazis. That aspect of the book was a surprise to me as my parents (both deceased) came to North America in the early 1950s. Both were what could be called holocaust deniers in that they either said the murder of 6 million plus never happened or was greatly exaggerated by the Allies, particularly the Soviets. They also often said the Jewish people were at least partly responsible for various and dubious reasons. My immediate Aunts and Uncles basically said the same. When I read Judt's book it astonished me that he wrote that the views of my parents were common in Germany in the immediate postwar years. In their last years my parents recanted these opinions and accepted the holocaust as fact.

The Nuremburg trials were primarily to try senior Nazis and other German officials and there were other trials conducted by the administrators of the each occupation Western occupation zones for lesser officials and other criminals. In the Soviet zone very few middle and lower officials were tried. The German communist part was so small and inexperienced with governance it felt there was no option but to offer such offenders employment as members of the party or be executed. You can guess what most decided. In the 1950s once Germany was again governed by Germans, most of the former Nazis found guilty & imprisoned just several years before were pardoned and released. By around 1960 the Adenauer government began to understand the problem the popular consensus was and only then did it begin the program of education and acceptance of Germany guilt. Of course many Germans such as my parents or those in the east were not exposed to this policy. In the east the official government position was the common Germans were victims of a capitalist and fascist conspiracy so most East Germans were " excused" of blame.

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Yup. I also remember reading something - I don't know the book nor the author - that the German population in the first 15-20 years after the war, by and large, held a tremendous respect for the soldiers that served at the front during the war, and that included war criminals or Waffen-SS members. If there were some "evil German", then it would be higher-ups such as Goebbels or Goring.

AlpinLuke said:

Nice question.
Personally I've got German roots.
Actually a lot of Nazis simply became part of the administration of Western and Eastern Germany.
And there was a reason: Nazis were great about administrating and executing orders. So why to renounce to such a valuable resource?
Allies didn't care ... they were more concerned about the Soviet development of nuclear weapon.

Germany was a useless little soil ...

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Joining the Nazi party was the condition for advancement in the Third Reich, so ambitious people did that. That didn't mean they didn't share the ideology, as most Germans did at the time. Excluding people from administration just because of their party membership was counterproductive. That shouldn't be said about war criminals.

robto said:

Yup. I also remember reading something - I don't know the book nor the author - that the German population in the first 15-20 years after the war, by and large, held a tremendous respect for the soldiers that served at the front during the war, and that included war criminals or Waffen-SS members. If there were some "evil German", then it would be higher-ups such as Goebbels or Goring.

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And the greatest evil committed by Hitler was losing the war.

robto said:

As far as I'm aware, the majority of the German population saw the Nuremberg Trials as a "victor's justice" rather than a fair trial, but, I think most Germans couldn't care less about the fate of the Defendants either, since they blamed them as responsible for the situation they were in right after the unconditional surrender. They blamed the German Nazi leadership for plunging their country into a total war they couldn't win.

It's interesting to notice that, according to the Allied Occupation poll inquiry, between the years of 1945-49, a significant majority of the Western German population still held the opinion that Nazism "was a good idea that was badly applied". This is after the WWII defeat; this is after millions of Germans and other Europeans died in the conflict that Hitler started; after millions of Jews, Poles, Soviet citizens, and Roma people were exterminated; after the camps had been liberated and pictures of emaciated corpses were posted in newspaper headlines all over the world.
Even according to a 1952 poll report, 25% of respondents still admitted having a "favorable opinion" of Hitler (Judt 2005: 80-3).


- Judt, Tony (2005). Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin Press: London, UK.

Click to expand...

People never forgive their chiefs' defeat and tend to overlook the crimes of their victorious leaders. That's the major difference between how Germans and Russians viewed Hitler and Stalin.

.

robto said:

Even according to a 1952 poll report, 25% of respondents still admitted having a "favorable opinion" of Hitler (Judt 2005: 80-3).

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This fell to about 10% by 1960.

Yury said:

People never forgive their chiefs' defeat and tend to overlook the crimes of their victorious leaders. That's the major difference between how Germans and Russians viewed Hitler and Stalin.

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What is the difference between Soviets and Russians?

Soviet (Советский) refers to citizenship & certain ideology, associated with the USSR, while Russian (Русский) refers to ethnic identity. Stalin was a Soviet (citizen), Russian he was not.

AlpinLuke said:

Great contribution!

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Just making a point.

Faramir said:

The Russians were against the trails just wanted about 20k officers summarily executed.

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Stalin did suggest executing German officers, and Churchill reacted very negatively. In fact, most of the officers captured by the Soviets did not survive.

Churchill suggested the Nazi leaders be shot without trial. However, Stalin wanted show trials. The US wanted the trials to have some appearance of being fair trials. It was more the other way around, that the Soviets wanted trials.