Germany in the Twentieth Century (RLE: German Politics) by David Childs

Author:David Childs [Childs, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History & Theory, Comparative Politics, Political Science, World, General
ISBN: 9781317542278
Google: 1mffBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-12-17T09:30:18+00:00

Restoration

The new Minister who personified this more Right-wing flavour was Dr Theodor Oberlander. A member of the B H E, he became Minister of Refugees. Oberlander was an 'Eastern expert' of the Nazi party and a member of the S S; he was later forced out of office by world public opinion after East German revelations about his past. The Minister of Interior, Gerhard Schroder, was a former Nazi member; Heinrich Liibke, Minister of Agriculture, was later to be in trouble because of his wartime activities; Hans-Christoph Seebohm, Minister of Transport, became notorious for his utterances on behalf of the Sudeten Germans; Viktor-Emanuel Preusker, Minister of Housing, had been in the S A and S S; Waldemar Kraft, Minister for Special Assignments, was ex-S S. Over a third of the Cabinet, therefore, had doubtful pasts.

People started to talk about a restoration of the Nazis. And indeed the early 1950s saw a massive reinstatement of former officials of the Third Reich and pensions for those who could not be given their old jobs back. In 1952 Dr Adenauer admitted in the Bundestag that two-thirds of the senior officials in the Federal Republic's Foreign Service were former Nazi party members. The same was true of many of the other ministries. Among the more notorious cases were those of Dr Hans Globke, Adenauer's chief personal adviser, who was co-author of the official commentary on the Nazi Nuremberg Race Laws; Friedrich Vialon, a State Secretary whose signature was found on decrees about the disposal of the belongings of Jews earmarked for extermination; and Franz Thedieck, State Secretary, who had the special task in occupied Belgium of 'maintaining close cooperation with the S S', and during whose service 25,000 Belgians were deported to Auschwitz.

Pensions for ex-Nazis, including convicted war criminals (pensions which often compared very well with those of Hitler's victims) were another feature of the restoration. Admiral Erich Raeder was granted a monthly pension of 2,246 D M (about £180 or $550 at that time). The widow of Heydrich, Himmler's deputy responsible for occupied Czechoslovakia, received 1,000 D M per month (about £80 or $200). Anton Kassler, former commandant of Sachsenhausen concentration camp, was paid 6,000 D M (£500 or $1,500) as a kind of resettlement grant. There were very many other similar cases.

Another shocking aspect of the restoration in the early 1950s were the many Nazi doctors who had experimented on patients in concentration camps who found their way back into well-paid official positions. Here one of the worst cases which came to light was that of Dr Hertha Oberheuser. She had been sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by a U S court for crimes committed in the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrück. She was released in 1952 and was recommended for preferential treatment by the West German Ministry of Labour and found employment in an Evangelical Church hospital. Later she set up a private practice near Kiel. In 1958 the British Medical Association felt obliged to protest against this and similar cases

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