Utopia and Dissent in West Germany by Mia Lee

Author:Mia Lee [Lee, Mia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Modern, General, 20th Century, Philosophy, Aesthetics, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780429753060
Google: DeGEDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 42362886
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Germany retried – a disruption of the everyday

Neither the high-profile Nuremberg trial nor the thousands of trials that preceded and followed it fostered a critical attitude toward the past in Germany. Indeed, as discussed above, they frequently reinforced the opposite perspective.36 Positions shifted, however, at the close of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s when the consensus around rehabilitation and integration came under criticism from those who favored not only a reexamination of the Nazi past but also a critical assessment of postwar society. Events contributing to the change in climate included East German efforts to question the legitimacy of the Federal Republic, the Ulm Einsatzkommando trial in 1958, the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961, and the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials that began in 1963.

Over the course of the 1950s, the East German government took pains to publicize the Nazi pasts of various high-profile West Germans as a way of delegitimizing the West German state. In one of its more dramatic “revelations,” the GDR organized a show trial in 1963 of Hans Globke, who was one of Adenauer’s closest advisors. Globke had helped draft antisemitic laws during the Nazi regime. Such strategic revelations discomfited the Adenauer government while also fueling interest in the question of how many Nazis were hiding in plain sight.

The Ulm trial of 1958 seemed to come straight from a GDR playbook. The investigation of ten members of the Einsatzkommando Tilsit might have simply pointed out a case of an unsatisfactory denazification process. But it was the accidental nature of the trial that awakened the sense that justice had been badly served. The trial took place in 1958 because Bernhard Fischer-Schweder, a former SS officer, lodged a formal complaint after being fired from his position as the director of a refugee camp near Ulm. He was fired after officials discovered that Fischer-Schweder had provided false documents in his application. Completely unrepentant about the fraudulent nature of his application, Fischer-Schweder pressed for reinstatement. It was only then, in the subsequent investigation that took place due to his complaints, that his criminal past was discovered.37 The series of events leading up to the discovery and eventual trial highlighted the strong sense of entitlement postwar denazification legislation afforded former Nazis. But at this juncture public opinion no longer supported the rapid integration of former Nazis. The trial coincided with a general sense that reform was long overdue. The trial ended with ten convictions on the charge of “accomplices to murder,” and Fischer-Schweder received a sentence of ten years for assisting in the collective murder (gemeinschaftlichen Mord) of 526 individuals. The trial also provided the final push for the establishment of a government agency for Nazi crimes: the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes, based in Ludwigsburg. Historian Norbert Frei points out that the Ulm trial was not the impetus for the establishment of the Central Office, which was clearly a response to years-long inertia in the judicial system when it came to punishing war crimes, but the trial did imbue its establishment with a new relevance.

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