A Nazi Past: Recasting German Identity in Postwar Europe

by David A. Messenger (Editor), Katrin Paehler (Editor)

Overview

Since the end of World War II, historians and psychologists have investigated the factors that motivated Germans to become Nazis before and during the war. While most studies have focused on the high-level figures who were tried at Nuremberg, much less is known about the hundreds of SS members, party functionaries, and intelligence agents who quietly navigated the transition to postwar life and successfully assimilated into a changed society after the war ended.

In A Nazi Past, German and American scholars examine the lives and careers of men like Hans Globke—who not only escaped punishment for his prominent involvement in formulating the Third Reich's anti-Semitic legislation, but also forged a successful new political career. They also consider the story of Gestapo employee Gertrud Slottke, who exhibited high productivity and ambition in sending Dutch Jews to Auschwitz but eluded trial for fifteen years. Additionally, the contributors explore how a network of Nazi spies and diplomats who recast their identities in Franco's Spain, far from the denazification proceedings in Germany.

Previous studies have emphasized how former Nazis hid or downplayed their wartime affiliations and actions as they struggled to invent a new life for themselves after 1945, but this fascinating work shows that many of these individuals actively used their pasts to recast themselves in a democratic, Cold War setting. Based on extensive archival research as well as recently declassified US intelligence, A Nazi Past contributes greatly to our understanding of the postwar politics of memory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813160580
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	04/21/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	326
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David A. Messenger, author of Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain, is associate professor of history and director of the Global and Area Studies Program at the University of Wyoming. Katrin Paehler is associate professor of history at Illinois State University and a contributor to Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust.

David A. Messenger, author of Hunting Nazis in Franco’s Spain, is associate professor of history and director of the Global and Area Studies Program at the University of Wyoming.

Table of Contents

Hans Globke at Nuremberg: Testimony as Rehabilitation, 1948-49
Auditioning for Post-War: Walter Schellenberg, the Allies, and Attempts to Fashion a Usable Past
Bad Nazis and Other Germans: The fate of SS-Einsatzgruppen Commander Martin Sandberger in postwar Germany
Petitions to Franco: Arguments and Identities of Ex-Nazis in the Effort to Avoid Repatriation from Spain, 1945-1950
Siegfried Zoglmann, His Circle of Writers, and the Naumann Affair: a Nazi Propaganda Operation in Postwar Germany
German Diplomats and the Myth of the Two Foreign Offices
Hitler's Military Elite in Italy and the Question of 'Decent War
'I am the Man Who Started the War': Alfred Naujocks and his Postwar Stories on his 'Adventures'
A Man with a Wide Horizon: The Postwar Professional Journey of SS Officer Karl Nicolussi-Leck
Revision of Life/History: From National Socialist Co-Perpetrator to Expellee Official, Gertrud Slottke
The Gehlen Organization and the Heinz Felfe Case: The SD, the KGB, and West German Counterintelligence, 1950-1961

What People are Saying About This

Jonathan Wiesen

"By drawing together case studies of heretofore unknown or under-researched individuals, this book provides a host of insights into how former Nazis—most of them with unsavory and even violent pasts—integrated themselves into West German society and politics. This rich and original book offers a number of surprises."

From the Publisher

"By drawing together case studies of heretofore unknown or under-researched individuals, this book provides a host of insights into how former Nazis — most of them with unsavory and even violent pasts — integrated themselves into West German society and politics. This rich and original book offers a number of surprises." — Jonathan Wiesen, author of Creating the Nazi Marketplace: Commerce and Consumption in the Third Reich

"These superb essays move our understanding of the postwar politics of memory forward in important ways. A Nazi Past will alter how we think about the ways former National Socialists, fascists, and collaborators reshaped their identities and how networks of the like-minded provided mutual assistance." — Steven Remy, author of The Heidelberg Myth: The Nazification and Denazification of a German University

Steven Remy

"These superb essays move our understanding of the postwar politics of memory forward in important ways. A Nazi Past will alter how we think about the ways former National Socialists, fascists, and collaborators reshaped their identities and how networks of the like-minded provided mutual assistance."

Editorial Reviews

These superb essays move our understanding of the postwar politics of memory forward in important ways. A Nazi Past will alter how we think about the ways former National Socialists, fascists, and collaborators reshaped their identities and how networks of the like-minded provided mutual assistance.

Steven Remy

This valuable work adds to our understanding of the role of personal agency, trials, publicity, and networks in the integration process.

Journal of Military History

By drawing together case studies of heretofore unknown or under-researched individuals, this book provides a host of insights into how former Nazis—most of them with unsavory and even violent pasts—integrated themselves into West German society and politics. This rich and original book offers a number of surprises.

Jonathan Wiesen

"This valuable work adds to our understanding of the role of personal agency, trials, publicity, and networks in the integration process." — Journal of Military History

From the Publisher