The Rat Years are Over
“There was clearly an attraction in the party’s emphasis on sports and athletics. I was young and I was tempted…” Joseph Ratzinger spoke of his time in the Hitler Youth. So, was Pope Benedict XVI a Nazi? Yes. And there is a very strong emphasis on the word ‘was’—it is a very tame ‘was’. Joseph Ratzinger, before he was Pope Benedict XVI, like many children during the Hitler regime, spent his childhood years compulsorily enlisted in the Hitler Youth—he was 14 years old at the time of his conscription. At age 16, he was drafted into Nazi military service, serving in the anti-aircraft unit; at age 21, he was a Nazi military man in his own right. Some 57 years later, he was enthroned Pope—the first German pope in 1000 years. Destinies do change.
Chapter Two: Denazification
In the year 1914, the Austrian-born emperor-to-be, Archduke Franz Ferdinand inadvertently, with his assassination, brought upon the world, its First World War. Some 25 years later, this Austrian-born ruler, Adolf Hitler, was to very advertently present to the world, its Second World War.
The impetuousness with which Kaiser Wilhelm, the German emperor of the late 19th to early 20th century, went into WWI, Hitler came into WWII some 20 years later, with a thousand-fold of that. And just like his predecessor, Hitler was to ultimately fail; his armed global charge ending with the signing of an armistice—but not without causing unprecedented horror ever spawned by a single man.
Having ultimately lost the War, and seeing his end approaching, Hitler was to commit suicide on the 30th of April, 1945. The world had successfully rid itself of a ruthless tyrant. But a huge problem still remained. Like a rat, the deceased Führer had brought forth mischief—countless mischievous pubs, brainwashed, programmed to seeing to the festering of his deadly objects and ideologies. This was a big problem. The German people, they knew they had a problem. The world, it knew the German people were a big problem.
A denazification had to ensue.
The 12 Steps: An Inadequate Analogy
In the year 1947—two years after WWII—the documentary, “This is America” premiered to American audiences. This documentary helped popularise this declaration Alcoholic Anonymous groups worldwide have come to be identified with… You know, where one states their name, and follows it up with the admission “…I am an Alcoholic.” One can say that two years prior, the German people were made to make a germane declaration of their own; these Germans of post-WWII era had to come to terms with a harsh reality of their own. There was a fatal flaw needing admission and consequent rectification in the German people. The problem was that through the elaborate work of their past ruler, they had been indoctrinated into becoming a colony of extremely hateful people. They had to be rid of the demons of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Regime.
World War 2—Hitler’s handiwork—was no ordinary war. Like its predecessor war, WWI, it was an industrialised warfare—a highly industrialised one at that. But even more than this, it was an ideological war. The defeat of the Nazi Regime couldn’t be capped off as defeat as usual. Because it wasn’t a war whose object was easily defeated with the signing of an armistice by the defeated party. Nazi ideologies did not magically dissipate with the death of its flagbearer—Hitler. A conscious effort had to be undertaken to purge German society, culture, economy, press, legal regime, politics, etc. of Nazi ideologies. Hence, the same concertedness with which the world powers—the Allies—came together to end the war, they had to come together in this bid at re-wiring the German people. And that is the story of how defeated Germany came under Allied occupation.
Hitler had done a thorough job at the Nazification of the German people. To see to the existence of these Germans as functioning global citizens, as persons coexisting peacefully among their own selves and the rest of the world, a denazification had to ensue. A demilitarisation, re-education, resocialisation, democratisation, etc. had to be done on the German people. And to successfully achieve this, the same process through which the Nazification happened, the denazification had to happen.
Step One: Facing One’s Demons
Before a denazification could be successfully done on the German people, these citizens had to admit to themselves first, the fact of their Nazification. They had to come to vivid terms with the gory horrors committed by the Nazi regime. They had to come to terms with their complicity in it all—either in full or in part, voluntarily or involuntarily. They had to see for themselves, the charred remains of fellow human beings—countless charred remains of what was once life, lying about in the Nazi death camps. They had to come to terms with the fact that words like ‘annihilation’ ‘extermination’, ‘obliteration’, as hinted at by Hitler regarding the Jews, were not mere words—they had very vivid, gory realities… Realities of children, women, men—young and old—burnt at the stake, with their charred remains lying purposelessly about.
Oh, the Allies, they were merciless in this campaign of getting the German people to see ‘their’ handiworks. ‘Excursions’ were conducted for these Germans to the numerous Nazi concentration camps. If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain, no? So then nationwide ‘excursions’ being quite the Herculean task, these harsh realities of the death camps were brought to the doorsteps of the German people through newspapers, posters, pamphlets, etc. “You Are Guilty of This!”, “These Atrocities: Your Fault!”, were some of the accusatory inscriptions accompanying these disturbing images of lifeless bodies.
Harsh but fair. Fair because surveys conducted by the Allies on the German people, showed a nation largely filled with an unapologetic citizenry—either as a result of ignorance, half-truths, or sheer ruthlessness. There were many Germans who were of the opinion that the Führer’s downfall had been unfair—unfair to the Führer himself and to the German people at large… And that, had he been given space and time to complete his mission, the full scope of his ‘genius’ would have been laid bare before the whole world. In fact, right after the overthrow of the Nazi Regime, a good percentage of Germans, in these surveys, said they would be willing to vote for someone like Hitler again. Oh, yes! They wanted another Hitler. Another Hitler? Clearly, they didn’t know the full extent of the horrors spawned by him. It was important they saw for themselves, those charred remains…
Step Two: A Reset Button
One can say that it wasn’t so much for the German people—the rebuilding of the German nation—that the West and East came together in this effort at denazification, as it was the removal of the German people as threat to the world. This is reflected in the fact that one of the initial strategies considered by the Allies in this bid at denazification was to strip Germany off all the industrial gains it had made up until that point. Yes, the Allies ever considered undoing Germany’s strides at industrialisation, sending the nation back by many centuries—back to an agrarian economy. By stripping the nation off industrialisation, the Allies hoped they would be stripping Germany off its advanced militarism. This crude idea was thankfully abandoned in favour of a conscious effort at demilitarisation instead.
To fully crush the Nazi Regime, a demilitarisation had to be undertaken to undo the systematic militarisation of the German populace as had been effected by Hitler. Towards this end of demilitarisation, the Allies, comprising the United States of America, Great Britain, France, and Russia, divided Germany into zones, and among themselves. And in the various zones, all Nazi military organisations were disbanded and barred from ever re-banding.
The demilitarisation was followed up with the removal of Nazis from national politics. The Nazi Party’s properties, its assets, documents, etc. were confiscated, and the party forever banned from being revived either in full or in part—under its old name or obscured under a new one. Nazis were removed from positions of economic power—efforts were made at restricting them to manual labour only. The legal system, being, during the Hitler regime, very aptly filled with Nazis, was also targeted by the Allies for this purging.
Step Three: A Re-education
But of course, taking the military, politics, the legal regime, and economy from the Nazi party was not enough to totally purge the Nazi ideologies spawned in the minds and hearts of the German people. Thus came the efforts at re-education. Hitler used the education system as his prime Nazification tool; the Allies also very aptly turned to education when it came to the denazification of Germany. Textbooks, works of literature, etc. taught in schools were wiped clean off Nazi propaganda. Teachers, being then intentionally largely Nazis, also received the purging.
As noted last week, there is no better way of making something of a nation than by capturing the collective consciousness; and there is no better way of capturing the consciousness of a people than by catching them young—moulding and shaping their young minds through education. And Hitler, he knew, education did not start and end in the classroom—when opportunities are presented, human beings are, by nature, lifelong learners. Hence the utilisation of the media—a potent tool for education and indoctrination.
Naturally, the Third Reich largely employed the media in its journey towards the indoctrination of the German people; the Allies employed same at their bid at denazification. Newspapers, magazines, radio stations, cinemas, theatres, art, books, etc. were cleansed of Nazi ideologies. Memorials, museums, statues etc. erected to glorify and proliferate Nazi ideologies and to keep these morbid ideologies top of mind of the German people, were brought to the ground. Indeed, the same process through which the Nazification happened, the denazification ensued—all-round.
There are many who, with good reasons, challenge the short-term effects these denazification strategies reaped. For one, the process was often riddled with corruption and inefficiency, and was often stunted by the rivalries between the Western and Eastern Allies regarding what each thought was the best approach at denazification. But good argument can be made for the fact that even if, in the short term, the denazification plan failed at its attempt at restructuring the socioeconomic structure of post-WWII Germany, it, in the long term, has proven itself enormously successful in the ideological resocialisation of the German people.
Chapter 3: Escaping Stockholm
It seems to be the case that one cannot freestyle nationhood—at least not optimal nationhood. There is a level of deliberateness that goes into the creation of a great nation. In all aspects of a people’s national lives, there has to be seen, these signs of foresightedness and intentionality when it comes to the art and science of nation building. And very often, in this conscious bid at nation building, nations must first and foremost, come to terms with their inglorious pasts. And like making lemonades out of lemons, these nations must put in place conscious efforts towards the conversion of these inglorious pasts into blissful presents and fruitful futures. The nature and quality of citizenry brewed by a nation are often as a result of these conscious, strategic efforts undertaken by the generation upon generation of great leaders in this bid at converting past ‘bad’ into present and future ‘good’.
Admittedly, any comparison between the African re-education and resocialisation following the continent’s enslavement and colonisation, and that of the Germans after their time under Allied occupation is a tad unfair. Firstly, because the past that the African must seek to undo is that of victimhood, while that of the German is that of ‘perpetratorhood’. Secondly, because the German resocialisation which we have highlighted in this article—intending it as some sort of case study of nations determining their own destinies, nations breaking free of their inglorious pasts—is not one that can be fully attributed to the German people themselves. We have seen how this entire process of denazification and re-education was carried out by other nations for and on behalf of the German people. I, for one, wonder what Germany would be today if this resocialisation and reinvention had been left entirely in their own hands.
Seeing how crippled they had been with Hitler’s demons right after the war, how well would they have fared had their resocialisation been left entirely in their own hands? Would they have remained still, a nation of bitter and hateful people—a nation of Hitler foot soldiers, a nation full of people lacking accountability, a people quick to blame their failures on others every chance they get (as they did the Jews), a people accustomed to fail at accountability and rectification, consequently, national growth? We can never tell.
But what we do know is that this process of denazification had the potential of turning sour for the German people. The period after the war, till sometime 1951, when Allied occupation ended, Germany was technically reduced to a colony—a nation under the rule of other countries, i.e., the Americans, British, French, and Russians. As these nations painstakingly worked on ridding Germans of Nazi ideologies, they were replacing these ideologies with their own. For instance, while the West (chief among them, USA) were bent on turning West Germany into a democracy, Russia was working tirelessly at turning East Germany into a socialist state. Imagine the bipolar state this puts a people.
Also, it can be argued the case that during these periods of denazification, while East Germany faced physical abuse from the Russians with its stringent authoritarianism; West Germany was facing a psychological one from the Allies (chief among them, the Americans). The Allied bid at bringing the German people to face the harsh realities of the Nazi Regime was a ruthless one. So ruthless was its method of naming, blaming, and shaming that one could only wonder if it was reformation the Allies were shooting for, or if it was instead the breaking of the German spirit they sought to achieve.
Being constantly pointed at, with the harsh accusations of “You Are Guilty of This!”—guilty of the countless burnt bodies of children, women, men, young and old—how does a nation get its psyche and self-esteem restored? How do a people carry on in the journey of nationhood after suffering such a disheartening glitch in their national lives?
And also, having been made to play student to other nations in this effort at resocialisation, how do a people manage to go through their national lives without suffering a mighty case of Stockholm syndrome? You know what, after the death of Hitler, many German youth and adult population admitted to being in the state of aimlessness. They no longer knew what they stood for in their personal and national lives—now that their god and guide had fallen. Yet how did the German people manage to come out of this period under Allied occupation, this period of incessant ideological imposition, without developing some sort of Stockholm syndrome for these nations (as they had done Hitler)? How were the German people able to power on in their national journey, carving out a very respectable place for themselves on the international plane, and a respectable identity—an identity that does not include the words ‘hateful people’ or ‘a people suffering a horrible case of Stockholm syndrome’?
This is indeed an enviable feat for we, Africans, cannot say same of ourselves. Granted, our years under colonial rule was much longer and horrid than that of Germany under Allied occupation. But I don’t think the ‘number of years’ spent under foreign rule is the defining ingredient that differentiates the German story from Africa’s. The differentiating factor here lies in the consciousness with which one country approached its nationhood journey as distinguished from the carelessness with which the other approached theirs. To break free of their inglorious past, one nation took a much more introspective and circumspective look at themselves and sought solutions that secured for them and their generations, a present and future uninhibited by the weight of their past. The other just powered on in its nationhood journey, sweeping the psychological damage done by their past under the carpet. The former is Germany; the latter, Ghana and much of the African continent.
Out of Germany…
Indeed, the resocialisation that ensued in Germany immediately after the fall of the Hitler regime was not orchestrated by the Germans themselves, hence praises for its success, cannot, arguably, be fully given to the Germans. Yet, a whole lot can be said of this nation’s ability to escape the Stockholm syndrome characteristic of a people bound—to carve out for themselves such a singular national identity far from their gruesome past.
Upon witnessing this successful denazification of Germany and the consequent successes attained by the nation on the international plane, one cannot help but wonder about the decolonisation of Africa—particularly, the failure thereof…
The ‘decolonisation of Africa’ forms our topic of discussion in the coming weeks. Before doing so, we will try our hands on yet another successful reinvention story—that of the United States of America’s.
Speak to you next week.
