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Drawing a line under the past instead of dealing with the past?
The Federal Ministry of Justice and its handling of Nazi criminals
01 Drawing a Line Under the Past Mentality
In 1945, the Allies and the West German judiciary had quickly begun to bring Nazi criminals to justice. Yet the Germans' will to deal self-critically with the past soon slackened. In the judiciary, former Nazi judges returned to their posts and in society at large, the dominant mentality was to "draw a line under the past".
The BMJ was involved in these developments in a number of ways. In the 1950s, the Ministry drafted two amnesty laws and in the 1960s, the BMJ was increasingly confronted with the Nazi past of its staff and advocated their exoneration.
02 Zeitgeist
In the 1949 Bundestag election campaign, many political parties advocated putting an end to denazification. There was a widespread desire for an amnesty, not only on the political right, but across the political centre and into the milieu of the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany).
FDP election poster for the election to the Bundestag, 1949
03 Adenauer's plans for an amnesty
From the beginning, the first Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer linked his assumption of government office with his will for an amnesty. His aim in so doing was to strengthen confidence in the new state. In his first government declaration of 20 September 1949, he underlined:
"The war and also the turmoil of the post-war period have brought such a hard test for so many people and such temptations that one has to show understanding for some wrongdoings and offences. The question of an amnesty will therefore be examined by the Federal Government".
04 1949 Amnesty
The first Federal Law drafted by the Federal Ministry of Justice in 1949 was the "Amnesty Law". Its main purpose was to deal with black market and property offences committed between May 1945 and 1949. |