Current Issue

Removing “Nasty Nazi Habits”:
The CIC and the Denazification of Heidelberg University, 1945-1946
by RALPH W. BROWN III -- abstract

At the end of World War II, the U.S. ArmyÆs Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) aided the U.S. Military Government in a less than successful effort to denazify Germany. Using as a case example the denazification of the Heidelberg University faculty, several reasons for the CICÆs limited ability to conduct completely its mission successfully can be distinguished: the Military Government pragmatically focused on immediately reviving Germany at the expense of a thorough investigation of the past, made contradictory changes in the application of denazification policy, and proved unable to prevent CIC agents quarreling with officers from other Military Government elements concerning the proper implementation of denazification. Most significant, however, the Military Government found it impossible to devise an adequate definition of a Nazi, especially one that encompassed those individuals who had never joined the party but were unsuited to creating an institution free from the taint of the Nazi past. As a result, the CIC was unable to purge completely the faculty of Heidelberg University of those individuals who had compromised themselves during the Third Reich. This study reveals some of the generally overlooked field level limitations on American post-World War II efforts to transform Germany.