Modern View on the Overcoming of Nazism in West Germany in the Years 1945-2010

Abstract

The article is devoted to the identification of the stages and interpretation of the features of denazification in West Germany from 1945 to the 2010s. The article shows that denazification was not carefully thought out from the start, and the details that were most important remained the responsibility of the occupation authorities, whose interests included not only freeing Germany from the burden of the National Socialist past, but also post-war economic recovery, increasing subjectivity in relations with the GDR and the USSR, and building loyalty with Western countries. states, and therefore the process of denazification was doomed to remain superficial. The instruments of denazification – military tribunals, literary works, and commemorative practices – were initiated primarily within Germany itself and implemented inconsistently and conventionally. This led to the processes of victimization of memory, in which the German people began to act as the main victim of the Second World War, having suffered not only from the Nazi authorities, but also from the Soviet Union. Such processes continue right up to the present day and partially determine the state of the Western socio-political discourse on the conduct of a Special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine.