Very soon after the program started, due to the emergence of the Cold War, the western powers and the United States in particular began to lose interest in the program, somewhat mirroring the Reverse Course in American-occupied Japan. Denazification was carried out in an increasingly lenient and lukewarm way until being officially abolished in 1951. The American government soon came to view the program as ineffective and counterproductive. Additionally, the program was highly unpopular in West Germany, where many Nazis maintained positions of power. Denazification was opposed by the new West German government of Konrad Adenauer, who declared that ending the process was necessary for West German rearmament.

  • bearboiblake@pawb.socialOP
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    15 hours ago

    You realize I’m not a tankie, right? I don’t care to defend the USSR or East Germany in any way.

    the West German state was simply a continuation of the Nazi regime, employing the same officials that had administered the government during the Nazi dictatorship […] many former functionaries of the Nazi regime were employed in positions in the West German government.

    Gotta hand it to them, though, sometimes they do call balls and strikes.

    East German uprising of 1953 in Berlin was officially blamed on Nazi agents provocateurs from West Berlin

    While I’m sure there absolutely was popular opposition to the increased work quotas, I can believe that this might have some truth to it, too. There’s absolutely shitloads of evidence that Western powers love to turn civil unrest into uprisings and attempted coups in socialist and anti-imperialist countries.

    • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      Gotta hand it to them, though, sometimes they do call balls and strikes.

      What materialist analysis does to a MF