BRD: Denazification

Denazification:

Denazification (German: Entnazifizierung, French: Dénazification, Russian: Денацификация) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the National Socialist ideology (Nazism). It was carried out by removing those who had been Nazi Party or SS members from positions of power and influence and by disbanding or rendering impotent the organizations associated with Nazism. The program of denazification was launched after the end of the Second World War and was solidified by the Potsdam Agreement in August 1945. 

The term Denazification was first coined as a legal term in 1943 in the Pentagon, intended to be applied in a narrow sense with reference to the post-war German legal system. Soon afterward, it took on the more general meaning. In late 1945 and early 1946, the emergence of the Cold War, the economic importance of Germany and a lack of Allied manpower to run the Denazification effort caused the western powers and the United States in particular to lose interest in the program. The British relaxed restrictions on former Nazi Party members in October 1945 and April 1946 and handed Denazification panels over to the Germans in January 1946. The Americans relinquished control of the judicial Denazification of individuals in March 1946 and turned responsibility over to civilian tribunals under German administration. The French ran the mildest denazification effort. 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 hugely unpopular in Germany and was opposed by the new West German Government of Konrad Adenauer.

Overview:

Denazification in Germany was attempted through a series of directives issued by the Allied Control Council, seated in Berlin, beginning in January 1946. "Denazification directives" identified specific people and groups and outlined judicial procedures and guidelines for handling them. Though all the occupying forces had agreed on the initiative, the methods used for Denazification and the intensity with which they were applied differed between the occupation zones.  The term "Denazification" also refers to the removal of the physical symbols of the Nazi regime. For example, in 1957 the West German government re-issued World War II Iron Cross medals, among other decorations, without the swastika in the center.

About 8.5 million Germans, or 10% of the population, had been members of the Nazi Party. Nazi-related organizations also had huge memberships, such as the German Labor Front (25 million), the National Socialist People's Welfare organization (17 million), the League of German Women, Hitler Youth, the Doctors' League, and others.  It was through the Party and these organizations that the Nazi state was run, involving as many as 45 million Germans in total. In addition, Nazism found significant support among industrialists, who produced weapons or used slave labor, and large landowners, especially the Junkers in Prussia. Denazification after the surrender of Germany was thus an enormous undertaking, fraught with many difficulties.

The first difficulty was the enormous number of Germans who might have to be first investigated, then penalized if found to have supported the Nazi state to an unacceptable degree. In the early months of Denazification there was a great desire to be utterly thorough, to investigate every suspect and hold every supporter of Nazism accountable; however, it turned out that the numbers simply made this goal impractical. It soon became evident, further, that pursuing denazification too scrupulously would make it impossible to create a functioning, economically-efficient democratic society in Germany. Enforcing the strictest sanctions against lesser offenders would prevent too many talented people from participating in the reconstruction process. The Morgenthau Plan had recommended that the Allies create a post-war Germany with all its industrial capacity destroyed, reduced to a level of subsistence farming; however, that plan was soon abandoned as unrealistic and, because of its excessive punitive measures, liable to give rise to German anger and aggressiveness. As time went on, another consideration that moderated the Denazification effort in the West was the concern to keep enough good will of the German population to prevent the growth of Communism.

The Denazification process was often completely disregarded by both the Soviets and the Western powers for German rocket scientists and other technical experts, who were taken out of Germany to work on projects in the victor's own country or simply seized in order to prevent the other side from taking them. The U.S. took 785 scientists and engineers from Germany to the United States, some of whom formed the backbone of the U.S. space program (see Operation Paperclip).

In the case of the top-ranking Nazis, such as Göring, Hess, von Ribbentrop, Streicher, and Speer, the initial proposal by the British was to simply arrest them and shoot them, but that course of action was replaced by putting them on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials in order to publicize their crimes while demonstrating that the trials and the sentences were just, especially to the German people. However, the legal foundations of the trials were questioned, and most Germans were not convinced that the trials were anything more than "victors' justice".

Many refugees from Nazism were Germans and Austrians, and some had fought for Britain in the Second World War. Some were transferred into the Intelligence Corps and sent back to Germany and Austria in British uniform. However, German-speakers were small in number in the British zone, which was hampered by the language deficit. Due to its large German-American population, the U.S. authorities were able to bring a larger number of German-speakers to the task of working in the Allied Military Government, although many were poorly trained. They were assigned to all aspects of military administration, the interrogation of POWs, collecting evidence for the War Crimes Investigation Unit and the search for war criminals.

American Zone Application:

(American Zone of Occupation 1946 Denazification Certificate)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 directed U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower's policy of Denazification. A report of the Institute on Re-education of the Axis Countries in June 1945 recommended: "Only an inflexible long-term occupation authority will be able to lead the Germans to a fundamental revision of their recent political philosophy." The United States military pursued denazification in a zealous, albeit bureaucratic, fashion, especially during the first months of the occupation. It had been agreed among the Allies that denazification would begin by requiring Germans to fill out a questionnaire (German: Fragebogen) about their activities and memberships during the Third Reich. Five categories were established: Major Offenders, Offenders, Lesser Offenders, Followers, and Exonerated Persons. The Americans, unlike the British, French, and Soviets, interpreted this to apply to every German over the age of eighteen in their zone. Eisenhower initially estimated that the Denazification process would take 50 years. When the nearly complete list of Nazi Party memberships was turned over to the Allies (by a German anti-Nazi who had rescued it from destruction in April 1945 as American troops advanced on Munich), it became possible to verify claims about participation or non-participation in the Party.  The 1.5 million Germans who had joined before Hitler came to power were deemed to be hard-core Nazis.

Progress was slowed by the overwhelming numbers of Germans to be processed, but also by difficulties such as incompatible power systems and power outages, with the Hollerith IBM data machine that held the American vetting list in Paris. As many as 40,000 forms could arrive in a single day to await processing. By December 1945, even though a full 500,000 forms had been processed, there remained a backlog of 4,000,000 forms from POWs and a potential case load of 7,000,000. The Fragebögen were, of course, filled out in German. The number of Americans working on Denazification was inadequate to handle the workload, partly as a result of the demand in the U.S. by families to have soldiers returned home. Replacements were mostly unskilled and poorly trained.  In addition, there was too much work to be done to complete the process of denazification by 1947, the year American troops were expected to be completely withdrawn from Europe.

Pressure also came from the need to find Germans to run their own country. In January 1946 a directive came from the Control Council entitled "Removal from Office and from Positions of Responsibility of Nazis and Persons Hostile to Allied Purposes". One of the punishments for Nazi involvement was to be barred from public office and/or restricted to manual labor or "simple work". At the end of 1945, 3.5 million former Nazis awaited classification, many of them barred from work in the meantime. By the end of the winter of 1945–46, 42% of public officials had been dismissed.  Malnutrition was widespread, and the economy needed leaders and workers to help clear away debris, rebuild infrastructure, and get foreign exchange to buy food and other essential resources.

Another concern leading to the Americans relinquishing responsibility for Denazification and handing it over to the Germans arose from the fact that many of the American Denazifiers were German Jews, former refugees returning to administer justice against the tormentors and killers of their relatives. It was felt, both among Germans and top American officials, that their objectivity might be contaminated by a desire for revenge.

As a result of these various pressures, and following a 15 January 1946 report of the Military Government decrying the efficiency of Denazification, saying, "The present procedure fails in practice to reach a substantial number of persons who supported or assisted the Nazis", it was decided to involve Germans in the process. In March 1946 the Law for Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism (German: Befreiungsgesetz) came into effect, turning over responsibility for Denazification to the Germans. Each zone had a Minister of Denazification. On 1 April 1946, a special law established 545 civilian tribunals under German administration (German: Spruchkammern), with a staff of 22,000 of mostly lay judges, enough, perhaps, to start to work but too many for all the staff themselves to be thoroughly investigated and cleared.  They had a case load of 900,000. Several new regulations came into effect in the setting up of the German-run tribunals, including the idea that the aim of Denazification was now rehabilitation rather than merely punishment, and that someone whose guilt might meet the formal criteria could also have their specific actions taken into consideration for mitigation. Efficiency thus improved, while rigor declined.

Many people had to fill in a new background form, called a Meldebogen (replacing the widely disliked Fragebogen), and were given over to justice under a Spruchkammer, which assigned them to one of five categories:

V. Persons Exonerated (German: Entlastete). No sanctions.

IV. Followers (German: Mitläufer). Possible restrictions on travel, employment, political rights, plus fines.

III. Lesser Offenders (German: Minderbelastete). Placed on probation for 2–3 years with a list of restrictions. No internment.

II. Offenders: Activists, Militants, and Profiteers, or Incriminated Persons (German: Belastete). Subject to immediate arrest and imprisonment up to ten years performing reparation or reconstruction work plus a list of other restrictions.

I. Major Offenders (German: Hauptschuldige). Subject to immediate arrest, death, imprisonment with or without hard labor, plus a list of lesser sanctions.

Again because the caseload was impossibly large, the German tribunals began to look for ways to speed up the process. Unless their crimes were serious, members of the Nazi Party born after 1919 were exempted on the grounds that they had been brainwashed. Disabled veterans were also exempted. To avoid the necessity of a slow trial in open court, which was required for those belonging to the most serious categories, more than 90% of cases were judged not to belong to the serious categories and therefore were dealt with more quickly.  More "efficiencies" followed. The tribunals accepted statements from other people regarding the accused's involvement in National Socialism. These statements earned the nickname of Persilscheine, after advertisements for the laundry and whitening detergent Persil.  There was corruption in the system, with Nazis buying and selling Denazification certificates on the black market. Nazis who were found guilty were often punished with fines assessed in Reichsmarks, which had become nearly worthless. In Bavaria the Denazification Minister, Anton Pfeiffer, bridled under the "victor's justice", and presided over a system that reinstated 75% of officials the Americans had dismissed and reclassified 60% of senior Nazis. The Denazification process lost a great deal of credibility, and there was often local hostility against Germans who helped administer the tribunals. By early 1947, the Allies held 90,000 Nazis in detention; another 1,900,000 were forbidden to work as anything but manual laborers.

By 1948, the Cold War was clearly in progress and the US began to worry more about a threat from the Eastern Bloc rather than the latent Nazism within occupied Germany. The remaining cases were tried through summary proceedings that left insufficient time to thoroughly investigate the accused, so that many of the judgments of this period have questionable judicial value. For example, by 1952 members of the SS like Otto Skorzeny could be declared formally Denazified (German: entnazifiziert) in absentia by a German government arbitration board and without any proof that this was true.  The delicate task of distinguishing those truly complicit in or responsible for Nazi activities from mere "followers" made the work of the courts yet more difficult. US President Harry S. Truman alluded to this problem: "though all Germans might not be guilty for the war, it would be too difficult to try to single out for better treatment those who had nothing to do with the Nazi regime and its crimes." Denazification was from then on supervised by special German ministers, like the Social Democrat Gottlob Kamm in Baden-Württemberg, with the support of the US occupation forces.

Contemporary American critics of Denazification denounced it as a "counterproductive witch hunt" and a failure; in 1951 the provisional West German government granted amnesties to lesser offenders and ended the program.

Soviet Zone Application:

From the beginning, Denazification in the Soviet zone was considered a critical element of the transformation into a socialist society and was quickly and effectively put into practice.  Members of the Nazi Party and its organizations were arrested and put in internment.  The NKVD was directly in charge of this process, and oversaw the camps. In 1948, the camps were placed under the same administration as the gulag in the Soviet government. According to official records, 122,600 people were interned. 34,700 of those interned in this process were considered to be Soviet citizens, with the rest being German.  This process happened at the same time as the expropriation of large landowners and Junkers, who were also often former Nazi supporters.

Because part of the intended goal of Denazification in the Soviet zone was also the removal of anti-socialist sentiment, the committees in charge of the process were politically skewed. A typical panel would have one member from the Christian Democratic Union, one from the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany, three from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, and three from political mass organizations (who were typically also supportive of the Socialist Unity Party).

Former Nazi officials quickly realized that they would face fewer obstacles and investigations in the zones controlled by the Western Allies. Many of them saw a chance to defect to the West on the pretext of anti-communism.  Conditions in the internment camps were terrible, and between 42,000 and 80,000 prisoners died. When the camps were closed in 1950, prisoners were handed over to the East German government.

Even before Denazification was officially abandoned in West Germany, East German propaganda frequently portrayed itself as the only true anti-fascist state, and argued that 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. These accusations would be vindicated, as during the 1950s many former functionaries of Nazi regime were employed in positions in the West German government. However, East German propaganda also attempted to denounce as Nazis even politicians such as Kurt Schumacher, who had been imprisoned by the Nazi regime himself. Such allegations appeared frequently in the official Socialist Unity Party of Germany newspaper, the Neues Deutschland. The East German uprising of 1953 in Berlin were officially blamed on Nazi agents provocateurs from West Berlin, who the Neues Deutschland alleged were then working in collaboration with the Western government with the ultimate aim of restoring Nazi rule throughout Germany. The Berlin Wall was officially called the Anti-Fascist Security Wall (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by the East German government.  Not all former Nazis faced judgment. Doing special tasks for the Soviet government could protect Nazi members from prosecution, enabling them to continue working. Having special connections with the occupiers in order to have someone vouch for them could also shield a person from the denazification laws. In particular, the districts of Gera, Erfurt, and Suhl had significant amounts of former Nazi Party members in their government.

British Zone Application:

(British Zone of Occupation 1948 Denazification Certificate)

The British prepared a plan from 1942 onwards, assigning a number of quite junior civil servants to head the administration of liberated territory in the rear of the Armies, with draconian powers to remove from their post, in both public and private domains, anyone suspected, usually on behavioral grounds, of harboring Nazi sympathies. For the British government, the rebuilding of German economic power was more important than the imprisonment of Nazi criminals. Economically hard pressed at home after the war, they did not want the burden of feeding and otherwise administering Germany.

In October 1945, in order to constitute a working legal system, and given that 90% of German lawyers had been members of the Nazi Party, the British decided that 50% of the German Legal Civil Service could be staffed by "nominal" Nazis. Similar pressures caused them to relax the restriction even further in April 1946.  In industry, especially in the economically crucial Ruhr area, the British began by being lenient about who owned or operated businesses, turning stricter by autumn of 1945. In order to reduce the power of industrialists, the British expanded the role of trade unions, giving them some decision-making powers.  They were, however, especially zealous during the early months of occupation in bringing to justice anyone, soldiers or civilians, who had committed war crimes against POWs or captured Allied aircrew. In June 1945 an interrogation center at Bad Nenndorf was opened, where ex-Nazis and suspected communist agents were tortured with beatings, whippings, thumb-screws, cold, starvation, etc. A public scandal ensued but only one person was found guilty of neglect.

The British to some extent avoided being overwhelmed by the potential numbers of Denazification investigations by requiring that no one need fill out the Fragebogen unless they were applying for an official or responsible position. This difference between American and British policy was decried by the Americans and caused some Nazis to seek shelter in the British zone.

In January 1946, the British handed over their Denazification panels to the Germans.

French Zone Application:

The French were less vigorous, for a number of reasons, than the other Western powers, not even using the term "Denazification", instead calling it "épuration" (purification). They did not view it as critical to distinguish Nazis from non-Nazis, since in their eyes Germans were all to blame. At the same time, some French occupational commanders had served in the collaborationist Vichy regime during the war where they had formed friendly relationships with Germans. As a result, in the French zone mere membership in the Nazi party was much less important than in the other zones.

Because teachers had been strongly Nazified, the French began by removing three-quarters of all teachers from their jobs. However, finding that the schools could not be run without them, they were soon rehired, although subject to easy dismissal. A similar process governed technical experts.  The French were the first to turn over the vetting process to Germans, while maintaining French power to reverse any German decision. Overall, the business of denazification in the French zone was considered a "golden mean between an excessive degree of severity and an inadequate standard of leniency", laying the groundwork for an enduring reconciliation between France and Germany. In the French zone only thirteen Germans were categorized as "major offenders".

Brown Book:

In 1965, the National Front of the German Democratic Republic published what became known as the Brown Book: War and Nazi Criminals in West Germany: State, Economy, Administration, Army, Justice, Science. As the title would indicate, the presence of former Gestapo members in the Volkspolizei and ex-Nazis at all levels of the Socialist Unity Party was not covered. The book, among other things, mentioned 1,800 names of former Nazis who held positions of authority in West Germany. These included 15 ministers and deputy ministers, 100 generals and admirals of the armed forces, 828 senior judges and prosecutors, 245 leading members of the Foreign Ministry, embassies and consulates officials, and 297 senior police officers and Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution officials. The listing was inaccurate; many of the military names had not been Party members, as the armed forces did not permit its officers to join, while many low level Party members in other groups were overlooked altogether. As revealed by BKA official Dieter Senk in 1989, "today we know that [the] Brown Book didn't contain even approximately all the relevant names ... For example it mentions only 3 names from the BKA". [69] The book had a controversial impact in West Germany. Reflecting this, a judge ordered the seizure of the volume from the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1967.

Implications:

The culture of Denazification strongly influenced the parliamentary council charged with drawing up a constitution for those occupation zones that would become West Germany. This Constitution (German: Grundgesetz, Basic Law) was completed on May 8, 1949, ratified on May 23, and came into effect the next day. This date effectively marks the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany.

For the Future of Europe:

The end of Denazification saw the ad hoc creation initially of the Western Union (not to be confused with the commercial operation of that name) which would be institutionalised as the Western European Union in 1947 and 1955, with a broad socio-economic remit actually implemented in the strict domain of arms control.

Responsibility and Collective Guilt:

The ideas of collective guilt and collective punishment originated not with the US and British people, but on higher policy levels.  Not until late in the war did the U.S. public assign collective responsibility to the German people.  The most notable policy document containing elements of collective guilt and collective punishment is JCS 1067 from early 1945. Eventually horrific footage from the concentration camps would serve to harden public opinion and bring it more in line with that of policymakers.  Already in 1944, prominent U.S. opinion makers had initiated a domestic propaganda campaign (which was to continue until 1948) arguing for a harsh peace for Germany, with a particular aim to end the apparent habit in the U.S. of viewing the Nazis and the German people as separate entities.

Statements made by the British and U.S. Governments, both before and immediately after Germany's surrender, indicate that the German nation as a whole was to be held responsible for the actions of the Nazi regime, often using the terms "collective guilt" and "collective responsibility". To that end, as the Allies began their post-war denazification efforts, the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force undertook a psychological propaganda campaign for the purpose of developing a German sense of collective responsibility.

The Public Relations and Information Services Control Group of the British Element (CCG/BE) of the Allied Control Commission for Germany began in 1945 to issue directives to officers in charge of producing newspapers and radio broadcasts for the German population to emphasize "the moral responsibility of all Germans for Nazi crimes". Similarly, among U.S. authorities, such a sense of collective guilt was "considered a prerequisite to any long-term education of the German people". Using the German press, which was under Allied control, as well as posters and pamphlets, a program was conducted to acquaint ordinary Germans with what had taken place in the concentration camps. For example, using posters with images of concentration camp victims coupled to text such as "YOU ARE GUILTY OF THIS!" or "These atrocities: your fault!"

Immediately upon the liberation of the concentration camps, many German civilians were forced to see the conditions in the camps, bury rotting corpses and exhume mass graves. In some instances, civilians were also made to provide items for former concentration camp inmates.

Surveys:

The U.S. conducted opinion surveys in the American Zone of occupied Germany.  Tony Judt, in his book Postwar: a History of Europe since 1945, extracted and used some of them.

-          A majority in the years 1945–1949 stated National Socialism to have been a good idea but badly applied.

-   -  In 1946, 6% of Germans said the Nuremberg trials had been unfair.

-  In 1946, 37% in the US Occupation Zone said about the Holocaust that "the extermination of the Jews and Poles and other non-Aryans was necessary for the security of Germans".

- In 1946, 1 in 3 in the US Occupation Zone said that Jews should not have the same rights as those belonging to the Aryan race.

-  In 1950, 1 in 3 said the Nuremberg trials had been unfair.

-  In 1952, 37% said Germany was better off without the Jews on its territory.

-  In 1952, 25% had a good opinion of Hitler.

British historian Ian Kershaw in his book The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich  writes about the various surveys carried out at the German population:

- In 1945, 42% of young Germans and 22% of adult Germans thought that the reconstruction of Germany would be best applied by a "strong new Führer".

-  In 1952, 10% of Germans thought that Hitler was the greatest statesman and that his greatness would only be realized at a later date; and 22% thought he had made "some mistakes" but was still an excellent leader.

-  In 1952, roughly 33% opposed the assassination attempt of Hitler in the 20 July Plot in 1944.

-  In 1953, 14% of Germans said they would vote for someone like Hitler again.

End:

The West German political system, as it emerged from the occupation, was increasingly opposed to the Allied Denazification policy. As Denazification was deemed ineffective and counterproductive by the Americans, they did not oppose the plans of the West German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, to end the Denazification efforts. Adenauer's intention was to switch government policy to reparations and compensation for the victims of Nazi rule (Wiedergutmachung), stating that the main culprits had been prosecuted. In 1951 several laws were passed, ending the Denazification. Officials were allowed to retake jobs in the civil service, with the exception of people assigned to Group I (Major Offenders) and II (Offenders) during the Denazification review process.

Several amnesty laws were also passed which affected about 792,176 people. Those pardoned included people with six-month sentences, 35,000 people with sentences of up to one year and include more than 3,000 functionaries of the SA, the SS, and the Nazi Party who participated in dragging victims to jails and camps; 20,000 other Nazis sentenced for "deeds against life" (presumably murder); 30,000 sentenced for causing bodily injury, and 5,200 who committed "crimes and misdemeanors in office".  As a result, many people with a former Nazi past ended up again in the political apparatus of West Germany. In 1957, 77% of the German Ministry of Justice's senior officials were former Nazi Party members.

Hiding One's Nazi Past:

Membership in Nazi organizations is still not an open topic of discussion. German President Walter Scheel and Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger were both former members of the Nazi Party. In 1950, a major controversy broke out when it emerged that Konrad Adenauer's State Secretary Hans Globke had played a major role in drafting anti-Semitic Nuremberg Race Laws in Nazi Germany.[99] In the 1980s former UN Secretary General and President of Austria Kurt Waldheim was confronted with allegations he had lied about his wartime record in the Balkans.  It was not until 2006 that famous German writer Günter Grass, often viewed as a spokesman of "the nation's moral conscience", spoke publicly about the fact that he had been a member of the Waffen SS (even though his involvement appears to have been less than criminal; he was conscripted into the Waffen SS while barely seventeen years old and his duties were strictly military in nature). Statistically it is likely that there are many more Germans of Grass's generation (also called the "Flakhelfer-Generation") with biographies similar to his. Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), on the other hand, has been open about his membership at the age of fourteen in Hitler Youth, when his church youth group was forced to merge with them.

In Other Countries:

In practice, Denazification was not limited to Germany and Austria; in every European country with a vigorous Nazi or Fascist party, measures of denazification were carried out. In France the process was called épuration légale (legal cleansing). Prisoners of war held in detention in Allied countries were also subject to denazification qualifications before their repatriation.  Denazification was also practised in many countries which came under German occupation, including Belgium, Norway, Greece and Yugoslavia, because satellite regimes had been established in these countries with the support of local collaborators.

In Greece, for instance, Special Courts of Collaborators were created after 1945 to try former collaborators. The three Greek "quisling" prime ministers were convicted and sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Other Greek collaborators after German withdrawal underwent repression and public humiliation, besides being tried (mostly on treason charges). In the context of the emerging Greek Civil War however, most wartime figures from the civil service, the Greek Gendarmerie and the notorious Security Battalions were quickly integrated into the strongly anti-Communist postwar establishment.

An attempt to ban the swastika across the EU in early 2005 failed after objections from the British Government and others. In early 2007, while Germany held the European Union presidency, Berlin proposed that the European Union should follow German Criminal Law and criminalize the denial of the Holocaust and the display of Nazi symbols including the swastika, which is based on the Ban on the Symbols of Unconstitutional Organizations Act (Strafgesetzbuch section 86a). This led to an opposition campaign by Hindu groups across Europe against a ban on the swastika. They pointed out that the swastika has been around for 5,000 years as a symbol of peace. The proposal to ban the swastika was dropped by Berlin from the proposed European Union wide anti-racism laws on 29 January 2007.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification