10 October 1945 -- Allied Control Council Bans Nazi Party and Begins Policy of Denazification

“The ‘I Was Not a Nazi’ Polka” -- The Chad Mitchell Trio

Every history student knows the old saw about the Holy Roman Empire being neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire. Rather, it was a largely ineffective coalition of literally hundreds squabbling  bishopric, kingdoms, counties, principalities, duchies, free cities, and various other political entities. It was a ramshackle affair whose borders were ever changing, usually to reflect the loss of territory, yet the Holy Roman Empire managed to somehow remain -- usually -- more or less cohesive despite its strategic location astride the North European Plain for seven and one-half centuries until Napoléon’s masterful victory at Austerlitz in 1805 shattered any pretense of empire. Thus ended the First German Reich.

Prussian Prime Minister, Otto von Bismarck, while conservative, was no slave to ideology. Bismarck’s rejection of ideological purity in favor of pragmatic Realpolitik would serve both him and Germany well. In 1871, Bismarck’s embrace of the practical enabled him to forge 27 kingdoms, duchies, principalities, and free cities -- remnants all of the Holy Roman Empire -- into the German Empire with the King of Prussia as Kaiser. In 1914, the bellicose and bombastic Kaiser Wilhelm II, rejecting all Bismarck’s teaching to avoiding unnecessary wars and shun imperial pretensions, plunged his empire into the Great War. Not a single empire on the European continent survived the four years and three months of bloody slaughter which followed. And so passed the Second German Reich.

On 30 January 1933, the rabble-rousing demagogue Adolph Hitler assumed the chancellorship of Germany, beginning immediately the rapid consolidation of power, and reshaping Germany into the malevolent stuff of nightmares. Learning nothing from the past, Hitler flung Germany into war on 1 September 1939. On 30 April 1945, Soviet troops literally yards from the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and his young bride of less than two days ended their lives together rather than fall captive to vengeful Josef Stalin. Suicide was properly the wiser option. A week after the Berlin Götterdämmerung that left the German capital a mass of ruins, ashes, and corpses, culminating with Hitler becoming one of the fifty-million or so human lives consumed by his insane military ambitions, the Third German Reich died with a whimper.

Each of the three Reichs perished ignobly in war, but beyond the means of their demise and German identity, they had little in common. The centuries-long of enfeebled emperors wrestling against the independently-minded states confederated into the Holy Roman Empire dominates the history of the First Reich. The Second Reich was an the expression of the fierce nationalism and pan-German sentiment awaked by the Napoleonic Wars. But the story of the Third Reich is the story of National Socialism.

Desperation often gives rise to extremism, and post-World War I Germany possessed a surplus of desperation. The seeds of the Nazi Party would be planted in fertile soil. It would begin with the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (The German Worker’s Party) or DAP, a small post-war right-wing political movement of no special importance. It membership consisted of disaffected extremists who gathered to discuss their mutual hatred of Communists, Marxists, socialists, Jews, liberals, capitalists, and the new Weimar government. Radical parties of both the left and the right were commonplace, and the DAP was a rather unimpressive example of the type.

Symbol of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

The DAP would be something less than a historical footnote were it not for the capricious cruelty of chance. In September of 1919, only eight months after founding this unimpressive party, Anton Drexler overheard a veteran of the recent war arguing politics in Munich’s famous Sterneckerbräu beer hall. Impressed by what he heard, Drexler approached the young man and invited him into the DAP. And so Adolf Hitler soon received DAP membership card No. 555.

Hitler's DAP Membership Card: Note that the card originally bore the number 555 although Hitler was actually the DAP's 55th recruit. The number was inflated to make the party membership appear larger than its actual size. Hitler would later have the "555" erased and replaced with a forged "7."

Hitler's talent for inflammatory rhetoric more than amply met Drexler’s expectations and exceeded them to a degree DAP leaders had not foreseen. Not only did Hitler's furious orations dramatically draw increasingly larger crowds to DAP events, but party regulars increasingly fell sway to the future dictator’s uncanny charisma. The authority of original party leaders declined to make room for Hitler's growing favor. As Hitler's popularity grew, he and his comrades realized that the DAP was an inadequate vehicle. A shuffling of leaders, a change of tactics, and some public relations ensued, and the DAP morphed into a new party encompassing all its parent’s vices and possessing the desire to add even more misdeeds to its legacy.

On 24 February 1920, Anton Drexler formally launched the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party), an awkward and unwieldy jumble of vowels and consonants commonly abbreviated as NSDAP. The new party’s name was a source of dissention from the beginning. Drexler, like Hitler, opposed the term “socialist.” Hitler himself prefered the party be called "Social Revolutionary Party." Czechoslovakian party member Rudolf Jung convinced Drexler and Hitler that “National Socialists” would have a broader appeal.

Contrary to everything we see in the movies, the Nazis rarely referred to themselves as Nazis. That was the term of choice among anti-Nazi Germans abroad and in English speaking countries, but it was rarely used in Germany proper until after the war. The Nazis themselves preferred Nationalsozialisten (National Socialists). The movement’s followers referred to themselves and each other as Parteigenosse or Parteigenossin (party member, masculine and feminine). One of the most misunderstood aspects of the National Socialist movement is its use of the word “socialist.” As stated previously, both Drexler and Hitler objected to the term, but finally relented. Its use reflected the party’s interest in the social welfare of Aryan workers, not an endorsement of socialist economic practices.

Despite its bold statements and fierce rhetoric, the new National Socialist Party was united only by its misanthropy. But all that was to change on 28 July 1921. Always a gambler and unhappy with the path followed by his fellow members of the party’s executive committee Hitler made his play for domination in the middle of that month. He simply tendered his party resignation, throwing the remaining party leadership into turmoil. Hitler was the party’s public face and most popular member. Even his opponents on the committee realized that without Hitler, the party would fade into oblivion. When asked to reconsider his resignation, Hitler agreed to return on one condition: He would replace Drexler as party chairman. The executive committee caved and with but a single opposing vote, Hitler became party leader.

But Hitler longed not only to dominate the National Socialist Party, but to reforge it into a reflection of his own will. The party’s executive committee was dissolved and opponents to Hitler’s agenda were expelled from the organization. Hitler was no longer the party chairman, but the Führer, or leader, a title he would retain for the remainder of his life. Party structure was reorganized according to the Führerprinzip -- “the leader principle.” Thus, party members recognized Hitler as the sole and unquestioned source of absolute authority. All party decisions flowed directly from Hitler himself or those designated deputies to whom he delegate some limited measure of power. Orders were to obeyed without hesitation and without reservation.

In 1933, Hitler achieved what most contemporary observers thought to be his ultimate goal. That January, he became chancellor. Parliament granted Hitler dictatorial authority in March.  By the end of July, Germany was a one-party state with Hitler at the helm of both party and state. Party began to overlap. In the first week of August, 1934, Hitler merged the positions of party leader, chief of state, and head of state into a single office: He would henceforth be the Führer of not simply the National Socialist Party, but all Germany. Unfortunately, most contemporary observers were mistaken. Hitler was only beginning. For 12 long years, the Thousand Year Reich tortured reason, conscience, and humanity.

On 1 September 1939, Hitler would invade Poland, igniting a fire that would burn across the globe. But Hitler the gambler overplayed his hand just as did Wilhelm II, and he lost it all. Hitler violated what I modestly call Larche’s First Rule of Warfare: “Never begin and then lose a total war.” Once the victors of 1945 were certain they had stamped out any remaining embers of National Socialist fervor, they turned their attention to restoring some measure of civil government.

The Allied Control Council, representing  the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, oversaw the dismantling of the Third Reich and its replacement by occupying forces. On 10 October 1945, the Council issued its Law No. 2, abolishing the National Socialist Party and prohibiting its revival among other things. By then, of course Nazi Party was effectively dead, slain in the same frenzy of violence that shattered the Germany. Tens-of-thousands of Germans had chose suicide over submitting to the victorious Allies, often slaying their entire family before taking their own lives. Some preferred death over living in a world without Hitler, others feared being subjected to the vengeance of their surviving victims. Some unrepentant war criminals awaited judgment by military tribunals. More than a few hardened criminals would shout “Heil Hitler” before the hangman sent them to oblivion. Even so, Germany was surprisingly subdued. The country seemed devoid of self-proclaimed Nazis.

That innocence frequently masked an illusion as this tragically humorous ditty by the The Chad Mitchell Trio suggests. Scratch the surface of far too many post-war Germans, and you would still find the Nazi beneath.

Wenn Sie durch Die Schone Deutschland gehen

Einen gesang werder Sie Horen

Es gibt eine kleine Melodie in Deutschland

Fur funfzehn oder Zwanzig Jahren

[Spoken:]

As you travel through Die Schone Deutschland

(Wenn Sie durch Die Schone Deutschland gehen)

A melody will greet your ears

(Einen gesang werder Sie Horen)

It's a melody that's been around in Deutschland

(Es gibt eine kleine Melodie in Deutschland)

For fifteen to twenty years

(Fur funfzehn oder Zwanzig Jahren)

Each and every German dances to the strain

Of the I was not a Nazi Polka

All without exception join in the refrain

Of the I was not a Nazi Polka

Goering was a crazy we wanted to deport

Sing the I was not a Nazi Polka

We all thought that Dachau was just a nice resort

Sing the I was not a Nazi Polka

The German is so cultured, he does not like to fight

The peaceful life is what he most enjoys

For years the German people were utterly convinced

I.G. Farben manufactured children's toys

I never shot a Luger or goosed a single step

Sing the I was not a Nazi Polka

Sing the I was not a Nazi Polka

Sing the I was not a Nazi Polka

- Was you not an SS guard?

- I was not an SS guard.

I was not a Nazi Polka

- Did you not love Ilsa Koch?

- I did not love Ilsa Koch.

I was not a Nazi Polka

- Did you not despise the Jews?

- I did not, some of my best friends..

I was not a Nazi Polka

- Did you not think Adolf great?

- I did not, Adolf who?

- Adolf who?

- Ja, Adolf who?

- Fritz, you're putting me on.

- Was bedeutet dieses 'putting me on'?

- Are you kidding me or something?

- Nein, I'm not kidding you. Adolf who?

- Adolf Hitler!

- Should I know him? Is he a folksinger?

- You don't remember?

- Nein, I don't remember him. Who was he?

- Well..

A little man, very mean, very loud and brash

- Mmm-mmm...

Not too tall, he never smiled, wore a black mustache

- Nein, I never heard..

He had a girl, Eva Braun, hair as red as flame

- Ah, ja, ja.

He papered walls for many years till his moment came

- Of course!

He's the one who clapped his hands, went into a dance

When the news came to him that we had conquered France

- That's him

He once said, when our flag proudly was unfurled,

"Today, Germany, tomorrow, the world! (Yeah!) Tomorrow, the world! (Yeah!) Tomorrow the world! (Yeah!) Tomorrow the world! (Yeah! Yeah!)"

- I never heard of him

- Neither did I

To our Israeli allies let us raise a toast

Sing the I was not a Nazi Polka

Sure there were some Nazis, two or three at most

Sing the I was not a Nazi Polka

We tried to throw off Hitler right from the very start

That's what every history book should tell

We hated Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann too

We believe as Sherman did that war is hell.. hell.. hell.. hell..

Heil!.. Heil!.. Heil!.. Sieg heil!.. Sieg heil!.. Sieg heil!!

Germans are as gentle as flowers in the spring

Sing the I was not a Nazi Polka

Germans are a people who love to dance and sing

Sing the I was not a Nazi Polka

[Spoken:]

Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You there, you are not singing.

You do not like to sing? Tell me, you still have a family in Germany, nicht wahr? Sing!

Sing the I Was Not a Nazi Polka

Sieg heil!