Denazification in Postwar Germany: Questionnaires, Zones, and the 1951 Repeal

Key facts

• Denazification was adopted in 1945 as part of the Potsdam Agreement among the Allied powers
• Germany signed an unconditional Act of Military Surrender on May 7, 1945, effective May 8, 1945 (VE Day)
• The 1943 Tehran Conference produced the decision to partition Germany; the 1945 Yalta Conference assigned the occupation zones
• The Potsdam Conference of July–August 1945 ratified the postwar arrangements
• Allied Control Council Directive No. 24 of January 1946 established Spruchkammer tribunals across the four zones
• Five categories of culpability were defined by March 1946, ranging from Major Offenders to exonerated persons
• About 20,000,000 people completed the Fragebögen questionnaire, called the largest international survey in history
• Only 1.4 percent of those screened were classified as major offenders or offenders
• More than 400,000 people underwent automatic arrest between 1945 and 1950
• The United States and France issued a youth amnesty in August 1946 for people born after January 1, 1919
• Konrad Adenauer became the first chancellor of the new republic in 1949 and opposed denazification, which was abolished in 1951