9 - ‘Aryanisation’ in Central Europe, 1933–1939: a preliminary account for Germany (the ‘Altreich’), Austria and the ‘Sudeten’ area

Summary

Despite its political importance, the history of the European Jews between 1933 and 1945 was for decades after the Second World War a largely neglected area. German public opinion during the 1950s and 1960s was almost unanimous in rejecting the responsibility of the German people for the crimes which were committed against the Jews ‘in the German name’. While only a small minority flatly rejected the murder of about 6 million Jews and while German war crimes (including the Holocaust) were offset only under the surface against the bombing of German cities by the Anglo-Saxons and the expulsion of the German population from Poland and Czechoslovakia after the war, the Nuremberg War Tribunal was largely regarded as ‘Siegerjustiz’ (victors' justice) and the German courts were very negligent when it came to sentencing German war criminals. The German public during the 1950s was even more concerned about the perpetrators in prison than about the victims and their right to compensation.

Such an atmosphere scarcely allowed the mainstream historical sciences in (West) Germany to scrutinise the full extent of the involvement of the German people in the plunder, expulsion and murder of the Jewish population in Germany and in the German-occupied areas. But during the late 1960s and 1970s the situation changed. A new generation of historians began to be interested in German–Jewish history – not only before, but also during the Nazi era.