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American Denazification and German Local Politics, 1945–1949: A Case Study in Marburg

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John Gimbel
John Gimbel*
Affiliation:
Humboldt State College
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Extract

Reviewing the accomplishments of three years of American occupation in Hessen the military governor wrote in 1948 that “the time is not yet ripe for a final appraisal of the effects of Denazification. There can be no doubt, however, that…it was not as effective in its ultimate objective—weeding out anti-democratic elements—as it should have been.” Although the quotation implies a basically negative purpose for denazification, American military government had a positive purpose as well: to provide conditions under which a more democratic life could grow and flourish. To achieve the positive aim, political parties, trade unions, and other democratic institutions were encouraged to develop, with the enforced condition that they be, and stay, purged of Nazis. To achieve the negative goal, military government liquidated the Nazi Party and its affiliated organizations; arrested and detained influential Nazis and “other dangerous persons”; removed and excluded Nazi Party members “of more than nominal importance” from schools, public offices and private enterprises; eradicated Nazi symbols from public places; seized and blocked Nazi property; eliminated Nazi teaching materials from the schools; and punished those Nazis who had taken an active part in the organizations declared to have been criminal by the Nuremberg Tribunal. Both a transfer of power and a transformation of the political climate were intended; each seemed a necessary condition for the other.

Studies of the American program of denazification that have so far appeared are devoted chiefly to top-level analyses of the policy and its administration. The present study complements these by examining its impact at the lowest level in the military government's administrative hierarchy, in a single locality.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 1960 , pp. 83 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1960

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References

1 Office of Military Government for Land Hessen (OMGH), Historical Report, 1948, I, Narrative, p. 53 (mimeographed). The Office of Military Government for Germany (OMGUS) records are presently in the Kansas City Records Center, and are hereafter referred to as OMGUS Papers.

2 See especially Griffith, William E., “The Denazification Program in the United States Zone of Germany,” unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 1950 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herz, John H., “The Fiasco of Denazification in Germany,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 62 (December, 1948), pp. 569–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Napoli, Joseph F., “Denazification from an American's Viewpoint,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, No. 264 (July, 1949), pp. 115–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Plischke, Elmer, “Denazification Law and Procedure,” The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 41 (October, 1947), pp. 807–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zink, Harold, The United States in Germany, 1944–1955 (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1957), ch. 11Google Scholar; see also his earlier “The American Denazification Program in Germany,” Journal of Central European Affairs, Vol. 6 (October, 1946), pp. 227–40; and Edinger, Lewis J., “Post-Totalitarian Leadership” in this issue of this Review, above, pp. 58–82.Google Scholar

3 The research for this study was made possible by a Fulbright scholarship, a Carnegie Fellowship at the University of Oregon, and a grant-in-aid given jointly by the Board of Christian Education of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and Luther College, Decorali, Iowa.

3a Mayer, Milton, They Thought They Were Free (Chicago, 1955)Google Scholar, is a study of ten “little men” and their attitudes toward Nazism, the material for which was gathered in Marburg.

4 Landrat to Bürgermeisters, 4 Nov. 1949, Landkreis Marburg Papers, Marburg, Germany.

5 Irving, R. A., comp., “Chronology, M.G. Det. E1A2 (E-5), Office of Military Government for Hesse and Office of Land Commissioner for Hesse, 1944–1950,” (Wiesbaden: Office of the Land Commissioner for Hessen, n.d. typewritten)Google Scholar, in the files of the Office of the United States High Commissioner for Germany (HICOG), Mehlem, Germany. In September 1948 all Hessian Kreis special branch offices and tribunals were closed with the exception of eight Spruch- und Berufungskammern that were to complete the work.

6 Except where otherwise cited, the sources I have used for the description of the denazification program are Griffith; Zink; Herz; Friedrich, C. J., “Denazification, 1944–1946,” in Friedrich, et al., American Experiences in Military Government (New York, 1948), pp. 253–75Google Scholar; Kormann, John G., “U. S. Denazification Policy in Germany, 1944–1950,” (Mehlem: Hist. Div., Office of the Exec. Sec., Office of the U. S. High Commissioner for Germany, 1952, mimeographed)Google Scholar; OMGUS, Monthly Report, No. 34, April 1948, Denazification (Cumulative Review), 1 April 1947–30-April 1948 (lithographed); Pollock, J. K., Meisel, J. H., and Bretton, H. L., Germany Under Occupation, Illustrative Materials and Documents, rev. ed. (Ann Arbor, 1949)Google Scholar; and U. S. Department of State, Office of Public Affairs, Germany, 1947–1949: The Story in Documents, Publication No. 3556, European and British Commonwealth Series 9 (Washington, 1950).Google Scholar

7 Probably because they chose to err by doing too much rather than too little, cautious military government officers in the field dismissed more public servants than the directive required. The first military governor of Marburg has written that he removed “fully seventy-five per cent of the officials above the rank of clerk or laborer” during the first week. Many of them had not been Nazi Party members as early as 1933. Letter, 27 Jan. 1955, in possession of the author.

8 Military government detachments used such a questionnaire from the beginning of the occupation. As the directives changed, the questionnaire became longer. Because of its length when completely unfolded, Marburg's officials, in correspondence with each other, often referred to it as the Ziehharmonika (accordion).

9 “In general … Law No. 8 threw the denazification program into a state of confusion, uncertainty and flooding with work from which it never really recovered.” Griffith, op. cit., p. 105. When the Law for Liberation was made public in Marburg the number of questionnaires received by the military government detachment dropped off eighty-five per cent. OMG, Marburg, to OMGUS, Director of Intelligence, Subject: Weekly Intelligence Report, 23 March 1946, HICOG Papers, Mehlem, Germany.

10 I have been unable to collect completely reliable statistics, partly because denazification records are not open to private researchers. It is doubtful, however, that such statistics could be assembled, because local military government records have been partly destroyed, and because of the methods of denazification. Many persons in Marburg were denazified by higher headquarters. The Land military government detachment directed denazification of the railway, the post, telephone, and telegraph agencies, the university, and the churches. The Information Control Division denazified the press and the publishers. In individual cases, Land headquarters also denazified public officials in the Landkreis and the Stadtkreis.

11 OMGUS, Monthly Report, No. 9, 20 April 1946, Denazification and Public Safety, table 1, p. 8 (lithographed).

12 OMG, Marburg, to OMGH, Subject: Weekly Denazification Report, 7 December 1945, OMGUS Papers. The figure is approximately 8.8 per cent of the total population (1946). And see note 7, above. The discrepancy between the Marburg figure and the zonal average may be due to the fact that Marburg had an unusually large number of Army employees to process and also to the fact that many questionnaires were duplicates. The available statistics for the zone refer to individuals and not to questionnaires.

13 OMG, Marburg, to OMGH, Subject: Information Report No. 360—Political. Denazification or Renazification in LK-SK Marburg, 14 Dec. 1948, OMGUS Papers. When the Americans occupied Marburg the Landkreis employed 126 officials and employees and there were 127 Bürgermeisters. The city administration, including the police and the savings bank, had a staff of 266. The figures on removals do not show how many applicants were rejected for civil positions or for jobs with the American Army. Nor do they include the number denazified under Law No. 8 or those who were mandatory arrests.

14 Although there were many exceptions—e.g., Nazis who got their jobs through Party connections, businessmen and others—it is generally true that OMG denazification most often affected persons holding public office with civil service tenure. See Brecht, Arnold, “Personnel Management,” in Litchfield, E. H. and Associates, Governing Postwar Germany (Ithaca, 1953), pp. 263–93Google Scholar, for a discussion of the “vested rights” German civil servants enjoy and demand.

15 A public opinion survey in the American Zone in 1948 revealed that 84 per cent of the Germans who prefer government work to private industry chose it because of its security and pensions. OMGUS, ICD, Bad Nauheim, AMZON Views its Civil Service, 3. Prestige Value of Government Work, Opinion Surveys Report No. 164, 2 April 1949, OMGUS Papers.

16 Interviews with two such removed officials, Marburg, Germany, 4–5 June 1954 and 6 June 1954. One said he was in constant touch with his friends in the city hall. The other said he reported in about twice a month to see if he would be reinstated soon.

17 Landrat to Oberpräsident, Kassel, 29 June 1945, Landkreis Marburg Papers.

18 Interviews with two former Landkreis Political Committee members, Marbach, Germany, 15 June 1954 and Marburg, Germany, 21 May 1954; letter from former Po litical Committee member, 13 Sept., 1958, in possession of the author.

19 Interview with subject, Marburg, Germany, 5 June 1954; letters, 16 Sept. and 13 Oct. 1958, in possession of the author.

20 “Die Frage ist ob diesen Beamten für die Zeit ihrer sogenannten ehrenamtlichen Tätigkeit das volle Gehalt ausgezahlt werden darf.” Oberbürgermeister, Aktenvermerk, 9 November 1945, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers.

21 Interviews with two of the removed officials who worked in the tax office, Marburg, Germany, 4 June and 6 June 1954; letters, 16 Sept. and 13 Oct. 1958, in possession of the author. Both men gave essentially the same account.

22 Former Nazis and non-Nazis agreed on this point. The reasons they gave differed, however. Those who believed a social revolution would have been the only solution to Germany's problem naturally argued that the civil servants and the middle class were all Nazis—if not in fact, then at least in theory—and thus denazification provided no moral basis for social ostracism. Obviously, this view was expressed most consistently by Communists and leftist Social Democrats. Others, especially the conservatives, argued that Germans recognized that denazification was an unjust purge carried out by rogues (Lumpen) and opportunists.

23 Most of the Germans I interviewed in 1953 and 1954 gave as their greatest hardship the fact that they lost their income. When I reminded them, however, that they could buy hardly anything with their money in 1945 and 1946—in contrast with 1953 and 1954—and that they could secure more food by going onto the black market for one day than they could buy with a month's salary, they readily agreed. They acknowledged also that they could go to nearby farms and trade clothing, jewelry or other articles for food they could not buy in normal trade channels at any price. Faced with their own admissions most of them then agreed that they did not suffer from loss of income. Nevertheless, this was the standard first answer I received when I asked how denazification affected them personally.

24 OMGUS, Monthly Report, No. 3, 20 Oct. 1945, Trade and Commerce, p. 1 (lithographed).

25 Id., No. 7, 20 Feb. 1946, Manpower, Trade Unions and Working Conditions, p. 2 (lithographed).

26 Id., No. 20, 28-Feb. 1947, Manpower, Trade Unions and Working Conditions (Cumulative Review), 8 May 1945–28 Feb. 1947, p. 3 (lithographed).

27 Landrat to CIC, Marburg, Subject: Weekly report … 12 to 18 May 1946 (trans, by Landrat's staff), 18 May 1946, Landkreis Marburg Papers.

28 There were, of course, many other ways to acquire cigarettes and other items from American soldiers. Germans traded their cameras, their jewelry, alcohol, and other things directly to soldiers or to intermediaries for post-exchange commodities. Black market prices in 1945 ranged from RM 50 to 150 for twenty cigarettes, and RM 700 to 1200 for a pound of coffee. In 1947 they ranged from RM 90 to 120 for twenty cigarettes, RM 20,000 to 50,000 for a Leica camera, RM 30 to 35 for a bar of soap, and RM 150 to 300 for an American dollar bill. OMGUS, Monthly Report, No. 2, 20 Sept. 1945, Trade and Commerce, p. 6 (lith.); id., No. 27, Sept. 1947, Trade and Commerce, Aug.–Sept. 1947, p. 10 (lith.). Monthly German government salaries on 1 April 1948 ranged for officials (Beamten), from RM 137.58 to 1164.92; and for employees (Angestellte), from RM 89.09 to 886.68. Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1952, pp. 444–45.

29 Arbeitsamt to Staatspolitischer Ausschuss (SPA), 12 June 1945, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers; Paul Günther, interview, Marburg, Germany, 21 May 1954; Paul Günther, letter to author, 30 Sept. 1958, also said: “Important and influential officials during the Nazi regime who were dismissed by the occupation forces and then ordered to work in minor positions or to do physical labor obtained statements from reputable doctors that they were incapable of this form of labor.” Günther was a military government employee from 1945 to 1949.

30 Staatspolitischer Ausschuss (SPA) to Mr. Knoll, Subject: Entstehung, Entwicklung und Arbeitsgebiete des Staatspolitischen Ausschusses der Stadt, Marburg a/Lahn, 10 August 1945, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers; Hermann Bauer to Schulrat Tilgner, 30 March 1945; “Für Ordnung und Sauberkeit!” n.d. A ms. found in the Hermann Bauer Papers, Marburg (in Bauer's possession). The ms. bears 14 signatures. It was revised on 18 April and again on 20 April 1945; on the latter date it was printed for posting in public places.

31 Ludwig Mütze to Oberbürgermeister, 24 May 1945, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers.

32 Ludwig Mütze to Mr. Bernard, 19 June 1945, Ludwig Mütze Papere, Marburg (in Mütze's possession).

33 Hermann Bauer to Herrn Knoll, Subject: Wie man heute über die amerikanische Besatzung denkt, 10 Aug. 1945, Bauer Papers.

34 SPA, Gründe des Anwachsens der Abneigung gegen die amerikanische Militär-Regierung (Streng Geheim), 7 Nov. 1945, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers.

35 Thesen zur “Entnazifizierung,” 25 Oct. 1945, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers. The political committee endorsed the theses on 9 Nov. and resolved to forward them to German and American higher authorities. SPA, Minutes, 9 Nov. 1945, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers.

36 Marburg's political committee members were not Nazis in disguise. None of them suffered seriously under the Nazi regime with the exception of one whose newspaper was suppressed, but none of them had actively supported the Nazis. Most of them voiced criticisms of the Nazi regime, but usually to friends whom they could trust. As conservatives, with a stake in the existing social-economic system, they never forgave the Nazis their destruction of law and justice. Nor did they approve of the “democratic implications of Nazism,” which permitted the untrained, the uneducated, the lower classes (niedrige Schichten) to become important officials and social leaders because they were Party members. See Almond, Gabriel A. and Kraus, Wolfgang H., “The Social Composition of the German Resistance,” in Almond, Gabriel A., ed., The Struggle for Democracy in Germany (Chapel Hill, 1949), pp. 64–107 Google Scholar, for a discussion of the nature of conservative discontent with Hitler; also Ritter, Gerhard, Carl Goerdeler und die deutsche Widerstandsbewegung (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1954).Google Scholar

37 The Oberbürgermeister's actions aroused just such suspicion and he was subsequently arrested for falsification of his questionnaire, even though inclusion of the item itself would not have disqualified him from the office of Oberbürgermeister. Other officials, on the other hand, also failed to include some items on their questionnaires—some allegedly with verbal permission from military government officers—but were never brought to trial, probably because they appeared docile and seemed to obey military government orders.

38 Hans Frese to Erich Kroll, Subject: Tätigkeitsbericht No. 1 für die Zeit vom 23.4 bis 29.4.45, 30 April 1945, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers. Frese admitted to me that he used “severe tactics” in gathering his information. He said the SPA finally had him removed from his position chiefly because he was too “active” (rührig). Hans Frese, interview, Marburg, 3 July 1954. Although Frese does not consider himself to be a radical (letter to author, 7 Oct. 1958) his independent political and social views place him considerably to the left on the Marburg political continuum.

39 Interview with subject, Marburg, 12 June 1954.

40 The lists I examined are found in the Besatzungskostenamt (Occupation Costs Office), Marburg.

41 He was later arrested for car theft and eventually found guilty as a Nazi informer by the Marburg denazification tribunal. The other two investigators appear to have had no political connections, but one of them, military government later discovered, had a criminal record with 22 entries dating back to the early twenties.

42 Marburg's police chief in 1954 told me that when he came to the city to take office in 1947 the force was infiltrated with Communists. Alfred Klevinghaus, interview, Marburg, 22 May 1954; he is a Social Democrat.

43 It obviously referred to moral support rather than physical strength. SPA report cited above, note 34.

44 It will be noted how easily Marburgers used their conclusions to rationalize their own positions under the Nazi regime: If democracy is a fair-weather political system, perhaps dictatorship alone can fight Communism or get a nation out of a severe economic depression. If military government officers and men did not understand the essentials of their own political system, were they any different from Germans who were led by Nazis, not knowing where they were being led, but enjoying the benefits of Nazism? If Americans did understand, why did they not object to denazification as they expected Germans to

53 Herz, p. 570, stated that “what Military Government was expected to achieve was a revolution by legal means.” See also Marburger Presse, 27 Sept. 1947, p. 2 (guest editorial by Dr. Gumbel); Knappstein, pp. 663–77; Griffith, pp. 560–73; and Moskowitz, Moses, “The Political Re-education of the Germans: The Emergence of Parties and Politics in Württemberg-Baden (May 1945–June 1946),” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 61 (Dec., 1946), p. 535 Google Scholar, quoting a “middle-aged” German that denazification “if carried to its logical conclusion, will destroy a political, economic, social and cultural system much older than Nazism.”

54 I have already indicated the conservative character of the political leaders who formed the political committee early in the occupation. American representatives in Germany thought Marburg was an especially conservative, nationalistic community because of the influence of the university and because of its annexation to Prussia in 1866. One of the first military government representatives in the city wrote that the detachment entered Marburg believing that it was a “hotbed of Nazism.” Letter, 8 November 1954, in possession of the author. See also James K. Pollock's review of The Solution of the German Problem, by Roepke, Wilhelm, in The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 19 (Sept., 1948), p. 276 Google Scholar, for the statement that Marburg was a “nest of reactionary nationalism.”

55 A vast majority of Marburgers, including the Nazis, the “ohne mich” Germans, and the “kleine Leute” were, of course, closer in their sympathies to the latter.

56 They were the only four parties licensed at Land level. The Law prohibited locally licensed parties, like the National Democratic Party, from participating.

57 Marburger Presse, 23 July 1946, p. 7; Hermann Bauer to author, 14 Oct. 1958, in possession of the author.

58 SPA, Minutes, 5 Oct. 1945, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers. The use of such attestations and recommendations, which Germans later called Persilscheine after a leading brand of laundry soap, became so widespread after 1946 that the Marburg public prosecutor, a radical Communist who wanted to enforce the Law to the limit, wrote to the Marburger Presse ( Pohnke, Paul J., “Inflation der Gutachten und Reden,” 18 June 1946, p. 4 Google Scholar) that his office had been flooded with affidavits, letters of recommendation, and other evidence to assist the Nazis affected by the Law for Liberation. He pointed out that his task was made most difficult because those in higher social, economic, and political circles could present recommendations and references from respected persons, whereas the “kleine Mann” could not.

59 Marburger Presse, 2 Aug. 1946, p. 7. He told me, in 1954, that he believed it his duty to exonerate those who had made a mistaken political choice under Hitler, because they should not have been included in any denazification process. He had been one of the early military government appointees in the Landkreis administration. He had a clear anti-Nazi record, but he is no democrat in his social and political views.

60 Marburger Presse, 6 Aug. 1946, p. 5. The tribunal declared the administrative officer to have been non-political (ein unpolitischer Mensch).

61 OMGH, ICD, to OMGH, Subject: A Summary of Spruchkammer Decisions in Mar burg, 9 July 1946; OMGH, ICD, Intelligence Branch, to OMGH, Public Safety, Subject: Marburg Spruchkammer, with enclosures, 28 Sept. 1946, OMGUS Papers; Marburger Presse, 2 Aug. 1946, p. 7; 6 Aug. 1946, p. 5.

62 Marburger Presse, 3 May 1946, p. 7.

63 Hermann Bauer, interviews, Marburg, 14 and 16 June 1954; Marburger Presse, 1946–1948, passim, esp. “Vom Unmenschlichen zum Allzumenschlichen” (editorial), 3 May 1948, p. 2.

64 In this particular case he had the support of at least two conservatives, one of whom wanted to succeed the Oberbürgermeister. Hermann Bauer to Regierungspräsident Dr. Hoch, Kassel, 19 Sept. 1946, Bauer Papers.

65 OMG, L & S Marburg, to OMGH, Chief of Intelligence, Subject: Estimate of the Situation of SK & LK Marburg, 13 Dec. 1946, HICOG Papers.

66 Marburger Presse, 17 Sept. 1946, p. 1. He was never officially charged with that crime.

67 OMG, Marburg, to Director of Intelligence, OMGUS, Subject: Weekly Intelligence Report, 20 Sept. 1946, HICOG Papers; Bauer Papers, loc. cit. above, note 64.

68 OMGH, Marburg, to OMGH, Chief of Intelligence, Subject: Report No. 85, Denazification, 7 Aug. 1947, HICOG Papers.

69 Interview with subject secretary, Marburg, 20 June 1954.

70 Because American personnel changed so often, this special branch chief assumed complete responsibility for supervision at times. In 1947 the Liaison and Security Officer for Marburg told a field adviser that he had “no knowledge whatsoever of denazification” and consequently “the entire section [special branch] is being run by a German civilian chief.” OMGH, Denazification Division, to OMGH, Subject: Field Adviser's Report of Special Branch Marburg, 21 March 1947, OMGUS Papers.

71 OMGH, Inspector G. M. Gert, Subject: Annex to Denazification Field Inspection Report L & S Marburg, 6 March 1947, OMGUS Papers. For a provocative discussion of military government officers' private views on denazification see Dreher, Carl, “Close-Up of Democracy,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 22 (Winter, 1947), pp. 89–107.Google Scholar Dreher argues that American officers were a good cross-section of middle-class America and as such felt much closer to their German counterparts, the professional and business classes, though many of these were Nazis, than to the former inmates of the concentration camps or to the politically organized workers who had opposed Hitler's regime.

72 Military government rewarded him by classifying him as a Communist. OMG, Marburg, to OMGUS, Director of Intelligence, Subject: Weekly Intelligence Report, 11 Oct. 1946, HICOG Papers. It is evidence of something that the military governor did not even know the political preference of the editor of the only newspaper in the area. Bauer was one of the founders of the Liberal Democratic Party in Marburg, and as such signed the weekly party reports that were submitted to military government.

73 Marburger Presse, 1946–1948, passim.

74 OMGH, ICD, Marburg Outpost, to OMGH, ICD, Subject: The Denazification Trial of Dr. Hitzeroth, 19 Aug. 1948, OMGUS Papers.

75 Marburger Presse, 14 Feb. 1947, p. 3.

76 OMG, Marburg, to OMGH, Attention: Chief of Intelligence Division, 2 April 1948, HICOG Papera.

77 LDP Ortsgemeinschaft, Nordeck, to Geschäftsstelle der LDP, Marburg, Subject: Bericht über eine öffentliche Versammlung der Nationaldemokratischen Partei in Nordeck am 21.11.47, 28 Nov. 1947, Free Democratic Party, Marburg Office, Papers, 1945–1948.

78 The one-third figure is probably too low, because opposition to denazification, for various reasons, was much more widespread than among those directly affected.

79 OMGH, Inspector G. M. Gert, Subject: Annex to Denazification Field Inspection Report L & S Marburg, 6 March 1947, OMGUS Papers.

80 Gerhard Jahn, interview, Marburg, 12 May 1954.

81 Hans Frese, interview, Marburg, 3 July 1954.

82 Gerhard Jahn, interview, 12 May 1954, said “some Gemeinden lost fifty per cent of their membership in 1948.” A few of the losses in membership may have been caused by the deflation that accompanied the currency reform in 1948, which made it difficult to pay the party dues.

83 “Die grössten Schwierigkeiten und Hemmnisse kommen uns jetzt von denen, die als Emigranten in alliierten Uniformen herumlaufen.” OMGH, ICD, Marburg Outpost, to OMGH, Chief, ICD, Subject: Quotations from the Speech by Maria Sevenich, CDU, 1 July 1946, OMGUS Papers.

84 Marburger Presse, 5 Aug. 1949, p. 2.

85 Marburger Presse, 26 July 1948, p. 3; 30 April 1948, p. 2; OMG, Marburg, to OMGH, Attention: Chief of Intelligence, Subject: Information Report No. 62—Political, 18 Feb. 1949; OMG, Marburg, to OMGH, Attention: Chief of Intelligence Section, Sub ject: Information Report No. 85—Political, 9 March 1949, HICOG Papers.

86 OMG, Marburg, to OMGH, Attention: Chief of Intelligence, Subject: Monthly Political Activity Report, 3 June 1948; OMGH to Nationaldemokratische Partei, Marburg, Subject: Issuance of Permanent License, 23 July 1948, OMGUS Papers.

87 OMG, Marburg, to OMGH, Attention: Chief, Intelligence Division, Subject: Information Report No. 360—Political. Denazification or Renazification in LK-SK Marburg, 14 Dec. 1948, OMGUS Papers. The exact figures reported were 129 politically incriminated out of a total payroll of 462. The figures are for the city administration, the police department, the city savings bank, the school administration and the city power company. See also Oberbürgermeister Bleek to Militärregierung, Subject: Meldung aller Bediensteten, die Mitglied der NSDAP oder ihrer Gliederungen waren, with enclosures, 20 July 1948; Oberbürgermeister Bleek to Militärregierung, Subject: Bedienstete der Stadtverwaltung einschliesslich der nachgeordneten Dienststellen, die in Gruppe III oder IV des Befreiungsgesetzes eingereiht worden sind, 3 Dec. 1948, Stadtkreis Marburg Papers.

88 OMG, Marburg, to OMGH, Attention: Chief, Intelligence Division, Subject: Information Report No. 360—Political. Denazification or Renazification in LK-SK Marburg, 14 Dec. 1948, OMGUS Papers; Landrat to Militärregierung, 30 July 1948; 3 Aug. 1948, Landkreis Marburg Papers. The practice of dismissing incumbents to make room for previously dismissed officials became so widespread in Hessen that in October 1947 the detachments were ordered to report to higher headquarters each instance in which a capable, qualified person was dismissed to make room for a former removal. OMGH, Denazification Division, Subject: Dismissal of Politically Clear Individuals, 28 Oct. 1947, OMGUS Papers. Article 131 of the Bonn Constitution makes it legally possible to reinstate the former removals with full rights and privileges.

89 OMGH, Denazification Division, to OMGH, Executive Officer, Subject: Office Memorandum, 27 April 1948, OMGUS Papers.

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