Thread by @SashRu88

1/ This tweet exemplifies how wilfully the voices of the so-called progressive left spread the propaganda of an authoritarian system once its narrative can be taken as a confirmation for their belief that there has been something like an innocent socialist alternative.

2/ The assumption of a "thorough denazification" of the GDR not only testifies to a completely insufficient knowledge of Germanys second authoritarian temptation, but also corresponds to a narrative whose apologists are already marginalized in the GER left sueddeutsche.de/politik/ddr-ve…

3/ While in recent decades historians have explored the totalitarian Nazi past & its reach in the FRG, contemporary GDR research has also been able to investigate the myths of socialist #Germany on the basis of the large stock of official state documents foreignaffairs.com/articles/weste…

4/ The so-called denazification of the SOZ was carried out in connection with the "anti-fascist democratic upheaval", which must be seen as a vehicle for establishing land & property reform in line with the Soviet ideology. The top priority was to secure the power of the KPD/SED

5/ The monopolization of the SED in state institutions of the GDR had a strong impact on the enforcement of denazification in eastern GER. it was strictly controlled by the Soviet satellites in the emerging GDR & excluded other parties or trade unions. bundestag.de/resource/blob/…

6/ The SED was confronted with the same sober reality as the FRG: to identify who was not a perpetrator within a totalitarian, genocidal regime & at the same time be confronted with the threat that too many outsiders endanger the new political project.

7/ Therefore the SED opted for a creeping integration of former Nazis into the new administration. The recruiters were required to commit themselves to service on behalf of the party of the SED. An opportunism well known by the Germans who lived under 12 years of Hitlers reign.

8/ Shielded from public opinion, in 1947 the reality was embraced that "professionals were indispensable for the functioning of administration and other institutions as well as for reconstruction". The official conclusion of denazification in the GDR ended on 26 February 1948.

9/ Lawsuits that had not been completed by that time had to be stopped While wellknown perpetrators were condemned in show trials like the Waldheimer Prozesse, many others were able to live undisturbed. The idealistic policy gave way to pure pragmatism.
bstu.de/mfs-lexikon/de…

10/ "In 1954, according to a calculation by historian Jan Foitzik, 27 % of all members of the SED had previously been members of the NSDAP & 32.2 % of all employees in the public service of the GDR were former members of National Socialist organizations." bpb.de/geschichte/deu…

11/ In order to provide these ppl. with a controlled political space, the block party NDPD was founded, whose demands were e.g. an end to the discrimination of simple NSDAP members as well as officers of the Wehrmacht & whose members were mostly former war prisoners.

12/ From a certain point in time only the propaganda war against West Germany was decisive. Here fascism was condemned as the final stage of capitalism and thus made the legacy of West German politics. The "genuine" antifascism of the GDR cleansed them of the entire German guilt.

13/ Dealing with the past in the GDR must always be seen in the context of authoritarian governance. A state-controlled discourse on denazification prevented a wide-ranging & autonomous debate within the private sphere of society & lead partly to a preservation of racist ideas.

14/ The idealism against fascism soon gave way to the functionality of relevant persons with an NS past for the Ministry of State Security, which recruited ex-Nazis as unofficial employees for the expansion of its surveillance network against the general population of the GDR.

15/ Due to their past, these could easily be put under pressure by the Stasi and used for operational activities against political dissidents. Thus the Stasi could learn from the relevant experiences in the security apparatus of the Hitler regime. bstu.de/mfs-lexikon/de…

16/ The freely accessible Stasi documents provide a comprehensive insight on how former SS men and even a Reichsbahn railway manager from Auschwitz were recruited as unofficial employees. bstu.de/informationen-…

17/ The GDR leadership did not hesitate to make use of the expertise of former NS doctors by integrating the doctors of Hilters euthanasia program, Jussuf Ibrahim or Rosemarie Albrecht, into the health system of the socialist republic. mdr.de/zeitreise/nazi…

18/ 16 of the leading generals of the GDR had previously served in the Wehrmacht. Vincenz Müller, who served as the last commander of Hitlers XII. Army corps, was a member of the NDPD and became chief of the main staff of the NVA in 1956. focus.de/politik/deutsc…

19/ This is only a small excerpt from contemporary research that contributes to debunking the myth of the "thoroughly denazified" GDR as propaganda. What judgement should be made on the quality of Norton's historical knowledge should be up to the reader.

20/ Hearing such a distortion of history from a German perspective makes me empathize with Syrians as well as Venezuelans who are struggling with the ignorance of a young US correspondent, while they have to struggle against their own rotten, authoritarian systems.

21/ The evaluation of the GDR as a system without fascism and Nazism is, however, a hard blow for the true anti-fascists of the GDR, who were discriminated by the Stasi like other political parties outside the recognized and controlled political spectrum. taz.de/Mitgruender-ue…