‘Many young people today are drifting in uncertainty,’ says the chairman. ‘Young people who belonged to the Hitler Youth or were forced into the SS and now today have to go without work on account of their past will this evening have a chance to question a representative of die Spruchkammern [the denazification courts] about the principles on which punishment is dealt out to members of their age-group.’
The old lawyer seems at first to be a typical example of those German lawyers who carry out their denazification duties with demonstrative reluctance. He emphasizes his reluctance by calling attention to the fact that the relevant law is American.
‘We are lawyers,’ he says. ‘Don’t spit on us. We must obey because the capitulation of Germany was unconditional and the Allies can do what they like with us. It’s no good trying to sabotage die Spruchkammern. It’s no good trying to falsify die Fragebogen [a kind of ideological equivalent of tax returns]. That only makes it worse for us and for you, since the Americans know who have been Nazis and who have not been. You complain that we work slowly, but in Stuttgart alone the courts must deal with 120,000 people. You write letters complaining that you are going to be sentenced even if you don’t admit yourselves guilty of any action to the benefit of Nazism. I answer — you promised the Führer unconditional loyalty and obedience. Wasn’t that an action? You swore blind obedience to a man you didn’t know. You paid four hundred marks a year in party subscriptions. Wasn’t that an action?’
The lawyer is suddenly interrupted by an excited youngster:. ‘But Hitler was a man the whole world recognized. Statesmen came here and signed treaties. The Pope was the first to recognize him. I’ve seen a picture showing the Pope shaking hands with him.’
The lawyer: ‘I can’t summon the Pope to my Spruchkammer.’
A young student: ‘No one helped us, not the professors, who now have so much to say. Not you lawyers, who are now going to condemn us. I’m a lawyer too. As a lawyer I accuse the older generation of supporting Nazism through silence.’
A young soldier: ‘All soldiers had to swear obedience to the Führer.’
The lawyer: ‘But Party members did it voluntarily.’
The soldier: ‘The responsibility is not ours, it doesn’t lie with the young people.’
The lawyer: ‘Never before in Germany has there been a party which demanded of its members that they should sign an undertaking of unqualified obedience.’
Excited voices: ‘No? Herr Staatsanwalt, look at today’s democratic parties!’ (These youngsters are in fact quite honestly convinced that membership of a party unconditionally entails the duty of obedience towards a leader.)
The lawyer: ‘It was an outrage, something unpardonable, a punishable offence, which today can be rewarded with six months’ imprisonment, and for officials up to five years.’
Excited voices: ‘No one told us that. We were fourteen then, Herr Advocat.’
The lawyer: ‘I have spoken with people who have more experience than you have and they were appalled that this could happen. Each person who has signed the undertaking of obedience has put himself in a perilous situation. You can be grateful that the Allies have come here. Would it be better if there had been a revolution and you had lost your heads?’
The rich young fellow: ‘Then we wouldn’t need any vitamins, Herr Staatsanwalt!’
The lawyer: ‘The law is a piece of good luck for you as former National Socialists. The law is mild since it takes account of youth, and youth, I may add, does not involve freedom from responsibility. You are responsible in the same way for a flower-pot that tumbles down from your window-ledge.’
The student: ‘Herr Advocat, let me say that you, the older generation, who kept silent are responsible for our fate in the same way as a mother who lets her children starve to death.’
The lawyer: ‘You know that those of you who were born after 1919 can be given an amnesty — that is, if you don’t belong to the most tainted category — those who made themselves guilty of maltreatment and violence. Besides, we who are older must also admit that Nazism did not deal improperly with youth. There are young people who look back with joy to their Hitler Youth days.’ (Murmurs of agreement.) ‘And one must remember as well that there was a dictatorship not only in Germany, but also in Turkey, in Spain and in Italy.’
‘Don’t forget Russia, Herr Advocat,’ someone calls out, then quotes word for word from a Churchill speech about Russian politics, ‘In that respect even the Nazis fell short.’
The lawyer: ‘The law applies to the entire population. It’s not a matter simply of paying a fine of a couple of thousand marks and being done with it. A mental readjustment is demanded, on the part of the younger generation as well. Don’t say any longer “We can’t do anything”, no matter how true it may be that no group of young people have been treated worse than you have been.’
Middle-aged SS man: ‘The first sensible word this evening!’
The lawyer: ‘The young and the old are in the same boat. Do we have a chance of bettering our lot?’
The audience: ‘Yes, we have — through us.’
The lawyer: ‘Do you think that the politicians in Paris can help us, running from one conference to the next without anything being achieved? It’s we who have to help ourselves. We must have patience. It was not only Germany that had unemployment in 1933, but it was Germany that had no time to wait. Now we must learn patience, for reconstruction needs patience.’
The Chairman: ‘Herr Advocat, weren’t we young people in the Hitler years inspired with a will to construct?’
The SS man: ‘We were idealists, Herr Staatsan-walt. We demand an amnesty for SS men. Everyone here knows how a young fellow became an SS man. Someone said “Karl, you’re a fine tall chap, you’re for the SS” — and so Karl was in the SS. Everyone fights for his country and regards that as something creditable, so why should we be punished for having fought for our Germany?’
The lawyer: ‘We lawyers are bound to our professional duty. The denazification law is our employer. Even I myself am slowly coming, it seems, to be regarded as nazified. The Americans have taken my house, my furniture too. So blame the law, not die Spruchkammern. Remember that we older people did not have a much easier time than you did. For twelve years we stood with one foot in the concentration camp and for the last six years the threat of bombing was over our heads both day and night. Not just youth but the whole German people are sick: sick of inflation, reparations, unemployment and Hitlerism. That’s too much for a people aged twenty-five. We lawyers have no prescription for recovery. We can do only one thing: try to apply the most lenient interpretations of the law, try to move the most tainted into the group of the less tainted; and be certain that we are doing all we can. We are doing our utmost for the younger generation, but in the first instance we are lawyers and according to the terms of the capitulation we cannot refuse to take due notice of the laws governing denazification.’