A few annotations regarding ”denazification”
After the end of the war the occupying powers started the process of denazification
among the adult population of Germany. The respective occupation zones applied
different concepts. Within the American zone every suspect older than 18 had to
fill out a questionnaire containing 131 questions. On the basis of this questionnaire
people were divided up into five different groups: Major offenders, offenders,
lesser offenders, sympathizers, and exonerated persons. The arbitration board for
this necessary, however, in practice rather dubious undertaking was the so called
”Spruchkammer” (German tribunals), which was supervised by the Allied powers.
36) For each person who had to appear before the ”Spruchkammer” it was
important to present exonerating evidence in order to be favorably categorized.
These certificates were called ”Persilscheine” in the vernacular. Blameless
behavior towards Jewish fellow citizens was considered quite obviously as very
impressive evidence. It was not only a few people who asked Joseph Strauss for one
of these exonerating certificates to be presented to the ”Spruchkammer”.
Whenever Joseph could accept responsibility for it, especially if he knew a person
rather well, as it was the case with the person aforementioned, he would make out
such a certificate, as the following example will tell: