Very soon after the program started, due to the emergence of the Cold War, the western powers and the United States in particular began to lose interest in the program, somewhat mirroring the Reverse Course in American-occupied Japan. Denazification was carried out in an increasingly lenient and lukewarm way until being officially abolished in 1951. The American government soon came to view the program as ineffective and counterproductive. Additionally, the program was highly unpopular in West Germany, where many Nazis maintained positions of power. Denazification was opposed by the new West German government of Konrad Adenauer, who declared that ending the process was necessary for West German rearmament.

  • HotDog7@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    I read that while denazification largely failed, the cold war got going and Germany realized they needed to pass pro-Democracy policies to garner aid from the rest of the free world. The next generation of Germans largely turned away from nazism and here we are today.

    Someone similar happened in Taiwan. The KMT under Chiang Kai-shek weren’t really pro-Democracy either, but they knew they had to steer policy in that direction to win international support.

    • bearboiblake@pawb.socialOP
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      13 hours ago

      The Israeli Knesset is democratically elected, too. Under capitalist economies, a democratic system just means that the state is for sale. I’d argue that’s why western-backed powers moved towards democracy, it’s a progressive-seeming veneer on the reality: these nations are functionally oligarchies, backed by US imperialism.