5 ms·

Yes. 1945 post-war Germany saw mass-censoring as part of the Allied de-Nazification program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification https://en.wikipedia.

Yes. 1945 post-war Germany saw mass-censoring as part of the Allied de-Nazification program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification "the US Army continued its efforts to denazify Germany through control of German media. The Information Control Division of the US Army had by July 1946 taken control of 37 German newspapers, six radio stations, 314 theaters, 642 cinemas, 101 magazines, 237 book publishers, and 7,384 book dealers and printers."

Alupis 6y ago
Propaganda isn't the same as censorship. It does not appear any of the Allies made it illegal to believe in Nazism, or to write about it, or even dare to own something from the Nazi era. Nonetheless, it's arguable these efforts were futile, likely misguided, and likely drove some to extremism as a result. You cannot simply compel a population to think a certain way. Instead, you must allow the "bad" ideas to be exposed in the public forum, and win over the population through logical arguments. Hiding them away does nothing to disappear them. Regardless, it's pretty well established the average German citizen didn't believe in the extremes the Nazi party had gone to anyway.
- notahacker 6y ago
  Oh, but the Allies did make Naziism illegal (the Soviets of course went further and made most other political speech illegal in their half of Germany) Not only did West Germany have denazification programmes, but things like denying the holocaust are still illegal in Germany today, as the article discusses. It's a bold claim to argue this was "futile" or "likely drove some to extremism" when the context was a reaction to the last war so extreme that it resulted in mass public support for a guy who blamed the Jews and geared up for a second war. Failing to defeat those arguments with logic drove an entire country to extremism, and there were a lot more people who still believed in those extremes in 1946 (even after suffering for them) than express sympathy for Germany's much watered down far right today. I doubt that would radically alter if they relaxed holocaust denial laws today, but there was certainly a time when public debate about whether the Holocaust was real or a big lie would have been useful to anyone wanting to follow in Hitler's footsteps and cast Germany as the victim. Of course, on the other side the GDR absolutely failed in its attempts to force people to love its state and not realise their friends and family in the West were richer and free-er than them. There were limits to the effectiveness of censorship in achieving those goals, even when the censorship itself was almost unparalleled in its pervasiveness and harshness. But sometimes not facilitating the discussion terrible niche ideas is much more effective at preventing them from going mainstream than debating them
  - Alupis 6y ago
    > Oh, but the Allies did make Naziism illegal You can be a Nazi in the US, UK and I'm sure pretty much anywhere in the world (except Germany) - and not go to jail, etc. So no, the Allies did not make Nazism illegal. Instead, they attempted to squash Nazism through propaganda (both domestic and foreign), and through spreading the truth about what Nazism had accomplished (Holocaust, among other atrocities). There's Holocaust Deniers roaming the streets of the US today - although they are in the extreme minority due overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In the end, the evils of Nazism led to it's demise, and the free trade of that information championed over censorship. As an aside, making Holocaust Denial illegal has accomplished nothing - we have Genocide occurring around the world today, including openly in China - the very same country US companies like the NBA and Disney are falling over each other to do business in. China, of course, denies it's a Genocide...
    - hef19898 6y ago
      With all the relevant criticism against German denazification, the policies and laws worked. Not just in Germany, but also in the other countries in Europe wih similar laws. That German laws failed to prevent genozid in other continents is to be expected, I guess.
      - Alupis 6y ago
        The point was those polices were not Censorship. I can buy Nazi paraphernalia today, read about Nazism on Wikipedia, purchase newly printed copies of Mein Kumpf, watch Hitler's speeches on Youtube, and more. The ideals of Nazism were defeated by openly exposing, and combating them with freely available information. Censorship would have been to pretend Nazism never happened, and banning of anything that might encroach upon "Right Think". And think what would happen if someone made Nazism illegal? What would that mean? What about some new group that calls themselves Izan's, but shares all the same ideas of Nazism? Would that be illegal too? You cannot ban ideas - someone else, at some point in time, will have the very same idea even if they do not know someone else had it first. Instead, you must fight with logic and exposure - expose bad ideas for what they are, and prove them wrong with logic.
tomjen3 6y ago
That of course leave the question, was it that that solved the issue or was it the end of the war, or the exposing of the camps (one might not like the local jew, not trust them in general, but still not want to mass murder them) or something else?

Alupis 6y ago

Propaganda isn't the same as censorship. It does not appear any of the Allies made it illegal to believe in Nazism, or to write about it, or even dare to own something from the Nazi era. Nonetheless, it's arguable these efforts were futile, likely misguided, and likely drove some to extremism as a result. You cannot simply compel a population to think a certain way. Instead, you must allow the "bad" ideas to be exposed in the public forum, and win over the population through logical arguments. Hiding them away does nothing to disappear them. Regardless, it's pretty well established the average German citizen didn't believe in the extremes the Nazi party had gone to anyway.

notahacker 6y ago
Oh, but the Allies did make Naziism illegal (the Soviets of course went further and made most other political speech illegal in their half of Germany) Not only did West Germany have denazification programmes, but things like denying the holocaust are still illegal in Germany today, as the article discusses. It's a bold claim to argue this was "futile" or "likely drove some to extremism" when the context was a reaction to the last war so extreme that it resulted in mass public support for a guy who blamed the Jews and geared up for a second war. Failing to defeat those arguments with logic drove an entire country to extremism, and there were a lot more people who still believed in those extremes in 1946 (even after suffering for them) than express sympathy for Germany's much watered down far right today. I doubt that would radically alter if they relaxed holocaust denial laws today, but there was certainly a time when public debate about whether the Holocaust was real or a big lie would have been useful to anyone wanting to follow in Hitler's footsteps and cast Germany as the victim. Of course, on the other side the GDR absolutely failed in its attempts to force people to love its state and not realise their friends and family in the West were richer and free-er than them. There were limits to the effectiveness of censorship in achieving those goals, even when the censorship itself was almost unparalleled in its pervasiveness and harshness. But sometimes not facilitating the discussion terrible niche ideas is much more effective at preventing them from going mainstream than debating them
- Alupis 6y ago
  > Oh, but the Allies did make Naziism illegal You can be a Nazi in the US, UK and I'm sure pretty much anywhere in the world (except Germany) - and not go to jail, etc. So no, the Allies did not make Nazism illegal. Instead, they attempted to squash Nazism through propaganda (both domestic and foreign), and through spreading the truth about what Nazism had accomplished (Holocaust, among other atrocities). There's Holocaust Deniers roaming the streets of the US today - although they are in the extreme minority due overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In the end, the evils of Nazism led to it's demise, and the free trade of that information championed over censorship. As an aside, making Holocaust Denial illegal has accomplished nothing - we have Genocide occurring around the world today, including openly in China - the very same country US companies like the NBA and Disney are falling over each other to do business in. China, of course, denies it's a Genocide...
  - hef19898 6y ago
    With all the relevant criticism against German denazification, the policies and laws worked. Not just in Germany, but also in the other countries in Europe wih similar laws. That German laws failed to prevent genozid in other continents is to be expected, I guess.
    - Alupis 6y ago
      The point was those polices were not Censorship. I can buy Nazi paraphernalia today, read about Nazism on Wikipedia, purchase newly printed copies of Mein Kumpf, watch Hitler's speeches on Youtube, and more. The ideals of Nazism were defeated by openly exposing, and combating them with freely available information. Censorship would have been to pretend Nazism never happened, and banning of anything that might encroach upon "Right Think". And think what would happen if someone made Nazism illegal? What would that mean? What about some new group that calls themselves Izan's, but shares all the same ideas of Nazism? Would that be illegal too? You cannot ban ideas - someone else, at some point in time, will have the very same idea even if they do not know someone else had it first. Instead, you must fight with logic and exposure - expose bad ideas for what they are, and prove them wrong with logic.

tomjen3 6y ago

That of course leave the question, was it that that solved the issue or was it the end of the war, or the exposing of the camps (one might not like the local jew, not trust them in general, but still not want to mass murder them) or something else?