Entnazifizierungsgeschichten. Die Auseinandersetzung mit der NS-Vergangenheit in der Nachkriegszeit

Lecture by Dr. Hanne Leßau (NS Documentation Centre Cologne)

The denazification of the first post-war years is still criticized today. Too bureaucratic and also a failure, according to a widespread judgment. Hanne Leßau, on the other hand, shows that it was precisely the often criticized Allied questionnaire, which millions of Germans had to fill out, that prompted many to come to terms with their own role in National Socialism. Private attitudes were set against the National Socialist system of coercion. Despite all the shortcomings, according to Leßau, this individualized form of confrontation helped to build a democratic post-war Germany.

Hanne Leßau is a historian and exhibition curator. She has been researching forms of individual confrontation with National Socialism since 2011. In 2018, she completed her doctorate in Bochum with the topic "Denazification stories. Dealing with one's own Nazi past in the early post-war period". Following exhibition projects in Lüdenscheid, Dortmund, Emden and Nuremberg, she has been working as an exhibition curator at the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne since 2020.