Allied internment camps in occupied Germany : extrajudicial detention in the name of denazification, 1945-1950 /
Between 1945 and 1950, approximately 130,000 Germans were interned in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including in former Nazi concentration camps. One third of detainees died, prompting comparisons with Nazi terror. But what about the western zones, where the Americans, British and French also...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge ; New York :
Cambridge University Press,
[2020]
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| Summary: | Between 1945 and 1950, approximately 130,000 Germans were interned in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including in former Nazi concentration camps. One third of detainees died, prompting comparisons with Nazi terror. But what about the western zones, where the Americans, British and French also detained hundreds of thousands of Germans without trial? This first indepth study compares internment by all four occupying powers, asking who was interned, how they were treated and when and why they were arrested and released. It confirms the incomparably appalling conditions and death rates in the Soviet camps but identifies similarities in other respects. Andrew H. Beattie argues that internment everywhere was an inherently extrajudicial measure with punitive and preventative dimensions that aimed to eradicate Nazism and create a new Germany. By recognizing its true nature and extent, he suggests that denazification was more severe and coercive but also more differentiated and complex than previously thought. |
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| Physical Description: | xii, 248 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 210-239) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781108487634 1108487637 9781108720731 1108720730 |