Chapter 2 introduces the Fragebogen to analytical review and delivers the first history of the project’s origins. Here, analytical focus moves away from the policymaking architecture to the rudimentary construction of a functioning screening system. Tracing the questionnaire’s origins to 1943 Allied-occupied Italy, this chapter analyzes and compares the independent Fragebogen projects that emerged under American, British, French, and Soviet administrations and corrects previous interpretations about the scope and character of denazification. The decision to adopt a self-administered questionnaire was bold and experimental, but the Fragebogen was an inadequate mechanism for the complex task of judging Germans. The form was hastily written and contained both punitive and redemptive features, and by today’s standards, included undemocratic and arguably immoral questions. While trumpeted as a device for objective screening, the program allowed for subjective responses and discretionary evaluation. The development of the project did not show clarity and confidence, but stumbled forward out of necessity, indecision, and because of the absence of any alternative strategy.

In Chapter 4, the second vantage point of the book is introduced, that of the German citizen. It describes a record of how average men and women, from different backgrounds and living in different occupied territories, experienced the campaign to eradicate Nazism; how it impacted their daily lives and what they felt about it. Journal entries, private letters, newspapers, memoirs, and interviews chronicle much of the everyday denazification experience. An examination of on-the-ground activities reveals that the ideological cleanse was tethered to employment, and hence, political screening. If a shared denazification experience existed, it was the completion of Fragebögen. This chapter also shows that the consequences of denazification were more severe than what is often suggested. The form had the potential of permanently altering one’s material security, as well as professional and community status. Going through political screening was emotionally exhausting. This chapter includes a detailed case study of denazification experiences in Hersfeld (Hesse), a seemingly typical German district in the US occupation zone.

A comprehensive assessment of the Fragebogen is presented in the book’s conclusion, including speculation about the enduring effects of denazification on the two German successor states. The unexpected achievements of the zonal screening programs are measured against their many weaknesses and negative results. Consideration is also given to more recent ideological screening projects in different parts of the world, and the historical lessons ascribed to denazification. The book ultimately concludes that despite the many inherent and acquired problems of the Fragebogen screening program, it is difficult to imagine a denazification process that would have been more effective in achieving both the removal of Nazism as a practical political force and the transformation of the beliefs of individual Germans.

Chapter 3 lifts the unevaluated Fragebogen off the desks of planners in England and delivers it to American, British, French, and Soviet soldiers operating in Germany. It chronincles the implementation of the questionnaire program, beginning in 1945; how the form was distributed, collected, and evaluated, and what role it played in the larger military occupation. Accessing army field reports, military government records, newspapers, and published and unpublished first-hand accounts, a more intimate history of denazification administration is imparted. It is shown that the questionnaire was an indispensable thorn in the side of the military occupiers, one that pained them at every turn. The Allied armies and German commissions who oversaw the program did not have the expertise, resources, or willingness to see it through to completion. Still, denazification was a hollow shell without the Fragebogen. Most of what was visibly achieved—namely, the removal of thousands of incriminated Nazis from influential employment—was due to this screening device. From the moment invasion soldiers entered Germany, no matter what flag they carried, questionnaires were essential to the occupation regimes.