Posted on 04/24/2003 6:15:58 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
LONDON -- How can the Americans and British break the remaining grip the Baath Socialist Party has over the Iraqi people? The last time the Allies faced a comparable problem was at the end of the World War II, when the defeat of Germany left them with the task of re-educating a nation defeated on the battlefield but still saturated with Nazi doctrines. Just as Germany was successfully de-Nazified, the challenge today is to "de-Baathify" Iraq.* * *
Though there are obvious differences between Germany in 1945 and Iraq in 2003, the comparison is, even so, illuminating. As Bernard Lewis points out in his new book "The Crisis of Islam," the ideological origins of the Baath Parties of Iraq and Syria are to be found in Hitler's Germany. Arab nationalists were profoundly impressed by National Socialism, and they had the same enemies in the Middle East: the British and the Zionists. In 1941 the emergence of a pro-Nazi regime in Iraq was only prevented by a British invasion. After 1945 Baathism fell under Soviet influence, which only reinforced the movement's totalitarian characteristics. Baathism has, indeed, combined the Nazi and Soviet models, suppressing opposition by ruthless use of a secret police and, on occasion, massacres of entire towns, while propping up the dictatorship with militaristic propaganda.
In 1945 the problems of postwar Germany were at first sight even more intractable than those of Iraq. There were millions of displaced persons: slave laborers and former prisoners of war from all over Europe, German refugees fleeing from the East. The military governments had to run what were, in effect, dependent colonies lacking food, medicines, fuel and shelter. At the same time they had to satisfy domestic public opinion, which, as the concentration camps yielded up their hideous secrets, cried out for retribution and still felt menaced by the specter of the Third Reich.
The key concept was "de-Nazification." Dwight Eisenhower's staff had coined the term, which met with general approval but no agreement on its policy implications. Was the primary purpose purgative or prophylactic -- to identify the criminals and punish them, or to prevent a Nazi resurgence? By the end of the war some eight million Germans were interned; how could they all be interrogated and granted due process? How, in a country where most people were at least complicit with the ruling party, could the Allies distinguish between those who could be trusted with public responsibility and those who could not? As Noel Annan, one of the British "satraps," put it many years later, "Democracy in Germany could not be born unless it was delivered with the forceps of de-Nazification: but it was also important not to crush the infant."
In the end, despite criticism at the time and ever since, both the Americans and the British made a pretty good job of de-Nazification. Their chosen instrument was the notorious "Fragebogen" (questionnaire), which obliged virtually everyone under the military government to answer 131 questions about their political activities under the Nazis. This simple method was surprisingly effective, because failure to answer truthfully and in full meant automatic loss of ration cards and work permits. Character references might be offered in the form of an affidavit, but tribunals would investigate those they thought suspect and Germans who had suffered under the Nazis were not always ready to oblige with a "Persil token" (or whitewash). The philosopher Martin Heidegger requested one from his fellow existentialist Karl Jaspers, only to be reminded that his conduct as the Nazi rector of Freiburg University had been too notorious to be airbrushed out of history. Heidegger, like many other Nazi professors, was banned from teaching for several years.
In the U.S. zone, where de-Nazification was pursued most vigorously, three million out of 13 million who filled out the form were followed up. Former Nazis were divided into four categories, ranging from senior officials with a high degree of culpability to mere fellow-travelers. Punishments ranged from prison or labor camp (to which 9,000 were sentenced) to confiscation of property (25,000), exclusion from public office (22,000) or fines (more than 500,000). By 1948, when de-Nazification was phased out except for about 30,000 senior Nazis, the Americans had prosecuted nearly a million Germans, of whom more than 600,000 were penalized. In the British zone, only about two million were investigated, of whom 350,000 were excluded from positions of responsibility.
The ultimate penalty, capital punishment, was reserved for the most serious cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity: In all, 481 were executed by military tribunals, most famously at Nuremberg. In the Soviet zone, where de-Nazification was often a euphemism for class warfare, much larger numbers perished as the Nazi concentration camps were repopulated with the German upper and middle classes.
Some senior Nazis made themselves so useful in the Cold War that they were rapidly rehabilitated. The Federal Republic's chief architect, Konrad Adenauer, promoted a number of the ablest former Nazis. Two decades after the war, one of these, Kurt-Georg Kiesinger, even became chancellor. Many Germans and Americans disapproved of Kiesinger, but he was proof that the experiment of de-Nazification had succeeded: It was indeed possible to turn Nazis into democrats.
The Allied task was made easier by some distinctively German features. As the American psychologist Saul Padover observed, most records had survived because German officials preferred to burn people rather than paper. The German habit of obedience to authority enabled them to adapt rapidly in order to ingratiate themselves with the Allies. Pride in German culture had also not disappeared, even among the anti-Nazis. Within a few years something like normality had returned, with many Germans able to pick up where they had left off before Hitler.
Iraq lacks many of these advantages. The Baathists ruled for much longer than the Nazis, and it may be harder to establish the degree of their culpability. There is a certain impatience with the notion of de-Baathification on the part of the Allies. Within days of capturing Basra, the British Army was reported to be employing former Baathists as local administrators. The Iraqis are even more sensitive about being treated as an uncivilized Third World people than the Germans were. But if they want the power of Baathism to be broken, as incoming leaders like Ahmed Chalabi certainly do, they need the Allies to help them do it. In Eastern Europe after 1989, few former communists were punished and in several states they are back in power. The U.S. cannot afford to let Saddam Hussein's followers make a comeback.
There is an assumption on both sides that the occupation will be brief. This is unhelpful. It would be better if the new Iraqi leaders saw the coalition presence as an enduring one. In 1945, Harry Truman promised to leave Germany within two years. Despite all the vexations, past and present, that the Americans have endured in Germany, it is a good thing for all concerned that they are still there. Iraq, too, needs the Allies to stay. A little knowledge of the de-Nazification process would be of great use to the American and British commanders. One can only hope that the Allies know what a formidable task they are taking on.
Mr. Johnson is a columnist and editorial writer with London's Daily Telegraph.
The Shiite Mullah followers are the bigger problem, IMO. We could probably use the former Baathists as allies against the nutsoid theocrats who, incidentally, represent the majority of people in Iraq.
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