Mitläufer

... are people who, during the Third Reich, were merely ordinary Parteigenossen (PG) of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) and thus were not involved in the crimes of the Nazi regime.

Law on Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism of March 5, 1946,
commonly known as the Liberation Act (©Alexander Buschorn/Wikipedia)

After Nazi Germany’s defeat, the victorious Allied powers wanted to denazify the about 8.5 million members of the NSDAP. They established so-called Spruchkammern (denazification tribunals). These ad hoc courts classified all Germans into five categories based on their involvement in Nazi crimes. Here is what Wikipedia knows:

V. Persons Exonerated (German: Entlastete). No sanctions.

IV. Followers (German: Mitläufer). Possible restrictions on travel, employment, and political rights, plus fines.

III. Lesser Offenders (German: Minderbelastete). Placed on probation for two to three years with a list of restrictions. No internment.

II. Offenders: Activists, Militants, and Profiteers, or Incriminated Persons (German: Belastete). Subject to immediate arrest and imprisonment up to ten years, performing reparation or reconstruction work, plus a list of other restrictions.

I. Major Offenders (German: Hauptschuldige). Subject to immediate arrest, death, imprisonment with or without hard labor, plus a list of lesser sanctions.

To reduce the workload of the Spruchkammern, the Allied Control Council decided that members of the NSDAP born after 1919 were exempted because they had been brainwashed. Disabled veterans were also exempted.

Within Category I were the war criminals, whose leaders were convicted during the Nuremberg Trials and executed by hanging.

My loyal readers know that I was born in Essen and spent my early school years in the city on the Ruhr River. At the time, my parents and I lived in the Recklinghausen district, at Goldammerweg 4. There I had a friend named Ursula.

At Goldammerweg 6 lived a family with a son, Wolfgang, who was two years younger than me. My parents were such good friends with neighbors Eugen and Friedel B. that in the summer of 1940, we spent a vacation together at Kühlungsborn on the Baltic Sea.

From the right: Eugen, Friedel, Wolfgang, my mother, and father, Manfred.

Eugen was an architect, athletic, and a member of a fencing club. Friedel, also athletic, was the Westphalian breaststroke champion at the time.

From left to right: Manfred, Wolfgang, and Eugen on a walk on the Kühlungsborn promenade

I often saw my father, an engineer, sitting with Eugen in our living room. As far as I could understand as a five-year-old, they talked a lot about technology, especially cars. I also picked up on the fact that Eugen was a staunch Nazi.

 
He must have convinced my father to join the NSDAP during our Baltic Sea vacation.

Recently, the National Archives partially opened its Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 1675–1958, and so I was able to make a copy of my father‘s approved membership application.

Application for admission: October 22, 1940; admitted on January 1, 1941

Since I know that our Papi was a thoroughly apolitical person, PG number 8302911 was a Mitläufer.

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