| Description |
As part of the grander program of postwar reconstruction and Denazification, Europe sought recriminations against the men and women in the occupied territories who had accommodated the Germans - obeyed them, worked for them, believed them, killed for them, or even those who had complied by looking the other way while the Nazis beat, tortured, and murdered their ountrymen. These collaborators suffered grim and terrible reprisals from their neighbors and their governments once they were liberated from the Nazi menace. These individuals were seized, hunted, and arraigned by mobs and courts as Europe sought to purify its lands and souls. This exposition analyzes the motivations leading to the punishment of collaborators in liberated Europe after World War II, the development of the purges, and an assessment of those reprisals. The primary otivations for both the extralegal and legal purges involved an incredibly complex and intertwined amalgam of revenge, power and justice; colored by distinct national experiences during the war, popular demands, as well as political and economic realities. This analysis reveals how collaboration and retribution after World War II defies categorization with no easy patterns and no ready parallels, and that the convoluted development and results of the postwar purges were as varied as the population of Europe itself. Finally, this study concludes with an assessment and commentary on the purges, evaluating their results, their successes or failures, and the degree to which justice was achieved. |
