Abstract
“Jump right in! What can happen to you,
You black sheep from the
brown house!
You’ll be painlessly rehabilitated.
You’ll come
out as snow-white lambs.
We know: you were never
involved!
(The others are always the guilty ones.)
How quickly
the bad turn into good --
Here you see it in black and
white.”
J. Menter
This caricature deals in an ironic, critical way with the problematic
results of the denazification program. Under the supervision of an
Allied officer of the occupation armies (above right, with a long list
in his hand), the “denazifier” in Bavaria (the Bavarian pennant is seen
at the left) turns “black sheep from the brown house” (the NSDAP
headquarters in Munich) into innocent white lambs, who now wear the
Christian cross around their necks and hold flowers. The inscription on
the machine suggests that the patent for the “denazifier” belongs to
Heinrich Schmitt, the Bavarian special minister for political
liberation, who was responsible to the American Military Government for
carrying out the denazification program. Observed by a group of
spectators (who apparently bear no political responsibility for the Nazi
crimes), the innocent lambs pass in front of the Bavarian government and
a representative of the church (middle of picture, in pulpit). The
banner at the left reads: “There will be more joy over one sinner who
repents than over ten righteous persons,” an ironic reference to Luke
15:7. Caricature by Max Radler (1904-1974) from
Simplizissimus (1946).