“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).