Editing Denazification (section)

==Surveys==
The US conducted opinion surveys in the American zone of occupied Germany.<ref name=Judt58>{{citation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aU8laRbSvrMC&q=%22Nazism+was+a+good+idea,+badly+applied%22&pg=PA58 |page=58|last1=Judt|first1=Tony|title=Postwar: a History of Europe since 1945|publisher=Pimlico|date=2007|isbn=978-1446418024}}</ref> Tony Judt, in his book ''[[Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945|Postwar: a History of Europe since 1945]]'', extracted and used some of them.<ref>[http://www.tomhull.com/ocston/books/judt-postwar.php Judt Book Review] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120712090627/http://www.tomhull.com/ocston/books/judt-postwar.php |date=July 12, 2012 }}</ref>
* A majority in the years 1945–1949 stated Nazism to have been a good idea but badly applied.<ref name=Judt58/>
* In 1946, 6% of Germans said the [[Nuremberg trials]] had been unfair.<ref name=Judt58/>
* In 1946, 37% in the US occupation zone answered "no" to the statement "the extermination of the Jews and Poles and other non-Aryans was not necessary for the security of Germans".<ref name=Judt58/>{{efn|1= [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification#:~:text=Gordon%20singles%20out%20the%20question See below] for further discussion of this finding.}}
* In 1946, 1 in 3 in the US occupation zone said that Jews should not have the same rights as those belonging to the Aryan race.<ref name=Judt58/>
* In 1950, 1 in 3 said the Nuremberg trials had been unfair.<ref name=Judt58/>
* In 1952, 37% said Germany was better off without the Jews on its territory.<ref name=Judt58/>
* In 1952, 25% had a good opinion of Hitler.<ref name=Judt58/>

British historian [[Ian Kershaw]] in his book ''[[The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich]]''<ref>{{cite book|author=Ian Kershaw|title=The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich|year=2001|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0192802062|pages=264–66}}</ref> writes about the various surveys carried out at the German population:
* In 1945, 42% of young Germans and 22% of adult Germans thought that the [[reconstruction of Germany]] would be best applied by a "strong new [[Führer]]".
* In 1952, 10% of Germans thought that Hitler was the greatest statesman and that his greatness would only be realized at a later date; and 22% thought he had made "some mistakes" but was still an excellent leader.
* In 1953, 14% of Germans said they would vote for someone like Hitler again.

However, in ''Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question"'', Sarah Ann Gordon notes the difficulty of drawing conclusions from the surveys. For example, respondents were given three alternatives from which to choose, as in question 1:
{| class="wikitable" style="margin-left:5px;"
|-
! Statement 
! style=width:5em |Percentage agreeing
|-
| Hitler was right in his treatment of the Jews:||{{right|0}}
|-
| Hitler went too far in his treatment of the Jews, but something had to be done to keep them in bounds:||{{right|19}}
|-
| The actions against the Jews were in no way justified:||{{right|77}}
|}

To the question of whether an Aryan who marries a Jew should be condemned, 91% responded "No". To the question of whether "All those who ordered the murder of civilians or participated in the murdering should be made to stand trial", 94% responded "Yes".<ref name=gordon2>{{cite book | last = Gordon | first = Sarah Ann | title = Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question" | publisher = Princeton University Press | date = March 1, 1984 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansjew0000gord/page/202 202–205] | url = https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansjew0000gord/page/202 | isbn = 0-691-10162-0 }}</ref>

Consequently, the implications of these alarming results have been questioned and rationalized; as another example, Gordon singles out the question "Extermination of the Jews and Poles and other non-Aryans was not necessary for the security of the Germans", which included an implicit double negative to which the response was either yes or no. She concludes that this question was confusingly phrased (given that in the German language the affirmative answer to a question containing a negative statement is "no"): "Some interviewees may have responded 'no' they did not agree with the statement, when they actually did agree that the extermination was not necessary."<ref name=gordon>{{cite book | last =Gordon | first =Sarah Ann | title =Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question" | publisher =Princeton University Press | date =March 1, 1984 | pages =[https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansjew0000gord/page/199 199–200] | url =https://archive.org/details/hitlergermansjew0000gord/page/199 | isbn =0-691-10162-0 }}</ref> She further highlights the discrepancy between the antisemitic implications of the survey results (such as those later identified by Judt) with the 77% percent of interviewees who responded that actions against Jews were in no way justified.<ref name=gordon/>