Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany is a 2011 book written by Frederick Taylor that examines the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945 and the subsequent Allied occupation of Germany. The book traces the transition from total war to postwar reconstruction, focusing on the military defeat of Nazi Germany, the administrative challenges faced by the occupying powers, and the implementation of denazification policies across the American, British, French, and Soviet zones. The book's title draws on the obsession with Hitler and the people of Germany's veritable worship and mythologization of him as an infallible leader, a fixation that the Allied powers sought to eradicate from the nation's psyche.
Using archival materials that include governmental records and personal testimonies, Taylor explores the immediate postwar conditions of devastation, mass displacement, food scarcity, and social disillusionment and disorientation, as well as the political debates that shaped Allied policy. The work argues that the occupation and denazification efforts of the Allies were uneven, often contradictory processes influenced by competing strategic priorities and the emerging Cold War. Exorcising Hitler situates these developments within the longer trajectory of German political and cultural transformation, interpreting the postwar period as the beginning of a protracted effort to confront the Nazi past and establish a stable democratic society. Scholars reviewing the book have by and large, praised it for its quality and sobering look at post-war sociopolitical developments.
