Denazification let former Nazis resume teaching while witnesses weighed career costs.

Evidence

Denazification proceedings are going on at the moment against Rector Platzhoff. The chairman of the court has written to tell me that he had heard I was here, and asks me to come and see him and assist him with the matter. But I shall have to give serious consideration to the question whether I should appear as the only real prosecution witness and make an enemy of the university. There is honour but no advantage in such affairs. There is no shortage of people who were pigs just as much as Herr Platzhoff was, and who have long since been allowed to go back to educating German youth. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 423

Categorization

• APHORISMS: ‘There is honour but no advantage in such affairs’ is a compact piece of practical wisdom about truth-telling under institutional pressure.
• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s earlier Frankfurt School material on denazification rewarding sympathizers and punishing resisters.