Mitläufer

The German term Mitläufer (plural: Mitläufer) refers to a public person or persons who are believed to secretly be tied to, or are sympathizers of, certain political parties, often controversial or radical ones. In English, it was most commonly used after World War II, during the denazification hearings in West Germany, to refer to people who were not charged with Nazi crimes but whose involvement with the Nazi Party was considered significant to an extent that they could not be exonerated for the crimes of the Nazi regime.

The German word Mitläufer has been in common use since the 17th century. It means literally "with-runner", akin to "lemming-like", a person who gives into peer pressure (this word is for instance used in German to describe a teenager smoking cigarettes to imitate friends). A Mitläufer is one who is not convinced by the ideology of the group they follow—they merely offer no resistance, because of a lack of courage, for instance, or opportunism.

The term is usually translated in English as "fellow traveler" or "hanger-on", but it is not equivalent to either. A German dictionary provides the English translation as “follower”. An English version dictionary defines it as "a passive follower”.

The German word Mitläufereffekt is derived from it. Mitläufereffekt, also called the Bandwagon-Effekt (bandwagon effect), refers to the effect a perceived success exerts on the willingness of individuals to join the expected success. For example, voters would like to be on the winning side, so they prefer to choose the candidate that they expect will win.

In the American Sector of Allied-occupied Germany, a "follower" (translated into German as Mitläufer) was the fourth lowest group or category in the denazification proceedings. The denazification hearings classified Germans according to five groups:

In Allied-occupied Austria, the Russian term poputchik (fellow traveller) was translated into German as Mitläufer, and they were considered to be "lesser offenders" (a person who, although not formally charged with participation in war crimes, was sufficiently involved with the Nazi regime to the extent that the Allied authorities could not legally exonerate them).

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