Denazification was already disliked before it had even begun. The district administrator of Weilheim described the situation in March 1946. "The purge law was disappointing in that it went too far for the group of people it covered. This would mean that the internal pacification of the German people, who are already worn down and paralyzed by the worry about prisoners of war and missing relatives, the destruction of homes and the insecurity in all areas, would be postponed for a long time. The burden of millions of second-class people, especially in their prime, is a heavy burden on the future of the German people." In 1948, the Weilheim police described the mood as follows: "The population no longer has any understanding for denazification. They are aware that denazification is not intended to purify the German people of criminals, but solely to exploit the people and play them off against each other. If justice is being spoken of, why hang the little ones and let the big ones go? One does not want to understand how it is possible that the most influential men of the Third Reich, such as Schacht, who helped to start the cursed war, are exonerated, while a small party member who had no influence on the whole conflict is branded a criminal, and this small party member is often even deprived of his little fortune in order to cover perhaps unnecessary expenses." Almost all of the Murnau residents who have to answer to the Weilheim tribunal are classified as fellow travelers, some only reach this category at the appeal hearing in Munich.