Between 1945 and 1949, a total of 329 court martials were conducted in the British occupation zone in Germany. In addition to German lawyers, 46 British officers took on a mandate as public defenders. German lawyers, British defence counsels, prosecutors and judges created a specific form of transnational cooperation in these tribunals.
At the heart of this study is the now largely forgotten role of British officers who represented alleged German war criminals in military courts and significantly shaped the public image of their clients. The study illuminates the defendants who were prosecuted and the crimes they were accused of on the basis of sources that have barely been explored so far, as well as the proceedings and the judgements of the 34 tribunals. In addition to the description of the tribunals, concepts of transitional justice provide further access to these military court cases and the British defenders who operated there—their backgrounds, their protagonists and, not least, their consequences.
Governance in the Brazilian Federal Public Defenders’ Office
