scholarly journals The Frankfurt trial (1963—1965) and overcoming the past in Germany

Lex Russica ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 146-158
Author(s):  
A. P. Grakhotskiy
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
German Society ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Mass Destruction ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Life Imprisonment ◽  
The Past ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
Post War

In the first post-war decades in Germany the problem of crimes of the Nazi regime was hushed up. Information about the flagrant crimes of the Nazis in the concentration camps was perceived by the Germans as “propaganda of the winners”. The Frankfurt process of 1963-1965 was an event that contributed to the understanding of the criminal past of its country by the German society. Before the court in Frankfurt there appeared 22 Nazi war criminals who were accused of murder and complicity in the killing of prisoners of concentration camps and death camps of Auschwitz. During the trial, horrific facts of mass destruction of people and unprecedented cases of humiliation of human dignity were revealed. The position of the prosecution was that the defendants voluntarily served in Auschwitz, realizing that the main purpose of the operation of the camp is the mass destruction of Jews, purposefully participating in the implementation of a common criminal plan. The defense adhered to the strategy that the defendants were only weak-willed executors of the orders of the highest Nazi leadership and were forced to commit crimes at the risk of their own lives. None of the accused pleaded guilty, and in their closing speeches they expressed neither regret nor remorse to the victims and their relatives. The verdict of the jury was soft: only 6 accused were sentenced to life imprisonment, the rest received various (from 3 to 14 years) terms of imprisonment, three were acquitted. However, the significance of the Frankfurt trial exceeds the purpose of the criminal punishment of the Nazi criminals. The process became a milestone in the course of overcoming by the Germans of their recent past, the awareness of the responsibility of German society for the crimes of national socialism.

Die Zukunft der Vergangenheit Richard Oelze (1900 – 1980) and Post-war Reflection

2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-155
Author(s):  
Eleanor F. Moseman
Keyword(s):  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Critical View ◽  
Repressed Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Word And Image ◽  
Visual Expression ◽  
Post War ◽  
Regime Analysis

Abstract The Surrealist artist Richard Oelze’s postwar enterprise was one of inner reflection and personal questioning linked to the broader project of coming to terms with the past. The essay takes a critical view of his artworks and his automatist Wortskizzen to assess the manner and extent to which Oelze utilizes his artistic practice as a mode of working through his, and Germany’s, complicity with the Nazi regime. Analysis of the Wortskizzen exposes how verbal probing informs Oelze’s visual expression of inner turmoil, while implied gaps and voids in paintings and drawings puncture space as well as time, illuminating memory and blending the past with the present. Oelze’s serious play with word and image in turn invites his viewers to release repressed memories through reflective contemplation.

scholarly journals Counteraction to Gangsterism in Ukraine in the First Post-war Years (1945-1946)

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Considerable Increase ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Psychological Consequences ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Practical Activity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
Post War ◽  
Social Organizational

In 1945-1946 the considerable increase of criminality was marked in a republic. The complex of reasons of political, social, organizational, economic and psychological character influenced on it. An author set that factors, that entailed this criminal phenomenon, were, : post-war devastation, enormous scarcity of goods of daily necessity, presence of far of weapon, that was in a population (as a result of battle actions), hunger that began in 1946, full unstrength of organs of militia, insufficient professionalism of her employees, mass migration of population, is demobilization of millions of servicemen, return of far of people from evacuation, captivity, concentration camps, psychological consequences of war, that formed at certain part of population habit to violence. Did not assist the improvement of work of militia also an erroneous criminal law doctrine, that dominated in jurisprudence of time of the Stalin totalitarian mode that criminality is vestige of the past, not inherent socialism and that is why her increase, - only a defect in-process militia. To the article the far of facts that testify to complication of criminogenic situation in an investigated period and frequent displays of gangsterism in the different regions of republic is driven. The features of the normatively-legal providing of activity of organs of law and order are exposed ; character of changes is educed in organization and skilled composition of militia of Ukrainian SSR in 1945-1946. Basic directions and features of practical activity of organs of internal affairs are analysed in a fight against criminality, the results of counteraction to the militia of gangsterism are shown in an indicated period. An author marks that to the fight against criminality considerable enough attention was spared in this period, activity of militia got better gradually, but on the whole this job performances substantially influenced on reduction of displays to gangsterism some later.

Rituals of Humiliation

2021 ◽  
pp. 46-64
Author(s):  
Edward B. Westermann
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
German Society ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Abusive Behavior ◽  
The Third ◽  
Killing Fields ◽  
The Third Reich

This chapter evaluates the significance of ritual and symbolism to the construction and manifestation of power under National Socialism. It underlines the importance of practices such as the mammoth party rallies at Nuremberg, the universal displays of the swastika on flags, pins, and armbands and the ubiquitous use of “Heil Hitler” as the standard greeting of the Third Reich under the Nazi regime. The chapter also contends that the creation of Nazi power was accomplished in no small measure by the use of ritual, and, in fact, ritual in the Third Reich served as an expression of “social power” that extended into virtually all aspects of German society. These celebratory events of Nazi power involved daily acts of verbal or physical humiliation of Jews, communists, and socialists, as well as organized and exemplary episodes of abusive behavior. Ultimately, the chapter studies the symbiotic relationship between violence, competition, and male comradeship and how it became manifest in the actions, rituals, and celebratory practices of Nazi paramilitary organizations through acts of humiliation by SS and policemen on the streets, in the concentration camps, and in the killing fields.

German archaeology and National Socialism. Some historiographical remarks

2005 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martijn Eickhoff
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Past ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
Academic Exchange ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Post War ◽  
Do So

This paper reconsiders German reflection on National Socialist pre- and protohistoric archaeology from 1933 onwards. It tries to do so by means of a case study of the academic contacts between the Dutch prehistorian A.E. van Giffen (1884–1973) and his German colleague H. Reinerth (1900–90). The approach adopted here differs from traditional historiographical writing on National Socialist archaeology in two respects. First, in its analysis of the academic exchange between the two scholars, the case study seeks to bridge the classical caesura between a pre- and post-war period. Second, contemporary and historical studies of National Socialist archaeology and archival sources, as well as interviews, have been incorporated in the research alongside the usual publications of the scholars involved. It is argued that with the approach taken here we may arrive at a more nuanced understanding of the different ways archaeologists have reacted to National Socialism over the past seven decades.

Longing for Purity: Fascism and Nazism in the Italian and German Satirical Press (1943/1945–1963)

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 464-494
Author(s):  
Dario Pasquini
Keyword(s):  
German Society ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
The West ◽  
Allied Occupation ◽  
East German ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
Post War ◽  
Sources Of Contamination

This article compares Italian and German memory cultures of Fascism and Nazism using an analysis of Italian and West- and East-German satirical magazines published from 1943 to 1963. In the early post-war period, as a consequence of the anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi policies in Italy and in Germany that had been put into effect by the Allied occupation authorities, a significant part of the Italian and German public felt anxiety regarding the Fascist and the Nazi past and feared these past regimes as potential sources of contamination. But many, both in Italy and Germany, also reacted by denying that their country needed any sort of ‘purification’. This article’s main argument is that the interaction between these two conflicting positions exercised different effects in the three contexts considered. In Italy, especially during the years after 1948, the satirical press produced images that either rendered Fascism banal or praised it, representing it as a phenomenon which was an ‘internal’ and at least partly positive product of Italian society. I define this process as a sweetening ‘internalization’ of Fascism. In East Germany, by contrast, Nazism was represented through images linking the crimes committed in the Nazi concentration camps, depicted as a sort of ‘absolute evil’, with the leadership of the FRG, considered ‘external’ to ‘true’ German society. I define this process as a ‘demonizing’ externalization of Nazism, by which I mean a tendency to represent Nazism as a ‘monstrous’ phenomenon. In the West German satirical press, on the other hand, Nazism was not only ‘externalized’ by comparing it to the East German Communist dictatorship, but also ‘internalized’ by implying that it was a negative product of German society in general and by calling for public reflection on responsibility for the Nazi crimes, including West Germany as the Nazi regime’s successor. The demonization of the regime also played a crucial role in this self-critical ‘internalization’ of Nazism.

scholarly journals The Trials and Significance of Nazi War Criminals and Collaborators in France

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Marshall
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Holocaust Survivors ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
World War ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Initial Wave ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
Post War

Following the trials of Nazi war criminals and collaborators that transpired immediately after World War II, decades passed before the trials of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and French collaborators Rene Bousquet and Maurice Papon. While the reason for the delayed trials differed in cause, the relevance of the trials is connected in their allowance for the resurrected testimony of survivors of German occupation and the subsequent holocaust. While the trials of Barbie, Bousquet, and Papon occurred long after the initial wave of post war convictions, their significance is compounded by the emergence of occupation and holocaust survivors that create a legal and historical record of the horrors of the Nazi regime and the function of French collaboration in its execution. 

scholarly journals Niemiecka Republika Federalna jako azyl dla nazistowskich zbrodniarzy wojennych. Analiza wybranych aspektów ścigania i skuteczności karania

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 65-84
Author(s):  
Kajetan Hamerlak ◽  
Sabina Bober
Keyword(s):  
War Crimes ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Pathological System ◽  
The Past ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
The Press ◽  
To Come ◽  
Post War

West Germany had to come to terms with its wartime past in order to function on the international arena. This topic was also widely commented on in Polish press. Poland, which was one of the countries most affected by the extermination policy of Nazi Germany, was inevitably interested in holding the Nazis accountable for their crimes. Moreover, the authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland wanted German crimes to be exposed all the time. In this way, the topic of Soviet crimes was avoided. Hence, the theme of punishment for Nazi war crimes was often discussed in the press. Many articles emphasised the pathological system of prosecuting the Nazis in West Germany, pointing to the post-war careers of the war criminals. Reluctance to face the past, exhibited primarily by the older generation, was also emphasised. The young generation of Germans, untouched by the war past, was to strive for moral renewal. It should be stressed that the post-war trials concerned only a small number of actual criminals, and the penalties were often disproportionate to the crimes committed.

REWORDING THE PAST: THE POSTWAR PUBLICATION OF A 1938 LECTURE BY MARTIN HEIDEGGER

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 575-602 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIDONIE KELLERER
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
The Past

In 1950 Martin Heidegger published his 1938 lecture “Die Zeit des Weltbildes” in the essay collectionHolzwege. He did so in order to document his “inner resistance” after the mid-1930s against the Nazi regime. This text has since been seen as evidence for Heidegger's early rejection of National Socialism and his refusal of a modern ideology that culminated in the totalitarian system. In spite of its influence, the published text has never been compared to the original lecture delivered in 1938. The assessment has now been made, and the differences between the two documents are a striking testimony to the artful falsifications that Heidegger used to re-establish his reputation and philosophical standing after the collapse of the Nazi system.

scholarly journals Konrad Adenauer as a German Statesman and Politician of Integrating Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-59
Author(s):  
Benon Gaziński
Keyword(s):  
Temporary Increase ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Life Activity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Imperial Germany ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Systemic Transformation ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Post War

Abstract The article is a synthetic outlook at Konrad Adenauer’s life, activity and the legacy of that politician, described in a tendentious way in the past period, and nowadays – after a temporary increase in the interest during the first years of systemic transformation – deserving a closer examination. In the initial part of the article, some integration concepts of past centuries have been outlined. Then, in a biographical sketch, Adenauer’s private and public activities were characterized, falling into diverse political periods, ranging from imperial Germany, to the post-war formation of the foundations of a reborn democratic state. His participation in these events is outlined. The main achievements of Adenauer during almost 30 years of work in the Cologne municipality are pointed out and the repressions he suffered during the Nazi regime and his participation in the post-war reconstruction of Germany were discussed: long-term leadership in the CDU and the 14-year period of government as the first chancellor of democratic post-war Germany. It was pointed out that the political line he designated, the active presence of Germany in the uniting Europe, proved to be very stable and continued by his successive successors.

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