Afro-Germans, multidirectional memory and French colonial aphasia: The legacy of the First World War in Galadio by Didier Daeninckx

This article offers an analysis of mnemonic traces in Galadio, Didier Daeninckx’s 2010 novel. I demonstrate that by fictionalizing the history of the persecution of Afro-Germans under National Socialism, the novel exposes antiblackness as a neglected phenomenon of the Third Reich. Synchronously, applying Michael Rothberg’s theoretical framework, the article discusses the dialogue between Jewish and Afro-German legacies of violence in the novel, as well as the intricate relation between colony, camp and what Paul Gilroy defines as camp mentality. Furthermore, I argue that Daeninckx engages with French colonial aphasia: in my interpretation, his oblique approach to the French imperial past conveys its simultaneous presence and absence, which is key to disabled memory. Finally, I focus on the ethics of commemoration in Galadio, which claims space for black soldiers in French collective memory of the two world wars, yet at the same time challenges imperial loyalties and homogeneous approaches to French national identity.

Representing Shylock: The Performance History of Shakespeare’s Jew as an Indicator and Instigator of Cultural Change

Since its earliest performances, The Merchant of Venice garnered attention for its depiction of Shylock, the greedy Jewish moneylender who takes the protagonist of the play to court, demanding a pound of flesh. Over the centuries, depictions of this character have varied as much as the critical and popular reception to him. In the hands of each actor who newly embodies the character, Shylock can take the shape of a grotesque antisemitic caricature or a sympathetic anti-hero speaking truth to power. While Shylock began as a comic villain whose defeat allows the comedic resolution, almost all modern directors, actors, and audiences are forced to reckon with the cruel antisemitism voiced by the play’s protagonists. In tracing the performance history of this character from the turn of the 17th century, to the Third Reich, to his most recent incarnations, this research resists reducing Shylock to any single interpretation. Instead, this essay argues that Shylock serves as a reflection of the place and time in which he is performed, both an indicator of cultural attitudes and a potential instigator of cultural action towards oppression, justice, and representation of those deemed outsiders.

Niemiecka doktryna i judykatura wobec problemu odpowiedzialności karnej „sprawców zza biurek” — uwagi na tle koncepcji „Organisationsherrschaft”

The aim of the paper is to present the concept of Claus Roxin’s Organisationsherrschaft as an alternative to attributing criminal responsibility for crimes committed by Nazi “desk murderers.” This concept arose against the background of criticism, after the trials of Adolf Eichmann and Bohdan Stashynsky, of the particularly low number of convictions in similar cases and the numerous omissions of the entire German justice system. Under West German criminal law, a distinction made between those who order murder and those who commit murder on their own initiative meant that the above-mentioned perpetrators who passed on orders from above could only be found guilty of accessory to murder. The novelty of Roxin’s views, however, consisted in an attempt to combine the previous only individualistic perspective of criminal law with the idea of mass, bureaucratic murders. The traditional system of individual attribution of responsibility, as applied for ordinary criminality characterized by the individual commission of single crimes, must be adapted to the needs of collective responsibility, in which the organization (for example, an administrative structure) as a whole serves as the entity upon which attribution of criminal responsibility is based. The first part of the text discusses the main lines of argumentation presented by the West German jurisprudence in cases concerning high-ranking members of the state power apparatus of the Third Reich. At the same time, efforts were made to emphasize the lack of homogeneity of legal solutions presented in national criminal jurisdiction in West Germany and their unacceptable consequences. The second part is devoted to the basic theoretical assumptions of the doctrine of Organisationsherrschaft and its significance for the perception of the boundary between perpetration and participation in German criminal law. The third part briefly presents the contemporary reception of Roxin’s thought, as well as the main points of his criticism, indicating, however, how important it was to effectively prosecute decision-makers from the power apparatus of the Third Reich.

Retrospektywna perspektywa badań prowadzonych przez Alice Miller nad związkami czarnej pedagogiki i znaczeniem relacji rodzinnych dla kształtowania się postaw społecznych wspierających nazizm i faszyzm

A retrospective analysis of the conditions that influenced the emergence of Nazism and fascism indicates that one of the factors that fostered the emergence of both systems were specific family relationships and the upbringing currently referred to as black pedagogy. Alice Miller claimed that the full subordination of children to the will of adults, resulting from the use of mechanisms of black pedagogy, led to the subsequent political subordination, which was an element of social relations in the totalitarian system of the Third Reich. Miller noticed the roots of black pedagogy in the educational tendencies present in the German cultural circle as early as the 18th century, and she noticed ethnocentric conditions based on black pedagogy, also in the post-war period. The contemporary international legal standard for the protection of the subjectivity of the child should contribute to the creation of systemic and cultural barriers against black pedagogy and its consequences.

Sędziowie sądów specjalnych III Rzeszy i ich „zdrowe poczucie narodowe”

German lawyers jointly supported the National Socialist authorities, assuming that the law was Hitler’s will, resulting from the new criminal law being introduced, which violated the principles of nullum crimen sine lege and nulla poena sine lege. Judges of special courts (Sondergerichte) in the Third Reich applied criminal law according to a “healthy national sense” (das gesunde Volksempfinden), which usually meant heavy penalties, contrary to the elementary sense of justice. It was adopted as a rule that a crime is not only what is forbidden by regulations, but also everything that the authorities have not consented to. For any behaviour, even if not prohibited by law, the judges could sentence defendants to draconian punishments, at their “national discretion.” Law professors justified the lawlessness created in the Third Reich by claiming that it was a rule of law (Rechtsstaat). The criminal law for Poles and Jews of 1941 provided for the death penalty for all manifestations of “hostile attitude” towards the German occupier. Polish forced labourers in the Reich were punished with death for violations of discipline and disobedience to the German oppressors. Poles displaced from occupied Poland were assigned to work in enterprises and farms in the Reich. The special court in Breslau sentenced to death a Pole who defended his pregnant beloved woman, forced to work beyond her strength and abused by the German housewife, as well as the unfortunate woman herself. The same court sentenced a Pole to death for trying to protect his 13-year-old son from a German farmer, who was forcing the child to perform work he was physically unable to carry out. Special-court judges continued their professional careers in West Germany after the war and did not bear any responsibility for their crimes.

Turn the pain and affliction into thinking about the beauty

The article reflects on the importance of opposing Polish women - prisoners of the German Nazi concentration camp FKL Ravensbrück - to the practices of the German authorities (guards and medical staff of this camp) used against prisoners. One of the forms of opposing the totalitarianism of the Third Reich was secret teaching. At FKL Ravensbrück, female teachers taught fellow prisoners - “the rabbits”. This term was used to describe the women who underwent medical experiments in the camp: 74 Polish women and 12 women of other nationalities. Professor Karolina Lanckorońska found herself in the camp's conspiratorial teaching staff. The source base for the analysis are the war memories of female prisoners, including Dr. Wanda Półtawska and Dr. Urszula Wińska. The summary shows the issue of the protection of values by people subjected - against their will - to life in extreme conditions.

Hitler, for Example: Registers of National Socialist Exemplarity in Contemporary Germany

This article examines whether and how the figure of Adolf Hitler in particular, and National Socialism more generally, operate as moral exemplars in today’s Germany. In conversation with similar studies about Mosely in England, Franco in Spain, and Mussolini in Italy, it seeks to advance our comparative understanding of neofascism in Europe and beyond. In Germany, legal and discursive constraints limit what can be said about the Third Reich period, while even far-right nationalists often condemn Hitler, for either the Holocaust or his military failure. Here I revise the concept of moral exemplarity as elaborated by Caroline Humphry to argue that Hitler and National Socialism do nevertheless work as contemporary exemplars, in at least three fashions: negativity, substitution, and extension. First, they stand as the most extreme markers of negative exemplarity for broad publics that understand them as illustrations of absolute moral depravity. Second, while Hitler himself is widely unpopular, Führer-substitutes such as Rudolf Hess provide alternative figures that German nationalists admire and seek to emulate. Finally, by extension to the realm of the ordinary, National Socialism introduces a cast of exemplars in the figures of loving grandfathers or anonymous fallen soldiers. The moral values for which they stand, I show, appear to be particularly significant for young nationalists. An extended, more open-ended notion of exemplarity, I conclude, can offer important insights about the lingering afterlife of fascist figures in the moral life of European nationalists today.

Educational processes in Khmelnytsky region in the conditions of Nazi occupation (according to the materoals of the Proskuriv newspaper "Ukrainian Voice")

The article analyzes the course of educational processes in Khmelnytskyi region during the Nazi occupation. The main source for the preparation of the investigation was the materials of the newspaper "Ukrainian Voice", published in Proskuriv from 1941 to 1943. The content of the publications, contained in this magazine, is characterized, the attention is paid to the personalities involved in its publication. It is shown that many of the posts had a pronounced propaganda orientation. The education system in the region is characterized. Statistics on the number of schools in the Khmelnytskyi region, as well as student performance indicators are presented. It was found that in the field of schooling in the specified period there were a lot of problems: unsatisfactory condition of school premises, low attendance of students and lack of textbooks. It is proved that the authorities made significant efforts for the proper organization of the educational process - carried out repairs, imposed fines on parents who did not allow children to attend classes. Changes in school curricula after the establishment of the occupation administration in the region were observed. Emphasis is placed on the activities of the Medzhibizh Library. It is established that the school education system was used for the purpose of ideological influence on the local population. The activity of vocational education institutions in Khmelnytskyi region is analyzed. Features of their functioning are described. It is proved that the vast majority of them were represented by short-term courses and vocational schools. Based on newspaper materials, the features of the entrance campaigns in this period are analyzed. The level of material and technical support of educational institutions is characterized. Attention is paid to the activities of the Ukrainian Industrial Society in the field of education. The Kamianets-Podilskyi Teachers’ Institute was an important center for training teachers for schools in the Khmelnytskyi region during that period. Its role as an educational center in the region is highlighted. The number of students of this institution has been established. It is found out that obtaining a professional qualification at that time was usually paid. It is proved that in vocational education institutions specialists were trained in those sectors of the economy whose human resources were the most valuable in terms of their further exploitation in favor of the Third Reich.

Prawo osobowe na ziemiach polskich wcielonych do Rzeszy Niemieckiej podczas drugiej wojny światowej

The subject of this article are basic questions within the range of civil law. They concern the general position of a human and legal people in the sphere of this law on Polish territory, which was incorporated into the Third Reich. The position of individuals, the citizens of II RP, under the occupation of the Third Reich in years 1939–1945, is analysed by the author not from the perspective of literal meaning of regulations of general part of Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB) from 1896, but from the perspective of their specific interpretation, congruent with strategic and ideological purposes of the Nazi regime. In the article, the following issues are touched upon in turn: 1) personal law in terms of classical civil law contra national-socialist regime; 2) racism towards civil rights of a subjective individual; 3) elimination of the Jews from the legal relationships of civil law; 4) difficulties in the sphere of access to certain professions for Polish people and some restrictions upon personal rights; 5) the dependence of possibilities of exercising the private personal right on the consent to denationalization; 6) ban concerning getting married and the right to motherhood and fatherhood; 7) legislation of sterilisation and euthanasia. The formal changes in the legislation which were in force in the Third Reich — except for personal and family law (as well as legal rules connected with it regarding health protection of offspring), and “peasant law” (Bauernrecht) — were not significant, as is proved by the author. The old legal order was reversed in the Third Reich due to its new interpretation: classical concepts and legal institutions were filled with a different content. After the formal extension of BGB to territories incorporated into the Reich, which followed the decree of 25 September 1941 introducing German civil law, these territories became a field of social-political and racial-nationalist experiments, which in fact had a little in common with the German Civil Code’s regulations. A principle of equal access to private subjective rights was respected only in case of German people, i.a. the part which passively gave up to indoctrination. In relation to Jews, racism spoiled in this case the idea and concept of private subjective rights.

Großraum: teoretyczne uzasadnienie hitlerowskich podbojów czy nowy porządek prawnomiędzynarodowy?

The doctrine of “Great Space” is one of the basic conceptual categories in Carl Schmitt’s extensive and often inconsistent political and legal thought. Studying the extensive research on the life and work of this lawyer, carried out by representatives of various sciences and political orientations, we can get the impression that in comparison with decisionism, the characteristics of a receivership and sovereign dictatorship, looking for analogies between religious and political and systemic concepts referred to as political theology, the figures of the enemy and friend accompanying the Concept of the Political, Großraum remains the least thoroughly investigated. There are at least a few reasons for this, but the most important seems to be the reluctance that is constantly present in many circles, resulting from the strong relationship of this concept with the period of accession to the NSDAP and the conviction that its purpose is only to justify Nazi aggression during the Second World War. Meanwhile, the research problem is much more complex, and the Nazi episode alone in Carl Schmitt’s over 97-year-long life does not provide unambiguous conclusions among the authors who deal with his thought in their scientific works. The main purpose of this article is to determine whether the Großraum in fact justifies the Nazi conquests, or whether it may also be legitimate to claim that it is a vision of a new international legal order drawn up by a lawyer closely scrutinizing the surrounding political reality. An attempt to answer this question should be preceded by thorough considerations quoting the jurist’s attitude to the development and the hitherto nature of public international law. In this respect, it is crucial to analyze the breakdown of the ius publicum Europaeum, refer to the essence and purpose of the American Monroe doctrine, as well as thoroughly examine the concept of Großraum, which presents the researcher with a difficult task requiring its verification both politically and legally. The presented analysis will therefore take into account the historical, political, and legal levels and will implement the belief in the comprehensive nature of the issue under study. The final part of the article will include an analysis of the consequences of Großraum doctrine that led to the internment of Schmitt and the trial where the most important is his interrogation by Robert M.W. Kempner. All these issues will bring us closer to establishing the true meaning of the “Great Space” theory and shed new light on research devoted to Schmitt, dubiously described as the “crown jurist of the Third Reich”.