Nazi Crimes and the Law

by Nathan Stoltzfus, Henry Friedlander

Overview

This book examines the use of national and international law to prosecute Nazi crimes, the centerpiece of twentieth-century state-sponsored genocide and mass murder crimes, the paradigmatic instance of state-sponsored criminality and genocide in the twentieth century. Its various essays, the contributors reconstruct the historical historical setting of the crimes committed under the aegis of the Nazi regime and examine why postwar adjudication took place only within limits, within the national and international judicial forums responsible for prosecuting perpetrators. The topics discussed include the impact of the Nazi justice system on postwar justice, postwar legal proceedings against those who committed war crimes and genocide, the work of the Nuremberg tribunal and Allied trials, and judicial investigations and prosecutions in East Germany, West Germany, and Austria. They span the postwar period up to contemporary U.S. legal efforts to deport Nazi criminals within its borders and libel trials against Holocaust denials in London and Canadian courts and libel suits brought by Holocaust deniers in British and Canadian courts, and they reveal new perspectives on the present and future implications of these trials.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521899741
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/06/2008
Series:	Publications of the German Historical Institute
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Nathan Stoltzfus is currently Associate Professor of Modern European History at Florida State University. He has authored, co-authored, or edited four books, including Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany (1996), Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany (2001), Shades of Green: Environmental Activism around the Globe (2006) Courageous Resistance: The Power of Ordinary People (2007). His articles have appeared in publications including Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Central European History, The Atlantic Monthly, Die Zeit. He was named an H. F. Guggenheim Foundation Research Scholar and has received research grants from the Fulbright Commission, IREX, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the German Academic Exchange Commission (DAAD), and the Albert Einstein Institution.

Henry Friedlander is a retired professor of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He is the author of The German Revolution of 1918 (1968/1992) and The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (1995) which received the Bruno Brand Tolerance Book Award, and DAAD Book Prize. He is also a co-editor of Archives of the Holocaust (26 volumes, 1990–5, with Sybil Milton), and has received numerous research grants, most recently the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Ruth Meltzer Senior Fellowship, and The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.

Table of Contents

1. German law and Nazi crimes Henry Friedlander; 2. The setting and significance of the Nuremberg trials: a historian's perspective Gerhard Weinberg; 3. The American military commission trials of 1945 Patricia Heberer; 4. Punishing the excess: sadism, bureaucratized atrocity, and the US army concentration camp trials, 1945–7 Michael Bryant; 5. Perceptions and suppression of Nazi crimes by the postwar German judiciary Joachim Perels; 6. Getting away with murder: the Taubner case Dick de Mildt; 7. Cold war pressures and the German prosecution of Wehmacht war crimes: the case of Cephalonia, 1943 Natha Stotzfus; 8. The trials of Nazi war criminals in Austria Wilfried R. Garscha; 9. The German-German rivalry and the prosecution of Nazi war criminals during the cold war, 1958–65 Annette Weinke; 10. History in the courthouse: the presentation of World War II crimes in US courts 50 years later Elizabeth B. White; 11. Law, history, and Holocaust denial in the courtroom: the Zundel and Irving cases Christopher R. Browning.

Editorial Reviews

"The quality of this volume compares very well with that of most such collections. The chronological range of coverage is broad, which at times means that coverage of some periods and issues is stretched thin." -Richard Breitman, HISTORY: Reviews of New Books

"White and Browning offer unique insights into bringing justice to genocide. They step out of pure historical study to merge the past and present in showing how some Nazi crimes (or in Browning's case, Holocaust denial) are still as relevant today as 60 years ago...These essays put forth fascinating real and theoretical considerations of the role of history and the professional historian in prosecuting Nazi crimes, making this already broad collection even broader."
German Studies Review, Stephanie Cousineau, University of Northern British Columbia

From the Publisher