Language:
English
Year of publication:
2010
Titel der Quelle:
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
24,1 (2010) 56-84
Keywords:
War crime trials
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
Abstract:
Examines two trials of Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust held in the GDR: the trial of Bruno Sämisch, held in 1951, and that of the couple Horst and Erna P., held in 1961-62. All three defendants were accused of killing civilians, Jewish and non-Jewish, including women and children, in wartime Eastern Galicia (now in Ukraine). Both cases highlight East German investigation methods and the prosecutors' use of evidence, while the second case affords an opportunity to consider gendered aspects of wartime crimes and postwar trials. Examines how evolving political consideration in 1949-62 affected investigations, judicial processes, and sentences, e.g. in the early 1960s the GDR was eager to demonstrate that its investigative and juridical procedures in war criminal cases were more thorough than those in West Germany. Notes that, from a quantitative standpoint, the record of East German justice is poor: hundreds, perhaps thousands of lower-level perpetrators who ended up in the GDR were never called to account.
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