Political and Transitional Justice in Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1950s

Political and Transitional Justice in Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1950s PDF Author: Magnus Brechtken
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783835335615
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Transitional Justice in Poland

Transitional Justice in Poland PDF Author: Frances Millard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755601343
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
In this study of the mechanisms of transitional justice in Poland, Frances Millard asks: How does society come to terms with its past? How should it punish the perpetrators of oppression and acknowledge its victims? In the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe the task of answering these questions came down to the need to eliminate the communist parties' hold over the state, the economy and society in order to move towards democracy. Millard argues that the key step in achieving this was uncovering the truth about the previous regime's past, prosecuting the perpetrators of past crimes and providing compensation and restitution for its victims. Through the specific case of Poland, Millard provides a comprehensive assessment of the mechanisms and institutions used to achieve this, such as lustration, law enforcement through a Constitutional Tribunal and institutions dedicated to dealing with the past such as the Institute of National Remembrance. Crucially, these processes have assumed new significance in recent years after the Law and Justice Party came to power in 2015, using transitional justice as a tool of political control which has enabled the restructuring of Polish democracy.

Democracy, Nazi Trials and Transitional Justice in Germany, 1945–1950

Democracy, Nazi Trials and Transitional Justice in Germany, 1945–1950 PDF Author: Devin O. Pendas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521871298
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Revising our understanding about how transitional justice works, this study analyses and compares Nazi trials in post-war East and West Germany from 1945 to 1950 to challenge assumptions about the political outcomes of prosecuting mass atrocities.

Poland under German Occupation, 1939-1945

Poland under German Occupation, 1939-1945 PDF Author: Jonathan Huener
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 180539245X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
As a unique and innovative addition to the scholarship on Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and modern Polish history, this volume provides fresh analysis on the Nazi occupation of Poland. Through new questions and engaging untapped sources the leading historians who have contributed to this volume provide original scholarship to steer debates and expand the historiography surrounding Nazi racial and occupation policies, Polish and Jewish responses to them, persecution, police terror, resistance, and complicity.

The Secret Police and the Soviet System

The Secret Police and the Soviet System PDF Author: Michael David-Fox
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822990180
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Even more than thirty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the role of the secret police in shaping culture and society in communist USSR has been difficult to study, and defies our complete understanding. In the last decade, the opening of non-Russian KGB archives, notably in Ukraine after 2015, has allowed scholars to explore state security organizations in ways not previously possible. Moving beyond well-known cases of high-profile espionage and repression, this study is the first to showcase research from a wide range of secret police archives in former Soviet republics and the countries of the former Soviet bloc—some of which are rapidly closing or becoming inaccessible once again. Rather than focusing on Soviet leadership, The Secret Police and the Soviet System integrates the secret police into studies of information, technology, economics, art, and ideology. The result is a state-of-the-art portrait of one of the world’s most notorious institutions, the legacies of which are directly relevant for understanding Vladimir Putin’s Russia today.

In the Shadow of the Holocaust

In the Shadow of the Holocaust PDF Author: Michael Fleming
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009098985
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
Examines the struggle to ensure that war crimes which took place during the Second World War were prosecuted.

Ghosts of War

Ghosts of War PDF Author: Franziska Exeler
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501762753
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
How do states and societies confront the legacies of war and occupation, and what do truth, guilt, and justice mean in that process? In Ghosts of War, Franziska Exeler examines people's wartime choices and their aftermath in Belarus, a war-ravaged Soviet republic that was under Nazi occupation during the Second World War. After the Red Army reestablished control over Belarus, one question shaped encounters between the returning Soviet authorities and those who had lived under Nazi rule, between soldiers and family members, reevacuees and colleagues, Holocaust survivors and their neighbors: What did you do during the war? Ghosts of War analyzes the prosecution and punishment of Soviet citizens accused of wartime collaboration with the Nazis and shows how individuals sought justice, revenge, or assistance from neighbors and courts. The book uncovers the many absences, silences, and conflicts that were never resolved, as well as the truths that could only be spoken in private, yet it also investigates the extent to which individuals accommodated, contested, and reshaped official Soviet war memory. The result is a gripping examination of how efforts at coming to terms with the past played out within, and at times through, a dictatorship.

Investigating, Punishing, Agitating

Investigating, Punishing, Agitating PDF Author: Katharina Rauschenberger
Publisher: Wallstein Verlag
ISBN: 3835385496
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Über die NS-Prozesse in Osteuropa in den 1960er Jahren und den Stellenwert des Holocaust darin. Etwa 15 Jahre nach Kriegsende kam es in vielen Staaten des Ostblocks zu einer zweiten Welle von Gerichtsverfahren gegen NS-Verbrecher, die anderen Logiken folgte als die Prozesse unmittelbar nach Kriegsende. Auf dem Höhepunkt des Kalten Krieges in den 1960er Jahren verpflichteten die Prozesse einerseits zu einer Zusammenarbeit zwischen Ost und West, andererseits waren sie bestimmt durch die Abwehrhaltung gegenüber dem jeweiligen Gegner im Systemkonflikt. Innerhalb des Ostblocks sollte durch ein abgestimmtes Vorgehen auf der internationalen Bühne Einigkeit demonstriert werden, gleichzeitig führten nationale Interessen zu je eigenen Wegen in der Strafverfolgung. Die in diesem Band zusammengetragenen Aufsätze widmen sich der Geschichte der Strafprozesse zu nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen in Ungarn, der DDR, Polen, der Tschechoslowakei und der Sowjetunion nach der "Tauwetterphase" und fragen nach den Voraussetzungen und Eigenheiten dieser Verfahren. Welche Regeln galten für die Prozesse? Welche Ziele verfolgten sie? Und nicht zuletzt: Welchen Stellenwert hatte der Holocaust bei der Aufklärung der Verbrechen? Der Band erscheint vollständig in englischer Sprache. __________ On the Nazi trials in Eastern Europe in the 1960s and the place of the Holocaust in them. About 15 years after the end of the war, a second wave of trials against Nazi criminals occurred in many Eastern Bloc states, which followed a different logic than the ones immediately after the war. At the height of the Cold War in the 1960s, the trials on the one hand obliged cooperation between East and West, on the other hand they were determined by the defensive attitude towards the respective opponent in the system conflict. Within the Eastern bloc, unity was to be demonstrated through a coordinated approach on the international stage, while at the same time national interests led to their own paths in criminal prosecution. The essays collected in this volume are devoted to the history of criminal trials on National Socialist crimes in Hungary, the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union after the "thaw" and ask about the preconditions and peculiarities of these proceedings. What rules applied to the trials? What goals did they pursue? And last but not least: What significance did the Holocaust have in the clarification of the crimes?

Seeking Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in East and Central Europe

Seeking Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in East and Central Europe PDF Author: Vanessa Voisin
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1648250416
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
The thirst for post-World War II justice transcended the Cold War and mobilized diverse social groups. This is a story of their multilayered and at times conflictual interactions.

Lustration: Transitional Justice in Poland and Its Continuous Struggle to Make Means With the Past

Lustration: Transitional Justice in Poland and Its Continuous Struggle to Make Means With the Past PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Europe, Central
Languages : en
Pages : 71

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Book Description
Poland was the first East Central European nation to transfer from totalitarian rule to democracy. Although resistance to the communist regime existed since 1956, it was not until 1980 that this transition began to develop. Negotiations between Poland's communist regime and its opposition allowed for the first free elections in East Central Europe in the summer of 1989 and with in months, regimes throughout the region began to fall. Poland's neighbors, Germany and the Czech Republic, immediately adopted policies concerning the crimes of the previous regime upon their transfer but Poland did not. Poland's failure to implement legislation concerning transitional justice led to almost a decade of political turmoil and infighting. In order for an emerging democracy to become effective, it must separate itself from the ideals of the old regime and those individuals and policies that enforced its repression. This thesis will examine the post 1989 governments of Poland, Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic, and East Germany including how each of these nations held the criminal functionaries of the previous regime accountable, while the transition to a democratic state unfolded in turn in the 1990s. It will provide insight as to why Poland, after legislation in 1996, is still struggling with implementation of transitional justice eighteen years after transition.