1. The Honecker Trial: The East German Past and the German Future
- Author:
- A. James McAdams
- Publication Date:
- 01-1996
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Kellogg Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- Fifty years after the Nuremberg tribunals, Germany is once again caught up in a series of controversial trials involving former dictators. This time officials of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) sit in the dock. Some observers have criticized these proceedings, maintaining that they will result in the imposition of an arbitrary form of 'victor's justice.' Others have claimed, in contrast, that the cumbersome German Rechtsstaat ('state under the law') will prove incapable of responding to public demands for retribution. In this paper the author maintains that Germany's courts have not been at a loss to answer these complaints. By grounding their judgments in preexisting East German law, the courts have managed to bring some of the GDR's former leaders to justice while at the same time guaranteeing most defendants the full protections of the rule of law. In the process the courts have even conveyed an important message about the terms under which both German populations will be brought back together again.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Democratization, Social Movement, and Transitional Justice
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Germany, and East Germany