The Nuremberg Trial of Albert Speer
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Bachelor Thesis Liberal Arts and Sciences Humanities: European History and Culture AMENDING HISTORICAL INJUSTICE: A CASE STUDY WITH A MORAL-PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE OF JUSTICE – THE NUREMBERG TRIAL OF ALBERT SPEER Nora Nijboer ANR: 199780 UNR: u1263880 Supervisor: Prof. dr. A.J.A. Bijsterveld Second reader: Prof. dr. A.L. Smeulers Tilburg University June 2017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am using this opportunity to express my gratitude to everyone who supported me in the course of the writing process of my undergraduate thesis. First of all, I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Prof. Dr. Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Department of Sociology at Tilburg University. Questions and advice regarding my writing were answered with appreciated expertise, while consistently allowing this paper to be my independent work. I would also like to acknowledge Prof. Dr. Alette Smeulers of the Tilburg Law School as the second reader of this thesis, and I am gratefully indebted to her for her valuable comments on this thesis. Second of all, I want thank my fellow students, as I acknowledge Iris, Sammi and Catalina for their efforts in guiding me in the appropriate direction with regard to the legal aspects of the paper. Third of all, besides his immense emotional support, I would like to thank Rouven Schmidt for his help in granting me access to the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen and other facilities at the Georg-August University Göttingen, making a great portion of necessary literature readily available during the writing process. And finally, I offer my deepest gratitude to my family: my sisters Sanae and Lina for the necessary distractions and teaching me patience, and my parents Lambert Nijboer and Sumaya Nijboer-Zekari for their endless love and encouragement leading up to this final result. I ABSTRACT This paper argues that an examination of the micro-level engagement in transitional justice will result in a more morally effective amendment of historical injustices. With a case study of Albert Speer’s Nuremberg trial, this paper seeks to establish how a more moral-philosophical perspective of justice can be realized. By drawing upon primary sources and the examination of books and articles discussing transitional justice from an interdisciplinary perspective with historical and moral-philosophical features, this paper examines the importance of assessing the perpetrator’s motivations and the victims’ experiences. In line with the research objective, this paper advocates the combination of retributive and restorative tools of transitional justice as outlined in the objectives of the Rome Statute of the ICC. II TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... I ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... II INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 Thesis Objective and Research Question .................................................................................... 3 1. EXPLORING TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE ..................................................................... 5 1.1. ‘Transitional Justice’ .............................................................................................................. 5 1.2. Transitional Justice Tools ...................................................................................................... 6 1.2.1. Truth Commissions ..................................................................................................................................... 7 1.2.2. Restitution ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 1.2.3. Commemoration .......................................................................................................................................... 9 1.2.4. Formal Apologies ...................................................................................................................................... 10 1.2.5. History Education ..................................................................................................................................... 11 1.2.6. Hybrid courts ............................................................................................................................................. 11 1.3. The Military Tribunal of Nuremberg ................................................................................. 12 2. THE NUREMBERG TRIAL OF ALBERT SPEER .................................................... 17 2.1. “The Nazi Who Said Sorry” ............................................................................................... 17 2.1.1. Life Before Nazi Party Membership ................................................................................................... 18 2.1.2. Architectural Employment in the Nazi Party .................................................................................. 19 2.1.3. Minister of Armaments ........................................................................................................................... 22 2.2. The Trial of Albert Speer .................................................................................................... 26 2.3. The Aftermath ..................................................................................................................... 30 2.3.1. Imprisonment at Spandau ..................................................................................................................... 31 2.3.2. Release .......................................................................................................................................................... 32 3. VICTIMS AND SPEER’S CASE ..................................................................................... 34 3.1. The Role of Victims in Transitional Justice ........................................................................ 35 3.1.1. Which Victims? ......................................................................................................................................... 36 3.1.2. The Importance of the Victims’ Testimony .................................................................................... 37 3.2. Victim Representation ........................................................................................................ 40 3.2.2. Other Jewish representatives ................................................................................................................. 42 3.2.3. Non-Jewish Representatives .................................................................................................................. 45 III 4. CONSEQUENCES FOR TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE TOOLS ............................. 47 4.1. Alternative Transitional Justice Tools in Speer’s Case ....................................................... 48 4.1.1. Victim-Centrism at the ICC ................................................................................................................. 48 4.1.2. Speer and the Official Apology ............................................................................................................ 49 4.1.3. Speer’s case and the Truth Commission ........................................................................................... 51 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................... 53 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................... 57 Books and Articles ...................................................................................................................... 57 Online Sources ........................................................................................................................... 61 Official Legal Documents ........................................................................................................... 62 IV INTRODUCTION Since its establishment through the entering into force of the Rome Statute in July 2002, the International Criminal Court [ICC] has met with extensive criticism regards to establishing transitional justice and effectiveness (Okafor & Ngwaba, 2015; Evenson, 2015; McCargo, 2015). Even before its coming into being, the Court was characterized by potential overreach, selectivity and statutory limitations (Stahn, 2015). While the ICC is approaching its fifteenth year of existence, the Court is currently involved in ten preliminary examinations and ten situations under investigation (International Criminal Court website), with many Statute members expressing diverting opinions on resources directed towards the Court’s budget (“Annual ICC Assembly”, December 2016). Take for example its annual budget of 700.000 euros for eight situations under investigation (Taylor, 2016), or the recent threat from its largest economy member states which voted for and succeeded in setting the ICC budget for 2017 at 6 million Euros less than Court officials had requested (“Annual ICC Assembly”, December 2016). Besides criticism on the Court’s effectiveness, continuous critique is expressed with regard to the treatment of victims. In the Rome Statute and on