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Nazi Crimes and the Law

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. In its various essays, the contributors reconstruct the 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 interna- tional judicial forums responsible for prosecuting perpetrators. The topics discussed include the impact of the Nazi justice system on postwar justice, postwar legal pro- ceedings 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 suits brought by Holocaust deniers in British and Canadian courts, and they reveal new perspectives on the present and future implications of these trials.

Nathan Stoltzfus is currently Associate Professor of Modern European History at Florida State University. He has authored, coauthored, or edited four books: Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in (1996), Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany (2001), Shades of Green: Environmental Acti- vism around the Globe (2006), and Courageous Resistance: The Power of Ordinary Peo- ple (2007). His articles have appeared in publications including Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Central European History, The Atlantic Monthly,andDie Zeit. Stoltz- fus was named a Harry Frank 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 the DAAD Book Prize. He is also a coeditor of Archives of (26 volumes, 1990–95, with Sybil Milton), and he has received numerous research grants, most recently the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Ruth Meltzer Senior Fellowship, and The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.

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publications of the german historical institute Washington, D.C. Edited by Hartmut Berghoff and Christof Mauch with the assistance of David Lazar The German Historical Institute is a center for advanced study and research whose purpose is to provide a permanent basis for scholarly cooperation among historians from the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States. The Institute con- ducts, promotes, and supports research into both American and German political, social, economic, and cultural history; into transatlantic migration, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and into the history of international relations, with special emphasis on the roles played by the United States and Germany.

Recent books in the series:

Roger Chickering, Stig Forster,¨ and Bernd Greiner, editors, A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937–1945

Kiran Klaus Patel, Soldiers of Labor: Labor Service in Nazi Germany and New Deal America, 1933–1945

Michelle Mouton, From Nurturing the Nation to Purifying the Volk: Weimar and Nazi Family Policy, 1918–1945

Peter Becker and Richard F. Wetzell, editors, Criminals and Their Scientists: The History of Criminology in International Perspective

Jonathan R. Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism: Money and Political Culture in East Germany

Andreas W. Daum, Kennedy in Berlin

Joachim Radkau, Nature and Power: A Global History of the Environment

Carole Fink and Bernd Schaefer, editors, Ostpolitik, 1969–1974: European and Global Responses

Manfred Berg and Bernd Schaefer, editors, Historical Justice in International Perspective: How Societies Are Trying to Right the Wrongs of the Past

© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89974-1 - Nazi Crimes and the Law Edited by Nathan Stoltzfus and Henry Friedlander Frontmatter More information

Nazi Crimes and the Law

Edited by

nathan stoltzfus Florida State University henry friedlander Brooklyn College, City University of New York

german historical institute Washington D.C. and

© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-89974-1 - Nazi Crimes and the Law Edited by Nathan Stoltzfus and Henry Friedlander Frontmatter More information

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao˜ Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521899741

c The German Historical Institute 2008

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2008

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stoltzfus, Nathan. Nazi crimes and the law / Nathan Stoltzfus, Henry Friedlander. p. cm. – (Publications of the German Historical Institute) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-521-89974-1 (hardback) 1. War crime trials – Germany. 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945). 3. World War, 1939–1945 – Law and legislation. I. Friedlander, Henry, 1930– II. Title. III. Series. KZ1176.5.S76 2008 341.690268–dc22 2008006752

ISBN 978-0-521-89974-1 hardback

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Contents

Contributors page ix

Introduction: Nazi Crimes and the Law 1 Nathan Stoltzfus and Henry Friedlander 1 Nazi Crimes and the German Law 15 Henry Friedlander 2 The Setting and the Significance of the Nuremberg Trials: A Historian’s Perspective 35 Gerhard L. Weinberg 3 The American Military Commission Trials of 1945 43 Patricia Heberer 4 Punishing the Excess: Sadism, Bureaucratized Atrocity, and the U.S. Army Concentration Camp Trials, 1945–1947 63 Michael S. Bryant 5 Perceptions and Suppression of Nazi Crimes by the Postwar German Judiciary 87 Joachim Perels 6 Getting Away with Murder: The Taubner¨ Case 101 Dick de Mildt 7 “A Great Achievement of German Troops in Mountain Warfare”: Pressures and the German Prosecution of Wehrmacht War Crimes in the Case of Cephalonia, 1943 113 Nathan Stoltzfus

vii

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viii Contents

8 The Trials of Nazi War Criminals in Austria 139 Winfried R. Garscha 9 The German-German Rivalry and the Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals During the Cold War, 1958–1965 151 Annette Weinke 10 History in the Courthouse: The Presentation of World War II Crimes in U.S. Courts Sixty Years Later 173 Elizabeth B. White 11 Law, History, and Holocaust Denial in the Courtroom: The Zundel¨ and Irving Cases 197 Christopher R. Browning

Index 217

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Contributors

Christopher R. Browning, Department of History, University of North Car- olina at Chapel Hill

Michael S. Bryant, Department of History and Social Science, Bryant Col- lege, Smithfield, Rhode Island

Henry Friedlander, Department of Judaic Studies, Brooklyn College, City University of New York (Emeritus)

Winfried R. Garscha, Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance, Vienna

Patricia Heberer, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.

Dick de Mildt, Institute of Criminal Law, University of Amsterdam

Joachim Perels, Institute for Political Science, Leibniz University Hannover

Nathan Stoltzfus, Department of History, Florida State University

Gerhard L. Weinberg, Department of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Emeritus)

Annette Weinke, Independent Historians’ Commission for the History of the German Foreign Office during the Nazi Dictatorship and under the Federal Republic

Elizabeth B. White, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

ix

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Nazi Crimes and the Law

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