"Beyond Justice" is a serious book that provides a fascinating
study of law's limitations confronting mass crimes of historical
importance. As the most thorough study of one of the most
important, though ultimately vexed, trials of the twentieth
century, "Beyond Justice" is something of a landmark that deserves
a wide reading.--Jeffrey K. Olick "Ethics & International Affairs
"
Federal German law precluded the release of trial documents until
thirty years after the case's conclusion, while the proceedings
themselves had been audiotaped rather than transcribed. Only in the
last few years has the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt completed
the transcription of some fifty hours worth of tape recordings.
Rebecca Wittmann's new book thus represents the first detailed
study on the trial, a valuable contribution that draws upon
previously untapped evidence and fills a significant gap within
existing war crimes historiography. A glance at Wittmann's work
reveals that the long wait for a detailed account of the Auschwitz
trial has proved worthwhile. Over the course of six chapters, the
entire history of the trial is laid bare in meticulous detail from
its inception to the final sentencing. For those unfamiliar with
the history of Nazi war crimes trials up to this point, the first
chapter provides a concise overview, exploring earlier Allied
policies as well as compet
In this timely book, which arrives on the heels of the 60th
anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation, Wittman offers a scholarly
and highly detailed analysis of the West German government's 1963
trial of 20 war criminals linked to Auschwitz. Working from both
legalistic and historical perspectives, Wittman shows the
complexities of prosecuting war criminals under the domestic German
penal code and legal system compared with the more advantageous
standards used by prosecutors in the Nuremburg Trials; the
verdicts, based on guilt for standard penal-code crimes rather than
more serious war crimes, resulted in lenient sentences and were
largely preordained by the Nazis' invoked legal system. While this
may have helped a modernizing West Germany confront its Nazi
history, many German citizens preferred to 'let the grass grow over
the past.' Sadly, as this book demonstrates, Germany's history and
soil contain the bodies of all too many Holocaust
victims.--Theodore Pollack"Library Journal" (04/0
Why did the Auschwitz trial fail to produce justice? Rebecca
Wittmann's well-constructed and well-written book offers a variety
of answers.--Steve Hochstadt"German Studies Review"
(05/01/2007)
When Germans began bringing other Germans to trial for Nazi
atrocities, prosecutors found themselves struggling through a
thicket of ambiguities, some created by the laws they had to use
and some by the equivocal emotions of the German public. Exhibit A
in this process remains the trial of 24 Auschwitz guards, held in
Frankfurt from 1963 to 1965...The trial was a pivotal event in
German history but until [now] no one has described it in detail.
Rebecca Wittmann, a young historian at the University of Toronto,
fills the gap with a clear, thorough and highly intelligent
book.
most important, though ultimately vexed, trials of the twentieth
century, "Beyond Justice" is something of a landmark that deserves
a wide reading.
of the trial's impact upon the West German people, and the extent
to which it really can be said to have altered popular attitudes
towards the Nazi past.
soil contain the bodies of all too many Holocaust victims.
Rebecca Wittmann, a young historian at the University of Toronto,
fills the gap with a clear, thorough and highly intelligent book.
Ask a Question About this Product More... |