Nazi Crimes against Jews and German Post-War Justice: The West German Judicial System During Allied Occupation (1945–1949)

346 Pages·2013·1.27 MB·English

by  Edith Raim

Edith Raim
Nazi Crimes against Jews and German Post-War Justice
New Perspectives on
Modern Jewish History
Edited by Cornelia Wilhelm
Volume 3
Edith Raim
Nazi Crimes
against Jews and
German Post-War
Justice
The West German Judicial System during
Allied Occupation (1945–1949)
ISBN 978-3-11-030057-4
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-030066-6
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-039569-3
ISSN 2192-9645
The e-book of this title is freely available on www.degruyter.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the
Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston
Typesetting: Michael Peschke, Berlin
Printing: CPI books GmbH, Leck
♾ Printed on acid free paper
Printed in Germany
www.degruyter.com
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)
“The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth,
once on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual
as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions,
but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we
ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow.”
G.M. Trevelyan, Autobiography of an Historian (1949)

Foreword
Sometimes a man seeks what he hath lost; and from that place and time wherein he misses
it his mind runs back, from place to place, and time to time, to find where and when he had
it, that is to say, to find some certain and limited time and place in which to begin a method
of seeking. Again, from thence his thoughts run over the same places and times to find what
action or other occasion might make him lose it. This we call ‘remembrance,’ or calling to
mind: the Latins call it reminiscentia, as it were a ‘re-conning’ of our former actions.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Writing in English proved (as expected) a sobering and yet (rather unexpectedly)
an exhilarating experience for me. The former because of my admittedly limited
linguistic competence, the latter because of the concise and succinct form German
scholarship has not always relished. Richard Cobb, eminent British historian of
French history, observed about his relationship with the French language: “To
speak and to write in French is to acquire a second personality and to express
oneself not only in another gear, but in a manner other than in one’s first. I do not
say the same things in French as I do in English, because I am not the same per-
son.”1 I most wholeheartedly feel the same is true for me when writing in English.
Acquiring a foreign language is a long-winded, complicated and often frus-
trating process, thus thanks must go to many friends who have been talking with
and writing to me in English literally for decades and whose tolerance I have
stretched to the limits with my attempts at reciprocation. Nicola Deans and her
family in Poole, Rita and Leslie Deans in St. Neots, Marjorie Smith and Audrey
Smith in Chester-le-Street have been wonderful friends and fantastically support-
ive over many years and in many more respects than I can name. Thanks are also in
order to the History Department at Princeton University in whose graduate school
I spent the globally exciting (academic) year 1989/1990, to the German Depart-
ment at Durham University in the years 1991 to 1995, and the History Department
at Liverpool University 1994–1995, where I taught German and European History.
Reminiscing (and even allowing for some nostalgia nearly 20 years later), I still
feel tremendous gratitude to both students and colleagues who helped me in so
many ways. As is true for many educators: one learns more from one’s students
than vice versa. It surely was so in my case: I learned English from my students
and was introduced to British culture in manifold ways and even acquired a smat-
tering of local dialects such as Geordie and Scouse. Special mention goes to my
1 Richard Cobb, A Second Identity: Essays on France and French History (London: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1969), 18.
viii   Foreword
then colleagues Jo Catling, Waltraud Coles at Durham (who sadly died in 2005)
and Liz Harvey and Charles Esdaile at Liverpool, whose advice in teaching helped
turn my fledgling attempts into something – I hope – acceptable.
Moreover, the wonderful Trevelyan College Senior Common Room at Durham,
where faculty from various countries and various disciplines met, added friend-
ships to my life that outlasted my stay in Britain. The Reverend Stephen Ferns,
Prof. Inés Sanmiguel, Jill Ramsay, Graham Geary, and Rhys Burriss (who taught
me about the English legal system long before I started work on this book) all
made my time there a most memorable one. Memories of sightseeing tours with
my friends through Northumberland, Cumbria, Yorkshire, and Scotland gladden
me to this day.
Research on this book began when I started my work as a researcher at the
Institute for Contemporary History in Munich in 1999. While the project involved
an enormous amount of travel to archives in Germany, Britain, France, and the
USA, the support I received from my Institute has been crucial in every respect.
The backing from my colleagues in Munich virtually carried me through all the
highs and lows and made up for all the rigor of the archives. Input from archivists
in Europe and the United States, but also help from clerical staff, cleaning staff,
and security personnel at the archives and state attorneys’ offices in Germany,
who enabled me to pursue work beyond the regular access hours, turned my
project into a labor of love. The first ideas for the book were conceived as part
of a panel discussion at the 10th Lessons & Legacies Conference at Northwest-
ern University, Evanston, Illinois, in 2008. There the kind interest of the audi-
ence – notably Christopher Browning, David Cesarani, Martin Dean, Jeffrey Herf,
Susanna Schrafstetter, and Alan Steinweis – and input from the chair of the panel,
Michael Marrus, and co-panelists Mark Roseman and Devin Pendas inspired me
to pursue the topic further.
In 1985, as Germany prepared for the commemoration of the 40th anniversary
of the end of World War II, I met two people who became very important to me:
Col. (ret.) Irving Heymont (1918–2009), who as a young major had been a member
of the American occupation forces and first head of the Landsberg Displaced
Persons camp, and Toby Axelrod, a journalist who wrote an article on the Kaufer-
ing camps of Dachau in the surroundings of my hometown, Landsberg am Lech.
Irving Heymont always thought that I ought to write a book in English and trusted
that I could do it. So when Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wilhelm (Munich/Atlanta) suggested
that I turn my German postdoctoral thesis into a shorter English version, I heart-
ily agreed – relying once again on the kindness of my friend Toby Axelrod to bear
the brunt of correcting my English and proofreading. Dr. Julia Brauch (De Gruyter)
had been a most helpful and optimistic editor. Marcia Rothschild proved a fan-
tastic copy editor – her thoughtful and sensitive editing significantly improved
Foreword   ix
the final shape of the book. With her thoroughness and dedication, the book
reached a clarity and lucidity that I could never have achieved. Finally, Tihomir
Vrdoljak excelled at creating an index, proofreading and preparing the manu-
script for print. My friends have, over many years, patiently watched the progress
(and stagnation) of research on the book. Gerhard Zelger, with whom I had many
discussions about the topic, did not live to see the final result as he tragically
died in 2011 at age 51. Jürgen Wedemeyer’s cheerfulness prodded me along when
I bogged down. As always, one owes the greatest debt of gratitude to one’s family:
My parents, Elisabeth (1928–2012) and Ernst Raim, have supported me in every
endeavor I have undertaken in my life. My younger sister Eleonore, attorney at
law, explained the basics of German penal law to me when my knowledge on this
topic bordered on the non-existent. Needless to say, all errors and mistakes are
my own.
Not only in poetry, but also in history, the road one takes has great signifi-
cance. And yes, Robert Frost got it right: “I took the one less traveled by /And that
has made all the difference.”