This guide travels through the lectures and seminar readings, week by week, in a clear and structured way. Allowing you to understand all the knowledge of the Trials of Communism Course from Eastern European Studies Major in European Studies BA. For the exam, this is especially useful, due to the f...
REVISION GUIDE: TRIALS OF COMMUNISM SEMINARS
Seminar 1
There are 4 main types of justice making:
1. Transitional occurring after Democratic change
2. Retributive punishment as the rule of law, centred around morality and
proportionality
3. Restorative justice for the victims, including the perpetrator
4. Restitutive covering the damages
Narratology centres around memory, history and representation narratology is helpful
because it allows us to tell and observe stories
Successor trials are trials that seek to legitimise the succeeding government after a period of
political transition
Kim Priemel: The Betrayal
Primel defines transitional justice as justice that specifically signifies democratic change, and
is tied to ideas surrounding human rights
Priemel highlights that often law and history must recognise each other but ‘coexist
peacefully in a state of mutual ignorance’
Lawrence Douglas: The Didactic Trial
Douglas ascertains that the main purpose of a didactic trial is to do justice to history and
memory- giving more moral justice and satisfaction to the victim
Trials also serve as a way to reject a harmful historical pattern in a legislative way
Douglas underlines that hard evidence was used at Nuremberg, which made it less
emotional and more detached from the reality of the situation
Contrastingly, the soft evidence used at Eichmann meant it was more emotional
Douglas describes three filters that shape juridical forms of history and memory:
1. The rules of evidence and proof the admittance of hearsay and witness
testimonies
2. Substantive incrimination under which the accused is charged at Nuremberg
many defendants were simply charged with ‘murder’
3. The principle of accountability if individual charges rule over group charges
Space plays a role in the didactic trial in different ways; the courtroom styles and
geographical location of a trial effects the cultural memory and regional knowledge of the
judges
Retroactivity: crimes that were not legally defined when they were committed were defined
through the trial itself
, Time plays into the legitimacy of a trial; some perpetrators were not tried until 60 years
after the crime serving as a symbolic offering to the victims, and allowing the perpetrator
to understand the severity of their crimes
Trials that take place several decades after the crime also validate the power of the courts
and tribunals and teaches the society about the historical legacy of events
Seminar 2
István Deák “Introduction”
Deak highlights the forms of retribution that emerged after WW2, and suggests many trials
sought to provide reconciliation for those victims of Nazism
Imprisonments went hand in hand with branding the accused a perpetrator and coupled
with a loss of civil rights
The text also discusses the development of re-education and reintegration of former
criminal back into society, and there was a growing trend of forgiving criminals in order to
satisfy reconstruction efforts after the war
Why do we need to move away from Why is retribution important?
retribution?
Economic decline lack of industrial experts Economic gain rehousing internal
leads to the fall in industrial production, the population, agricultural gain, industrial gain,
cost of administration of retribution the re-selling of German possessions, currency
reform
The need to return to normality at political Political legitimacy and security
and social levels
Prolonged retribution creates an atmosphere of Prevention of anarchy and popular violent
manhunts towards any qualities in a person protests the crushing of the reprisal of
relating to Nazi regime Nazism
A threat to state security and stability there Setting examples for successor states and
is a sense of paranoia governments
It should not be seen as a long-term policy it Re-stabilizing social order in Europe
can easily get out of control offsetting the power balance
Proportionality the avoidance of repeating Symbolic value
historical mistakes
Humanization of politics state in service of
the people
Eagle Glassheim: Most, the town that moved
The forced expulsions of Sudeten Germans back to Germany was coupled with a major
resettlement of Czech people along with a large group of Roma people
The settlings of ethnic Czech people back to the town of Most occurred during high
industrialisation in the Soviet bloc Meaning the town was consumed by targets and
industrialisation
Czechoslovak people saw they were entitled to German property because of the terror
inflicted upon them during WW2 societal and grassroots emotions
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