Genocide on trial : war crimes trials and the formation of Holocaust history and memory

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Genocide on trial : war crimes trials and the formation of Holocaust history and memory

Donald Bloxham

Oxford University Press, 2001

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Includes bibliographical references (p. [233]-261) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

When the Allies decided to try German war criminals at the end of World War II they were attempting not only to punish the guilty but also to create a record of what had happened in Europe. This ground-breaking new study shows how Britain and the United States went about inscribing the history of Nazi Germany and the effect their trial and occupation policies had on both long and short term 'memory' in Germany and Britain. Donald Bloxham here examines the actions and trials of German soldiers and policemen, the use of legal evidence, the refractory functions of the courtroom, and Allied political and cultural preconceptions of both 'Germanism' and of German criminality. His evidence shows conclusively that the trials were a failure: the greatest of all 'crimes against humanity' - the 'final solution of the Jewish question' - was largely written out of history in the post-war era and the trials failed to transmit the breadth of German criminality. Finally, with reference to the historiography of the Holocaust, Genocide on Trial illuminates the function of the trials in perpetuating misleading generalizations about the course of the Holocaust and the nature of Nazism.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • 1. SHAPING THE TRIALS: THE POLITICS OF TRIAL POLICY 1945-9
  • 2. Race-specific Crimes in Punishment and Re-educative Policy: The Jewish Factor
  • 3. PLUMBING THE DEPTHS OF NAZI CRIMINALITY: THE LIMITS OF LEGAL IMAGIONATION
  • 4. Charting the Breadth of Nazi Criminality: The Failure of the Trial Medium
  • 5. A NUREMBERG HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE HOLOCAUST?
  • Conclusions
  • Appendix A: Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Article 6
  • Appendix B: The Defendants and Organizations Before the IMT
  • Appendix C: The Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings
  • Bibliography

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