Judging the Past in Unified Germany

by A. James McAdams

Overview

In recent years, no modern democracy has taken more aggressive steps to come to terms with a legacy of dictatorship than has the Federal Republic of Germany with the crimes and injustices of Communist East Germany. In this book, A. James McAdams provides a comprehensive and engaging examination of the four most prominent instances of this policy: criminal trials for the killings at the Berlin Wall; the disqualification of administrative personnel for secret-police ties; parliamentary truth-telling commissions; and private property restitution. On the basis of extensive interviews in Bonn and Berlin over the 1990s, McAdams gives new insight into the difficulties German politicians, judges, bureaucrats, and public officials faced sitting in judgment on the affairs of another state. He argues provocatively that the success of their policies must be measured in terms of the way they used East German history to justify their actions. In 1997, A. James McAdams was awarded the DAAD Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German Studies. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Government and International Studies at University of Notre Dame, in Notre Dame, Indiana. He is the author of East Germany and Détente (Cambridge University Press, 1985), Germany Divided: From the Wall to Reunification (Princeton University Press, 1992), and co-author of Rebirth: A Political History of Europe Since World War II (Westview Press, 1999). McAdams is also editor of Transitional Justice and the Rule of Law in New Democracies (University of Notre Dame Press, 1997).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521802086
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/09/2001
Pages:	274
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; Glossary; Note; Part I. Introduction on Judging the East German Past: 1. Interpreting East Germany's history; 2. Four types of retrospective justice; Part II. Criminal Justice: Prosecuting GDR Officials: 3. Competing arguments for justice; 4. Seeking justice within the law; 5. A 'trial of the century'; 6. Judicial architects of German unity; 7. The risks of going too far; 8. An ambiguous message about culpability; Part III. Disqualifying Justice: Searching for Stasi Collaborators: 9. Contending views on the Stasi's reach; 10. Level one: distilling truth from the files; 11. Level two: screening for Stasi activity; 12. Level three: appealing dismissals before the courts; 13. The competing messages of screening; Part IV. Moral Justice: Assessing the Complete Record of Dictatorship: 14. Finding fault with the churches; 15. A different stand on the Deutschlandpolitik; 16. Mixed emotions about the silent majority; 17. Revisiting East Germany's difficult past; 18. A better commission?; Part V. Corrective Justice: Returning Private Property: 19. The narrow choices behind the property settlement; 20. The challenge of implementing the property statute; 21. The legitimacy of Jewish claims …; 22. … But the irreversibility of Soviet expropriations; 23. Vying responses to GDR-era injustice; 24. The ambiguities of drawing the line: an enduring burden of multiple pasts; Part VI. Conclusion: A Manageable Past?: 25. The FRG's constrained options; 26. Judging the past in the right way; 27. GDR wrongdoing in perspective; 28. Contending venues of justice.

Editorial Reviews

Whether in South Africa, Bosnia or Rwanda, the idea of using legal means to rectify a country's wrongs has gained currency in the past decade. This timely, balanced case study examines that process in Germany, just over a decade after it began with the end of the Cold War. McAdams focuses on four issues: the prosecution of former high-ranking East German officials; the search for East Germans who collaborated with the Stasi, the secret East German police; the culpability of the East German regime; and the attempt to return private property to those who lost it in East Germany, under either the Nazi or the Communist regime. Chair of government and international studies at Notre Dame, McAdams (East Germany and D tente; Germany Divided: From the Wall to Reunification) finds Germany's method to be as ethical and legal as possible under the circumstances. He admits that the search for justice was imperfect, but that most of the problems facing Germany's courts were unavoidable. Property restitution was "bound to be a tense and tumultuous enterprise," he writes, and "may have done more to set eastern and western Germans against each other" than "any other matter relating to its handling of the communist period." But even with this tricky problem, McAdams finds Germany's dealing with its painful past to be a model of determination and thoroughness. Some may question whether the administration of "retrospective justice" will work as well in countries with more heated problems, such as Rwanda, but advocates looking for ammunition for war-crimes trials, whether nationally or internationally managed, will find it in this clear and well-argued study. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

"[A] clear and well-argued study." Publishers Weekly

"Well-written with tight analysis, this book should benefit graduate students and scholars of contemporary German affairs." Choice

"McAdams has found the necessary scholarly distance to assess Germany's judgment of its past. ....McAdams' book untangles the legal, philosophical, and political pitfalls plaguing a pursuit of retrospective justice. ....McAdams addresses such complex issues with the precision of a legal scholar, the sensitivity of a moral philosopher, and the realism of a political scientist. As a brilliant overview and synthesis of the past decade's debates about the communist past in Germany, his book will be of interest to any scholar interested in issues of postauthoritarian justice, of reconstructing democratic societies after communist dictatorship, and of contemporary German history." The Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"McAdams has produced what is surely the most thoroughly researched and sensitive treatment of retrospective justice in the post-communist world. Its breadth of coverage and depth of analysis will cetainly make this book the gold standard for similar kinds of studies." Jeffery Kopstein, University of Colorado

"McAdams has written a powerful and provocative book that will surely serve as a model for future studies about Germany and many other countries that have sought—or will seek—conciliatory and fair processes (and products) of retrospective justice." Political Science Quarterly

"McAdams' book is engaging, beautifully written and smart. . . . It's a valuable contribution—balanced, reasonable, judicious, and well researched. And a just plain good read." Kim Lane Scheppele, University of Pennsylvania

"Whether in South Africa, Bonsia or Rwanda, the idea of using legal means to rectify a country's wrong has gained currency in the past decade. This timely, balanced case study examines that process in Germany...advocates looking for ammunition for war-crimes trails, whether nationally or internationally managed, will find it in this clear and well-argued study." Publishers weekly

"McAdams eschews making general normative claims about the value and utility of these different measures, and instead provides us with an excellent overview and critique of their strengths and shortcomings." - Ernesto Verdeja, The Law and Politics Book Revew

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