Victims as Witnesses in Trials of Nazi Perpetrators. An Analysis of their Changing Role in the Sixty Years of the Federal Republic

通过这个项目，将在一本专著中系统地审查前国家社会主义受害者在联邦共和国境内对纳粹罪行的法律处理方面的作用。以奥斯维辛集中营、灭绝营和Sobibór灭绝营的罪行审判为重点，在60年的时间里，将重建国家社会主义受害者作为刑事起诉的受害者证人的重要性，以及他们如何看待自己的角色。重要的是，奥斯威辛的受害者-证人构成了异质的受害者群体，而Sobibór的少数受害者-证人都是犹太人。该项目将展示这在试验中发挥的作用。这两名小组成员将在1950年至2011年期间在他们的法律框架内以证人的身份调查受害者。在这一过程中，审判所采取的过程，从最初的寻找证人，在其本国听取大多数外国证人的证词和证人出庭，到评价他们在判决理由中的证词，将被追踪并置于各自的当代历史背景中。重点将同样放在诉讼中受害者-证人的待遇及其本身的意图、行为和经历上。这个时间范围包括了对纳粹罪行的法律处理程度不同的时期，对个别罪行的评价有不同的刑法解释，以及对个别集中营中罪行的历史认识不断增加的时期。最后，必须考虑到幸存者作为证人地位的重大社会转变，即从作为法律证据被利用到被视为当代目击者。随着审判的进行，公众的兴趣各不相同。根据一篇论文，这反过来又影响了法律调查结果。在详细的分析中，将提供一个例子，说明受害者团体和司法机构成员之间的沟通是如何进行的，这对起诉产生了哪些影响，以及它是如何变化的。受害者协会和犹太组织在传唤证人方面发挥了相当大的影响。它们的作用也将在项目框架内加以讨论。比较研究的目的还在于将那些受到迫害的人作为一群有着不同利益的异质人群置于关注的中心。广泛的原始材料首先可以在总共18个单独法律案件的案件和审判档案、诉讼记录、录音笔录、司法人员与证人之间以及利益集团与证人之间的通信中找到。此外，将包括外交部和联邦新闻处等参与的联邦当局的档案，以及受影响的联邦州的司法部的档案。

With this project, the role of former victims of National Socialism in the legal treatment of Nazi crimes in the Federal Republic will be systematically examined in a monograph. Focussing on the trials of crimes in Auschwitz concentration and extermination camps and Sobibór extermination camp, the significance of victims of National Socialism as victim-witnesses for the criminal prosecution and how they perceived their own role will be reconstructed over a period of 60 years.It is important for this selection of crimes that the victim-witnesses from Auschwitz constituted heterogeneous victim groups, whereas the few victim-witnesses from Sobibór were all Jews. The project will demonstrate which role this played in the trials.The two team members will examine victims as witnesses in their legal framework between 1950 and 2011. In the process, the course taken by the trials, from the initial witness search, the hearing of the mostly foreign witnesses in their homelands and the court appearances of the witnesses to the evaluation of their testimony in the reasons for the judgement, will be traced and placed in the respective contemporary historical context. The focus will be equally on the treatment of the victim-witnesses in the proceedings and their own intentions, conduct and experiences. The time frame encompasses periods of differing intensity in terms of the legal treatment of Nazi crimes, diverging penal interpretations on the appraisal of individual crimes, as well as a growing historical knowledge about the crimes in the individual camps. Finally, a major societal shift in the status of the survivors as witnesses, from their utilisation as legal evidence to being regarded as contemporary eyewitnesses, must be taken into account. The trials were accompanied by a public interest that varied. According to one thesis, this in turn impacted on the legal findings.In a detailed analysis, an example will be provided of how communication between victim groups and members of the judiciary took place, which consequences this had for the prosecution and how it changed. The victims' associations and the Jewish organisations exerted a considerable influence on the calling of witnesses. Their role will also be addressed in the framework of the project. The aim of the comparative study is to also place those who were persecuted at the centre of attention as a group of heterogeneous people with differing interests.The extensive source material is to be found above all in the case and trial files for the total of 18 individual legal cases, in records of proceedings, transcripts of recordings, and correspondence between the members of the judiciary and the witnesses as well as between the interest groups and the witnesses. Furthermore, the files of participating federal authorities such as the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Press Office will be included, but also those of the ministries of justice in the federal states affected.