Democracy, Nazi Trials, and Transitional Justice in Germany, 1945-1950

Devin O. Pendas is Professor of History at Boston College. He is the author of The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963–1965 (2010) and co-editor of Political Trials in Theory and History (2017) and Beyond the Racial State: Rethinking Nazi Germany (2018) as well numerous articles on the history of Holocaust trials and international law.

• Acknowledgements; Introduction: The Promise and Perils of Transitional Justice; 1. Allied justice and its discontents; 2. Allied policy towards German courts; 3. Debating crimes against humanity in the West; 4. Debating democracy in the East; 5. The trials that did not happen; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.

'A vast literature insists that the transition from authoritarianism to democracy demands that a nation frankly reckon with its past crimes. Pendas's new book brilliantly challenges this view. In exploring Germany's half-hearted and vexed efforts to punish and purge former Nazis and 'fellow travelers', he demonstrates how the German nation achieved an important political success at the cost of a disturbing moral failure. His is a fine and singular achievement.' Lawrence Douglas, Amherst College