The Limits of the Law: Recent Fiction on the West German Prosecution of Nazi Atrocities
Abstract
Located at the intersection of literary studies and the study of transitional justice, this thesis examines fictional representations of West German legal endeavours undertaken during the first two decades after the founding of the Federal Republic to address systematic Third Reich atrocities. It focuses primarily on a cluster of novels, films, and plays that have been produced within the past 15 years and that all set their respective plots against the same historical and thematical backdrop, namely the early West German efforts to hold Nazi perpetrators criminally accountable, contribute to Allied denazification initiatives, and compensate surviving victims of Nazi persecution. These works are: Giulio Ricciarelli’s film Im Labyrinth des Schweigens (2014), Annette Hess’s novel Deutsches Haus (2018), Lars Kraume’s film Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer (2015), Stephan Wagner’s film Die Akte General (2015), Gerold Theobalt’s play Alles was Recht ist (2010), Ursula Krechel’s novel Landgericht (2012), and Ruth Barnett’s play “What Price for Justice?” (2018).
Drawing upon a close reading of key passages and scenes that is contextualized by references to historical and legal scholarship, I argue that the fictional works engage critically with commonly accepted notions of the scope, principles, and objectives of prosecutorial approaches to the establishment of truth and the achievement of justice in transitional environments. In particular, I submit that the works problematize simplistic understandings of legal prosecution and question the adequacy of investigations and trials to address systematic human rights violations. In response to the limitations they uncover, the fictional works envision a notion of justice that extends beyond a purely retributive dimension, confronting their respective audiences with key considerations that have emerged from transitional justice scholarship. My comparative study serves to demonstrate that fictional narratives and their examination with the tools of literary scholarship can offer meaningful perspectives on the complexities of transitional justice, thus enriching discourse on transitional justice that is customarily the domain of legal, historical, and political scholarship.