The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963–1965: Genocide, History, and the Limits of the Law, Devin O. Pendas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), xx + 340 pp., cloth 95.00
In her study of the Eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt critiqued the view that criminal trials could or should have a didactic purpose. For Arendt, “the purpose of a trial is to render justice, and nothing else.” Assigning it a heuristic function would “only detract from the law's main business”1—wh...
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| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2008
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| In: |
Holocaust and genocide studies
Year: 2008, Volume: 22, Issue: 1, Pages: 131-134 |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In her study of the Eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt critiqued the view that criminal trials could or should have a didactic purpose. For Arendt, “the purpose of a trial is to render justice, and nothing else.” Assigning it a heuristic function would “only detract from the law's main business”1—which is to render justice to the accused. Devin Pendas's new book on the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial evokes in modified form Arendt's skepticism about the power of the criminal trial to serve justice and represent traumatic history faithfully. Pendas holds that German domestic law in the Auschwitz Trial was inadequate, by virtue of its very structure, to convey the social conditions of genocide. |
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| ISSN: | 1476-7937 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Holocaust and genocide studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/hgs/dcn012 |