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Andreas Hilger
Soviet Justice and crimes of war
Keywords: Kriegsgefangene im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Sowjetische Schauprozesse gegen deutsche Kriegsgefangene, Justiz im Stalinismus
Although the Soviet justice under Stalin had the biggest share in the allies′ persecution of German war crimes and National socialist crimes, they did not do much to clear up these crimes and to punish the people responsible. The presented material on how Soviet officials made their decisions, investigated the relevant cases, and planned the respective trials, shows the fundamental ambivalence of Stalinist trials. Soviet aspirations to punish German crimes were hampered by incompetent personnel, both in the investigative and in the legal authorities. Even more significantly, the Soviets regarded juridical considerations as secondary to matters of domestic and foreign policy.
The presented documents show the methods of a politically controlled system of justice, and what followed from this system. Both the individual guilt of the defendants and the suffering of the victims became secondary, as they were, above all, used as political instruments. The Soviet policy of justice gave absolute priority to public interest as defined by Stalin, which judged German crimes only from the perspective of the Cold War and in the light of ideological certainties.
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag
Print ISSN: 0042-5702
Volume: 54, 03/2006
Pages: 461 - 515