German Crimes Tried in Poland

Brechtken, Magnus; Bułhak, Władysław, Zarusky, Jürgen (eds.), Political and Transitional Justice in Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1950s, pp. 194-209, 2019

H-Net Reviews, 2019

2020

One of the debates carried out in interwar Poland among legal professionals, including on the pages of legal journals, regarded the issue of how to define and delimit the scope of criminal policy. It was contributed to by many prominent jurists of that era, such as J. Makarewicz, B. Wróblewski or E.S. Rappaport. The aim of this article is to present J. Reinhold’s and A. Moginicki’s views on criminal policy. However, these two authors perceived the combat against crime differently as to the use of various means by the State or both the State and society (penalties and/or preventive/protective measures). Although they were influenced by the sociological school of criminal law, mainly F. von Liszt’s position, an analysis of their views points to a number of differences in their positions.

Political and Transitional Justice in Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1950s, 2019

The volume was edited by Magnus Brechtken, Władysław Bułhak and Jürgen Zarusky contains studies by Yan Rachinsky, Yuri Shapoval, Iryna Ramanava, Ingo Müller, Ingo Loose, Maximilian Becker, Jarosław Rabiński, Andrzej Paczkowski, Władysław Bułhak, Paulina Gulińska-Jurgiel, Joanna Lubecka, Adam Dziurok, Hubert Seliger, Łukasz Jasiński and Marek Kornat. All of them depart from or are related to the concept of political justice as proposed by Otto Kirchheimer. In his text, Władysław Bułhak, describes the origins and perhaps somewhat ambiguous history of the institution he currently works for, in the context of the enforcement of “political justice”. So far, historiography has failed to provide a comprehensive overview of the subject. Bułhak begins with the documentation of German war crimes by the Polish government-in-exile in London and Poland’s contribution to the broader efforts of the United Nations in this regard. He then sketches IPN’s successive evolutionary stages, initially called the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, as an organ of a state governed by Soviet-sponsored communists. He highlights the use of the Main Commission to legitimise the authorities in the early years of communist rule and the subsequent role played by the same Commission under a slightly new name and entirely new leadership in the 1960s, not only in prosecuting Nazi war criminals but also in the Moscow-orchestrated propaganda campaign against the ruling elites of West Germany. The overview also contains a brief description of the little-known period of the Commission’s activities in the years 1984-1998, by which time its name was changed to the Institute of National Remembrance. Finally, Bułhak discusses the origins and first years of the IPN as we know it today.

Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory Research Paper Series No. 2023-12, 2023

In German-occupied Poland, within the General Government, the German authorities decided, as in most countries of occupied Europe, to retain pre-war courts for the local population. The article delves into the challenges associated with the organisation and functioning of one component of the two-tier judicial system – the Polish (non-German) courts. These courts were responsible for addressing matters regarding non-German individuals and entities. The Polish (non-German) judiciary was an element of the normative sphere and functioned under and within the limits of the law, primarily the law that was in force before the war. Its presence within the General Government was to ensure further legal and economic transactions, thereby enabling even more effective economic exploitation of these areas.

Iryna Ramanava (Irina Romanova): The “Lepel Case” and Regional Show Trials in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) in 1937, 2019

free download in pdf: Political and Transitional Justice in Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1950s, edited by Magnus Brechtken, Władysław Bułhak und Jürgen Zarusky, Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2019, 336 pp. The book contains chapters by Yuri Shapoval: The »Union for the Liberation of Ukraine« (»SVU«) trial: fabrication, mechanisms, consequences Iryna Ramanava (Irina Romanova): The “Lepel Case” and Regional Show Trials in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) in 1937 Ingo Müller: Judicial and Extrajudicial Political Persecution under the National Socialist Dictatorship - Structures, Logic, and Developments Wladyslaw Bulhak: In Search of Political Justice, 1939-2000. From the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland to the Institute of National Remembrance Joanna Lubecka: German Crimes Tried in Poland: A political and legal analysis on the example of Supreme National Tribunal Trials in Southern Poland Adam Dziurok: The specific character of prosecuting Nazi crimes in the borderlands Lukasz Jasinski: Polish and Czechoslovak Retribution against Germany, 1945-1949: A Comparison.

Seeking Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in East and Central Europe: A People’s Justice?, edited by Eric Le Bourhis, Irina Tcherneva, and Vanessa Voisin, 261–82. Rochester Studies in East and Central Europe. Boydell & Brewer, 2022

Katarzyna Person There is now an extensive literature looking at the intersection of law, war, and postwar consequences. This includes, in particular, the history of war crimes prosecution and the creation of new postwar legal systems and institutions, 1 but also questions of retribution and repatriation. 2 The last two decades have 1 This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 893018. On prosecution of postwar crimes see, e.

Slavic Review, 2020

The Decree of June 13, 1946, on offences posing a particular threat to state reconstruction (the so-called Little Criminal Code) was one of the key legislative instruments incorporated into Poland's communist penal law. The Decree was intended not only to combat political opposition but also to force Polish society into obedience towards the communist authorities. This particular aim was also achieved by adopting rules which penalized spreading gossip, insulting the state's political system and the possession of disloyal writings. Of special interest in this context is the commission of such crimes by persons displaced into the formerly German land incorporated into Poland at the end of World War II. The author outlines the findings of research on political crimes at a time when new social and state structures were being constructed.