I have greatly benefited from the generous assistance of numerous individuals in writing this essay: Alex Hahn, Donald Kommers, Hans-Heinrich Mahnke, Walter Nicgorski, Path Ogden, Peter Quint, John Roos, Brad Roth, Gunnar Schuster, John Yoder, and José Zalaquett, as well as the participants in the 1995 Notre Dame Symposium on Political Justice and the Transition to Democracy and three anonymous referees. I am also grateful to the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, both at Notre Dame, for supporting the larger project of which this article is a part.

1. Whatever their intentions, courts have quite frequently found themselves playing the role of lay historians. For a similar role in a different context, cf. Richards, David A. J., Foundations of American Constitutionalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar, chaps. 1-2.

2. Cited in Zielcke, Andreas, “Der Kälteschock des Rechtsstaates,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9 November 1991Google Scholar.

3. See Christoph Dieckmann's lament that the case against Honecker was not “our” trial, in Die Zeit, 29 January 1993, p. 3Google ScholarPubMed. Also, Jahn, Joachim, “Warum ist die Verfolgung der DDR Regierungskriminalität so schwer?” Das Parlament, 10 April 1992, p. 17Google Scholar.

4. Unlike contemporary references to the Unrechtsstaat, which frequently draw upon Jaspers's work, Jaspers himself used the somewhat more easily translatable term Verbrecherstaat (“criminal state”). See Wohin treibt die Bundesrepublik? (Munich: Piper reprint, 1988), p. 21Google Scholar.

5. “Zur Aufarbeitung des SED Unrechts,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 4 (22 January 1993): 3Google Scholar. For a similar perspective, see Hoffmann, Christa, Stunden Null? Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Deutschland 1945 und 1989 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1992), pp. 287–302Google Scholar.

6. See the subtle assessment of the GDR as “im Kern ein Unrechtsstaat” by Horst Sendler, a former president of the Verwaltungsgericht, Federal, “Über Rechtsstaat, Unrechtsstaat und anderes—Das Editorial der Herausgeber im Meinungsstreit,” Neue Justiz 9 (1991): 379–81Google Scholar. Cf. Krüger, Hans Peter, “Eine Krake im Kampf mit sich selbst,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 June 1991Google Scholar; and Probst, Lothar, “German Pasts, Germany's Future: Intellectual controversies since reunification,” German Politics and Society 30 (Fall 1993): 29–30Google Scholar; and, Leggewie, Claus and Meier, Horst, “Zum Auftakt ein Schlußstrich?” in Wir Kollaborateure, ed. Stephan, Cora (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1992), p. 55Google Scholar, although the latter authors do not strictly view the GDR as an Unrechtsstaat.

7. “‘Entnazifizierung’ und ‘Entstasifizierung’ als politisches Problem,” in Vergangenheitsbewältigung durch Recht, ed. Isensee, Josef (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1992), p. 35Google Scholar. For similar views, see Bracher, Karl Dietrich, “Die Unterdrücker zur Rechenschaft ziehen,” Universitas 11 (1991): 1025–28Google Scholar; and Hoffmann, , Stunden Null?, pp. 247, 276Google Scholar.

8. Radbruch's, words are cited in Wesel, Uwe, Ein Staat vor Gericht: Der Honecker Prozess (Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn, 1994), p. 38Google Scholar.

9. To cite the chancellor himself. See “Interview with Helmut Kohl,” Statements and Speeches 15, 13 August, p. 2Google Scholar. Also, see Fricke, Karl Wilhelm, “Honecker unter Anklage,” Deutschland Archiv 10 (October 1992): 1009–10Google Scholar.

10. To quote Kohl again: “We can't have it both ways. We can't have a bloody revolution and at the same time celebrate a peaceful revolution. If we have a system of government based on the rule of law, then the law applies to every citizen of this country, even if the citizen happens to be Erich Honecker” (“Interview,” p. 2).

11. See Kommers, Donald, “Basic Rights and Constitutional Review,” in Politics and Government in the Federal Republic of Germany, Basic Documents, ed. Schweizer, C., Karsten, D., Spencer, R., Cole, R., Kommers, D., and Nicholls, A. (Coventry: Berg, 1984), p. 84Google Scholar.

12. See Vertrag zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik über die Herstellung der Einheit Deutschlands (Bonn: Presse-und Informationsamt, 1990), p. 925Google Scholar, Article 315. There were exceptions to this general rule. For example, the FRG reserved the right to apply West German law to offenses committed in the GDR when its own penal code was more lenient than the East German code. On the Unification Treaty, see Quint, Peter, “The Constitutional Law of German Unification,” Maryland Law Review 50 (1991): 475–631Google Scholar; and Schwartz, Paul, “Constitutional Change and Constitutional Legitimation: The Example of German Unification,” Houston Law Review 31 (Winter 1994): 1027–1104Google Scholar.

13. This is not to say that German courts were necessarily bound to exclude suprapositive norms of justice from their decisions but only that, in this particular case, both jurists and politicians reasoned that it was most appropriate to emphasize the positive law. On the tension between these norms within the Basic Law, see Kommers, Donald, The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany (Durham: Duke University Press, 1989), p. 43Google Scholar.

14. Kinkel, Klaus, “Wiedervereinigung und Strafrecht,” Juristen Zeitung 47 (22 May 1992): 487Google Scholar.

15. Ibid., p. 487. I am aware that many German legal terms, such as Totschlag, cannot be perfectly rendered in English translation. However, in deciding upon translations, I have tried to use conventional terms that should suffice for the general purposes of this article.

16. On the sequencing of the trials, see Wesel, Uwe, Ein Stoat vor Gericht, p. 33Google Scholar. On the borderguard trials, Hruschke, Joachim, “Die Todesschüsse an der Berliner Mauer vor Gericht,” Juristen Zeitung 13 (1992): 665–70Google Scholar; Polakiewicz, Jörg, “Verfassungs- und völkerrechtliche Aspekte der strafrechtlichen Ahndung des Schusswaffeneinsatzes an der innerdeutschen Grenze,” Europäische Grundrechte Zeitschrift 19 (5 June 1992): 177–90Google Scholar; Petersen, Antje, “The First Berlin Border Guard Trial,” Occasional Paper No. 15 (Bloomington, IN.: Indiana Center on Global Change and World Peace, 1992), pp. 1–39Google Scholar; Adams, Kif Augustine, “What is Just? The Rule of Law and Natural Law in the Trials of Former East German Border Guards,” Stanford Journal of International Law 29 (1993): 271–314Google Scholar; Roggemann, Herwig, “Zur Strafbarkeit der Mauerschützen,” Deutsch-deutsche Rechts-Zeitschrift 1 (1993): 10–19Google Scholar.

17. Cited in Petersen, , “The First Berlin Border Guard Trial,” pp. 24–25Google Scholar.

18. See his ruling, Landgericht Berlin ([523] 2 Js 48/90 [9/91/) of 20 January 1992, p. 136-40. Seidel noted that in citing Radbruch, he was drawing an implicit parallel with the Nazi regime whose crimes, he admitted, were more extensive than those of the GDR. “Nonetheless,” he added, “the court has no misgivings about following this legal approach in this case, for the protection of human life enjoys general validity and cannot be dependent upon a specific number of killings.”

19. Ibid., p. 156.

20. Ibid., pp. 156-63.

21. For forceful critiques of Seidel's reasoning, see Wesel, , Ein Staat vor Gericht, pp. 33–43Google Scholar; Adams, , “What Is Just?”, pp. 298–300Google Scholar; and Petersen, , “The First Berlin Border Guard Trial,” p. 38Google Scholar. In March 1993, Germany's high appeals court, the Bundesgerichtshof, showed its reservations with the ruling. The court lifted the decision against one of the defendants and suspended the sentence against the other. Most significant for our purposes, the court explicitly based its judgment upon preexisting GDR law. See the ruling of 25 March 1993 (5 StR 418/92).

22. See the ruling of the Landgericht Berlin ([518] 2 Js 63/90 KLs [57/91]) of 5 February 1992, pp. 50-52.

23. Ibid., pp. 60, 63, 66-67.

24. In two respects, the court differed slightly with Tepperwein's reasoning. It took issue with a claim that it was unlawful for border guards to use “automatic fire” in preventing escape attempts. It also appealed to international law in judging East German border fortifications incompatible with the GDR's participation in the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. Yet, for our purposes, the high court's ruling was most significant in upholding Tepperwein's use of East German law. For the court's decision (5 StR 370/92), see Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 2 (1993): 141–49Google Scholar. In contrast to my emphasis on domestic law, this trial and related proceedings have been analyzed from the standpoint of international law in an informative essay by Gunnar Schuster, “The Criminal Prosecution of Former GDR Officials” (unpublished).

25. The German term is “mittelbare Mittäterschaft.”

26. Anklageschrift, Staatsanwaltschaft bei dem Kammergericht Berlin, pp. 770-71. I am grateful to the Berlin Prosecutor General's Office for providing me with the, normally confidential, sections of the indictment dealing with the “legal justification” (rechtliche Würdigung) of the case.

27. For historical evidence supporting this position, see Möbius, Peter and Trotnow, Helmut, “Das Mauer-Komplott: Honecker verschärft die Teilung von Tag zu Tag,” Die Zeit, 16 August 1991, p. 13Google Scholar; and Leonhard, Wolfgang, “Erich Honecker und die Berliner Mauer,” Kursbuch 111 (February 1993): 125–31Google Scholar.

28. See the short form of the indictment, reprinted in Richter, Peter, Kurzer Prozess (Berlin: Elefanten Press Verlag, 1993), pp. 145–51Google Scholar. (This version of the indictment was released on 30 November 1992. The court reduced to 12 the number of charges against the defendants to simplify the proceedings.) For historical evidence supporting the court's reasoning, see Filmer, Werner and Schwan, Heribert, Opfer der Mauer: Die geheimen Protokolle des Todes (Munich: C. Bertelsmann, 1991), pp. 373–94Google Scholar.

29. For differing accounts of the trial, see Hénard, Jacqueline, Geschichte vor Gericht (Berlin: Corso bei Siedler, 1993), pp. 57–74Google Scholar; Richter, , Kurzer Prozess, pp. 15–17Google Scholar; Selbmann, Erich, Der Prozess (Berlin: Spotless, 1993), pp. 6–70Google Scholar; Wesel, Ein Staat vor Gericht, chaps. 1, 2, 5, passim; Rosenberg, Tina, The Haunted Land (New York: Random House, 1995)Google Scholar, chap. 8; and “On With the Show,” The New Yorker 68 (11 January 1993): 23–26Google Scholar. The last account was penned by the wife of one of Honecker's attorneys.

30. Honecker's statement before the court is reprinted in Richter, , Kurzer Prozess, pp. 159–75Google Scholar. Feigning modesty, Honecker advised the court (p. 167) that the indictment against him gave him no choice, “without being an historian, [but] to recapitulate the history that had led to the [construction of the] Wall.”

31. See Kommers, , “Basic Rights,” p. 114Google Scholar.

32. All charges against Stoph were finally dropped for reasons of poor health in July 1993, followed by the dismissal of charges against Mielke for similar reasons a year later. Mielke was incarcerated, however, for his conviction in the other case. In February 1995, the Federal Constitutional Court rejected his request for an appeal of the conviction.

33. Honecker failed to live up to this prediction by only half a year; he died in Chile on 29 May 1994.

34. See VerfGH Beschluss (55/92), reprinted in Juristenzeitung 5 (1993): 259–61Google Scholar. The court based its decision squarely on Article 1 of the Basic Law. For a detailed treatment of the legal issues, see Lüderssen, Klaus, Der Stoat geht unter—das Unrecht bleibt? (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992), pp. 98–105Google Scholar. For reasons beyond the purposes of this article, some observers contended that the court exceeded its competence in coming to this judgment. Among the voluminous critical accounts, see Meurer, D., “Der Verfassungsgerichtshof und das Strafverfahren,” Juristische Rundschau 3 (March 1993): 89–95Google Scholar; Bartlsperger, R., “Einstellung des Strafverfahrens von Verfassungs wegen,” Deutsches Verwaltungsblatt 108 (1 April 1993): 333–49Google Scholar; and Berkemann, J., “Ein Landesverfassungsgericht als Revisionsgericht,” Neue Zeitschrift für Verwaltungsrecht 12 (15 May 1993): 409–19Google Scholar.

35. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 January 1993, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16/17 January 1994.

36. Kessler's and Streletz's defense arguments are reprinted in Richter, , Kurzer Prozess, pp. 207–14, 222–31Google Scholar.

37. Bräutigam's dismissal from the case was as odd as some of the proceedings. The judge was not removed for reasons of political bias, as one might have expected, but instead because he sought, bizarrely, to obtain Honecker's autograph for a court official.

38. For the main sections of the court's decision (Landgericht Berlin, Urteil vom 16.9.93–[527] 2 Js 26/90 Ks 10 [92]), see “Urteil gegen ehem. Mitglieder des Nationalen Verteidigungsrates der DDR,” Neue Justiz 5 (1994): 210–14Google Scholar.

39. Ibid., p. 213.

40. Ibid., p. 212. Also see Süddeutsche Zeitung, 17 September 1993; The Week in Germany (German Information Center), 24 September 1993; Winters, Peter Jochen, “Ein Sieg der Gerechtigkeit,” Deutschland Archiv 10 (1993): 1121–22Google Scholar.

41. United Press International report, 16 September 1993.

42. The Week in Germany (German Information Center), 24 September 1993.

43. The complete sentence is: “Der Bundesgerichtshof ist der Auffassung, dass es dem objektiven Gewicht des Tatbeitrages des Hintermannes an der Spitze einer Hierarchie nicht gerecht würde, wenn dieser nur Teilnehmer wäre, während die unmittelbar Handelnden, hier die Grenzsoldaten, wegen täterschaftlichen Handelns verurteilt werden müssen.” For the court's decision, see the Bundesgerichtshof press release of 26 July 1994 (As: 5 StR 98/94).

44. Technically, this was not the end. On 10 January 1995, the Berlin Prosecutor General announced the indictment of seven former members of the SED politburo, including the party's last general secretary, Egon Rrenz. The new indictment was welcomed by some observers as proof of the FRG's continuing commitment to holding the GDR's leaders accountable for their actions. From this writer's standpoint, however, the proceedings could be faulted for not living up to the more exacting standards of the Honecker trial. First, the defendants were not charged with participating in the shooting deaths at the Wall but rather for the more amorphous offense of not actively seeking to prevent these crimes. Second, some of those individuals included in the indictment (e.g., former cultural chief, Kurt Hager) seem to have been only very marginal participants in the crimes.

45. See the ruling of 3 November 1992 (5 StR 370/92), cited in Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 2 (1993): 146Google Scholar.

46. Political Justice: The Use of Legal Procedure for Political Ends (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 336Google Scholar.

47. The Independent, 2 August 1992.

48. “À la lanterne?” Kursbuch 111 (February 1993): 11Google Scholar.

49. In one study, the Allensbach Institute found that 73 percent of the eastern Germans it interviewed were unconvinced that the law was applied equally to all Germans; 72 percent felt themselves personally not well protected. See Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 8 March 1995. On the continuing problems of reuniting the two German populations, see the epilogue to the paperback edition of my study, Germany Divided: From the Wall to Reunification (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 229–43Google Scholar.

50. See “Interview mit Ernst Benda,” Deutschland Archiv 25 (1992): 1341Google Scholar.

51. See Simm, Bruno and Volk, Klaus, “Der Spion der in die Kälte kam,” Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 14 (1991): 871–75Google Scholar; and Widmaier, Gunter, “Verfassungswidrige Strafverfolgung der DDR-Spionage,” Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 39 (1991): 2460–64Google Scholar. In contrast, for a provocative defense of the trials, based on both international law and the special inter-German relationship, see Schuster, Gunnar, “Verfassungs- und völkerrechtliche Fragen der Bestrafung von DDR-Spionen nach der Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands,” Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 51 (1991): 651–82Google Scholar.

52. The court's ruling did not, however, amount to a blanket amnesty. The court excluded former West German citizens from the judgment. Additionally, it held that East German case officers and deep-cover officers (Offiziere im besonderen Einsatz), among others, were liable to criminal persecution if they acted on West German soil. In the latter cases, however, the court recommend leniency in sentencing, given the historical context in which these activities were conducted. Judgment of 15 May 1995, Second Senate, Federal Constitutional Court (transcript).