Lachwitz, Götz. Concentration Camp Crimes on Trial, on TV.

The filming of the Sorge-Schubert trial in Bonn (1958-59) sustained near-daily national TV reportage and served as foundation of a subsequent documentary film. The process was also followed five years later in the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, before being banned in 1964. The purposes for the filming included dissemination on Nazi-era atrocities (like Sachsenhausen) and demonstration of the upright legal practices and standards of postwar West German criminal justice. This original study contributes to a vast literature on accountability (and mediatization) in FRG, including Annette Weinke (2002), Norbert Frei (2012), Matthias Steinle (2003), Devin Pendas (varios), and Andreas Eichmuller (2011, 2012).

This chapter forms part of the following edited volume: Eric Le Bourhis, Irina Tcherneva, and Vanessa Voisin (eds.), Seeking Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in East Europe: A People’s Justice? (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2022).

Götz Lachwitz, “Concentration Camp Crimes on Trial, on TV, and in Civic Education. Bonn 1958-1959,” in Eric Le Bourhis, Irina Tcherneva, and Vanessa Voisin (eds.), Seeking Accountability for Nazi and War Crimes in East Europe: A People’s Justice? (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2022), 190-220.