No other genocide in human history has been as well documented, analyzed and studied as the Holocaust—the systematic murder of approximately six million Jews and millions of others by Hitler's Nazi regime under the cover of a world war. Although it ended more than sixty years ago in 1945, this horrific event of such enormous proportions continues to haunt Germans and people all over the world.

The rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany is a case study in how a totalitarian state turned neighbor against neighbor in order to break the moral backbone of a citizenry and why the German people allowed them to do so. The Holocaust, and the events that led to genocide, reveal a shameful period in history when so many stood idly by as literally millions who had been singled out and scapegoated were led away to be murdered.

How does a nation come to terms with these past atrocities? Who should be held responsible? What is the role of the legal system in supplying some form of justice for those who remain, and honor to those who perished? How do citizens attempt to repair and rebuild? What kind of memorials, reparations and apologies are appropriate, and how can such gestures serve the goals of justice and reconciliation? Is the new generation of children responsible for the actions and crimes committed by previous generations in the name of their nation? For a society haunted by a genocide perpetrated decades ago, what is the right balance between, as Harvard Law School professor Martha Minow puts it, "too much memory and too much forgetting?"² How can a damaged nation claim a new sense of national pride?

These are some of the key questions that have emerged since 1945, and that continue to be grappled with today in Germany and by people everywhere. In this section of the module, we will begin to examine them. We will first look at the Nuremberg Trials, which began on November 20, 1945, soon after the end of World War II. Set up by an International Military Tribunal (IMT), created by Britain, France, the United States, and the former Soviet Union, the trials were a landmark event. Although the term "Crimes Against Humanity" had been coined decades earlier in response to the Armenian Genocide, the Nuremberg trials marked the first time in human history that individuals were tried for this crime. Some of our readings and video clips in this section look at the important contributions, as well as limitations, of the Nuremberg Trials.

But as ground breaking and important as the trials were, transitional justice is never about simply one approach. And so, the readings in this section also look at other aspects of transitional justice in Germany. We examine the role of forgiveness and apology in reconciliation; we look at the responses of some Germans to confront the past, contrasted with others' "collective amnesia" and desires to move on without facing a painful history; we look at Germany's responsibility—in the form of reparations—to the victims who perished or survived, and their offspring; we look at the stigma and guilt of individuals admitting past deplorable actions.

We also examine the huge impact of the 1988/89 reunification of East and West Germany, when two societies who had dealt so differently with a collective past reunite and look towards a shared future. Close to twenty years after the Berlin Wall was torn down, the new German state is still dealing with the enormous economic, social, and educational costs of reunification. And in our final reading in this section, we look at how an unlikely source can create an opportunity for Germany to take stock and pride in the democratic values of tolerance and multiculturalism it has cultivated over the past several decades.

In this section of our website, we do not claim to offer a comprehensive look at transitional justice in Germany since the Holocaust. We hope, however, that you will find the readings and resources provocative and that the questions they raise will spark constructive dialogue as you examine a society still confronting a painful past.

We would encourage you to research the history of Germany. Some websites we would suggest as you begin your research include:

• Action Reconciliation Service for Peace
• The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials

¹ Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective edited by Geoffrey Hartman (Indiana University Press), 1986. Source.

² Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence by Martha Minow (Beacon Press), 1999.