Looking through the portal of the Old University of Würzburg is like peeking cautiously into the future: What do we do with a past that does not fade away? What has to happen to ensure that the darkest periods of history do not get repeated? The process of coming to terms with the past is important in Germany. The critical confrontation with National Socialism and, since 1990, with the GDR, is regarded as central to the democratic identity of the Federal Republic. An academic project at the university is examining the success of transitional justice efforts worldwide.
Credit: hajotthu / CC BY
Transitional Justice: An International Comparison
From 2020 to 2024, the Chair of Modern History at the University of Würzburg examined transitional justice efforts in different countries and continents. The aim was to compare the instruments used and assess their effectiveness. A four-year project was set up with financial support of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation.
Were the individuals responsible for past crimes punished? Was the governing elite replaced? Were the victims of the dictatorship legally rehabilitated and financially compensated? Have sites or rituals of public commemoration been established? And how is the dictatorship addressed in schools and museums, in art, film and literature? These are some of the questions the project strived to answer.
The aim of the project was to develop recommendations for action that can serve as points of reference for the states in question, as well as for German development policy. Which instruments for dealing with the past have proven useful in strengthening democratic structures? What shape must transitional justice take to ensure that political and social conflicts be handled peacefully in the future?
The recommendations for action can be found here. The studies resulting from the project are available for free download here.
Project Management: Prof. Peter Hoeres, University of Würzburg
Project Implementation: Dr. Hubertus Knabe, University of Würzburg
Project Staff: Annika Fleck and Benedikt Karl, University of Würzburg
Country study on Albania: Dr Jonila Godole, Director of the Institute for Democracy, Media & Culture (IDMC) in Tirana
Country study on Argentinia: Dr phil, Lic theol Veit Straßner, University of Mainz
Country study on Chile: Ricardo Brodsky, former director of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago de Chile
Country study on Ethiopia: Dr Tadesse Metekia, School of Law, Jimma University, Ethiopia
Country study on Georgia: Prof Dr Oliver Reisner, Ilia State University, Tbilisi
Country study on Rwanda: Dr Julia Viebach, Oxford's African Studies Centre
Country study on South Africa: Dr Hugo van der Merwe, Director at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Transitional Justice
Country study on Uruguay: Dr phil, Lic theol Veit Straßner, University of Mainz
Press
Syria after Assad: Ordinary criminal law fails when it comes to the dictators' mass crimes, in: Die Welt, 8 January 2025.
Ceaușescu's long shadow: The all-powerful secret police ran through Romania like a cancer - and the process of coming to terms with it is still being thwarted today, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 4 December 2024.
Colombia's history of violence: One hundred years of cruelty, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 12 March 2024.
The afterlife of dictatorships: guilt without atonement, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 21 January 2024.
What history teaches: How to take successful action against anti-Semitic graffiti, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9 December 2023.
Negative prize for journalists: We are not in the GDR, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 October 2023.
17 June 1953: The forgotten uprising, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 11 June 2023.
Russia's farewell in instalments to the Karlshorst Museum, in: Berliner Morgenpost, 16 April 2023.
Museum policy during the war: Only able to act with Russia's consent, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 21 March 2023.
Film "Argentina 1985": Everyone cried at the cinema in Buenos Aires, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 March 2023.
Why Erich Honecker remained unpunished, in: Berliner Morgenpost, 13 January 2023.
Lenin's victory: The founding of the Soviet Union 100 years ago was a triumph of violence, in: Tichys Einblick, 2 January 2023.
Soviet dictatorship in Ukraine: Farewell to the past, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 25 November 2022.
Putin in the GDR: A good school for life, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 4 October 2022.
Russia still represses its brutal history, in: Die Welt, 19 September 2022.
Ukraine: Lenin's time has come to an end, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 18 August 2022.
The crimes of the grandfathers, in: Berliner Morgenpost, 22 June 2022.
German-Russian Museum: Warm words for Russia's soldiers, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 May 2022.
Putin's Dresden friends, in: Die Weltwoche, 30 April 2022.
Where to with Putin? Russian rulers generally do not abdicate voluntarily, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 11 April 2022.
A power-hungry man was shot: The Kremlin's bloody coup story, in: Focus.de, 2 April 2022.
The Stasi's hit squads, in: Berliner Morgenpost, 2 March 2022.
The last Stasi chief: Inscrutable to the death, in: Berliner Morgenpost, 6 February 2022.
Renaming streets: The idea of being better than our ancestors is dangerous, in: Die Welt, 15 January 2022.
The long life of the old communist cadres - in Eastern Europe, efforts at political self-cleansing have remained fragmentary, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 27 September 2021.
60 years of the Berlin Wall: Why Germans are so reluctant to remember the GDR, in: Die Welt, 11 August 2021.
Project "After the Dictatorship" at the University of Würzburg, in: Die Tagespost, April 16, 2021.
Project report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 28, 2021.
Does man make progress in morality? Interview with Prof. Peter Hoeres and Dr. Hubertus Knabe, in: Main-Echo of January 16/17, 2021, p. 24.
How the wounds of the past heal, interview with Prof. Peter Hoeres and Dr. Hubertus Knabe, in: Main-Post of December 5, 2020, p. 39.
Project report on the website of the University of Würzburg, December 1, 2020.
Report on a conversation with Prof. Peter Hoeres and Dr. Hubertus Knabe Sonntagsblatt, November 20, 2020.
Credit: Gerhard Bayer / CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
Credit: Hubertus Knabe
After the Dictatorship. Instruments of Transitional Justice in Former Authoritarian Systems – An International Comparison
A project at the Department of Modern History at the University of Würzburg
Twitter: @afterdictatorship
Instagram: After the dictatorship
With financial support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development