Transitional Justice (TJ) research needs to become more theory-guided and needs to move forward towards structurally-focussed comparisons in order to to arrive at more generalizable findings of e.g. the the effectiveness of the various TJ mechanisms in addressing the past.
Although covering a single country case "only" (post-war Germany), this paper discusses and compares the effectiveness of all four TJ-mechanisms that were applied to address Germany's historical injustices and crimes as regards the legacy of the Holocaust. The TJ-tool box so to speak consisted of the following instruments:
(1) the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal (1946),
(2) the public apology delivered by Adenauer in the Bundestag vis-a-vis the Jewish people (1951),
(3) the reparation payments to Israel and the Eastern European forced workers (1953: Luxemburg Agreement; 2000: Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future) as well as
(4) the amnesty laws implemented in 1949 and 1954.
The central question of the paper is: To what extent has the mix of retributive and restorative mechanisms contributed to reconciliation
(a) between Germany and its main victim (Israel/world Jewry), (b) between Germay and its international environment (in particular the
USA) amd (c) among the German people themselves.
The analysis of the cross-case (mechanisms) and within-case variance (change over time) starts with a theoretical taxonomy of the mechanisms as regards their individual purpose or aim (retribution, restoration). The conclusion of the paper is that reconciliation in general as well as each mechanism propably targets different audiences and thus contributes differently to reconciliation.
