Men and Women are not Equal. On Gender Stereotypes in Legal Proceedings

Abstract

Accused men and women were not treated equally in the Nazi trials after 1945. In the articles of the volume edited by Ulrike Weckel und Edgar Wolfrum ‘Bestien’ und ‘Befehlsempfänger’. Frauen und Männer in NS-Prozessen nach 1945, the Nuremberg Trials—initiated by the Allies against the main war criminals immediately after the capitulation of Germany, trials against SS concentration camp guards, and trials of high treason during the Weimar Republic and National Socialism are analyzed. A further subject of the study is the reporting of the Nuremberg Trials as a “major media event”, as well as the television reporting in the 1970s on the Majdanek Trials against male and female SS concentration camp guards. The authors ask how and which gender stereotypes influenced the jurisdiction and media reporting, which functions the hereby formulated images of men and women took on in the context of the formation of both German societies, and how they are to be situated on a cultural-historical level. While research on female perpetrators has already been established, a gender-historical method is now considered in the research on Nazi legal proceedings and their perceptions. This research perspective can be thought-provoking for both women’s and men’s history.