Search & Research, Lectures and Papers 17: “…A Justification to the World and Israel?” – Holocaust Discourses in German TV: The Case of West Germany, with an Afterword on East Germany

The Auschwitz Trial was the first major West German hearing that dealt with crimes committed in concentration and extermination camps. The trial is regarded as a milestone in the public debate of the Holocaust within West Germany, and its media coverage played a crucial role in this debate. The Majdanek Trial was the last of the major West German lawsuits that debated the crimes of National Socialism. The article deals with the following questions: How the TV media presentation of Nazi crimes changed over time, utilizing a diachronic comparison of the West German TV coverage of these two trials? How did the legal discourses on law and justice evolve? Which images of perpetrators and victims endured and which changed? How were the relationships to Israel portrayed?