“Epilogue of shameful history?” – the trial against John Demjanjuk and the criminal prosecution of former Auschwitz capos after 1945 in Germany – a few remarks

Corruption in politics is a phenomenon commonly raised by the public. Social studies indicate this type of corrupt behavior as the article contains a critical discussion of the criminal prosecution of Nazi perpetrators from the “grey zone”, whose perpetratorship was in fact mixed with victimhood. Starting from the court verdict against the alleged Sobibor Ukrainian auxiliary policeman John Demjanjuk in 2011, the criminal cases against a selected number of Auschwitz functional prisoners in the Federal Republic of Germany are discussed. The contribution aims at a critical assessment of the jurisdiction against a group of people, whose guilt is a moral, practical and legal challenge. Scholars have no doubt that the state attempt to restitute National Socialist injustice (including the prosecution of former SS and NSDAP perpetrators) has failed. But what about borderline cases like concentration camp capos?