The Second World War

When Adolf Hitler first came to power in pre-WWII Germany, all of Germany was ready for a new Fuhrer to lead them into success and overcome the recent depression. Among his supporters was Adolf Eichmann, who began as just another German citizen, but transformed into something even he could not have imagined. “On trial are his deeds, not the sufferings of the Jews, not the German people or mankind, not even anti-Semitism and racism” (Arendt 5). Eichmann was tried for crimes against humanity, but before deciding for oneself whether he was guilty of this charge, we must question whether he was acting out of service to his country or out of his own self-interest. After reading deeper into the results and proceedings of the trial, it is only logical for one to conclude that although he may have joined forces with the Nazi party as a patriot, his motives for continuing to assist in carrying out genocide on an unimaginable scale was largely self-interest.

The first world war was one of the most brutal and remorseless events in history; ‘the global conflict that defined a century’. Over nine million soldiers and a large amount of innocent civilians lost their lives. Empires crumbled, revolution engulfed Russia and America rose to become a dominant world power. Huge armies deployed new weapons of devastating effect from rifles and pistols to torpedoes and flame throwers. These weapons were used not only in the trenches but by tanks too. This was an advantage to those who were able to access such machinery as they could easily launch bullets and missiles at nearby enemy bases. The downfall of the tank was the fact it was unable to cross the trenches. Tanks were not the only pieces of equipment that could access this machinery but U boats and planes too. The British carried ‘bolt action rifles’ in which fired 15 rounds per minute at a minimum range of 1,400 metres away. This allowed the British to take out foes at a far greater range. By using machinery in which rules out the need for getting up close to the enemy was a great advantage during world war one. Soldiers ran from trench to trench attacking with all that they had. This resulted in a massacre as the soldiers running toward the trenches were shot down. Machinery such as machine guns and heavy artillery were the weapons used in the trenches. In modern day society, machine guns are the main weapons used by soldiers. This wasn’t the case around the 1914s. They took four

The Holocaust: A genocide in which six million Jews died, still remembered today as the single most grotesque massacre in human history. For most, the concept of Hitler’s rise to power, the building of his strength, and the process by which his orders were carried out remains an unimaginable concept. In the mind, laws of morality don’t bend. In looking at the Holocaust, one has to wonder how so many managed to break the rules of humanity so quickly. The easiest answer questions the existence of ethical laws at all. Although others consider the vast majority who did not fall victim to Hitler’s power to simply be better people, a consensus of Germany pre-war reveals that they were not miniature bigots.

Jurisprudential scholars have long asked themselves, “What, if anything, does justice have to do with the law?” Is justice an inherent component within law or is it a moral judgement about law? In attempting to answer this question, we will examine the debate between H.L.A. Hart and Lon L. Fuller. The argument put forth by Hart focuses on law as it is; while Fuller’s response focuses largely on law as it should be. At its core, this debate concerns the separability of law and morality, with Hart pushing a positivist narrative and Fuller promoting natural law. Both philosophers put their framework to the test by examining the role of justice and law in the context of Nazi Germany; namely, the 1949 prosecution of a German wife for illegally

In every moment, people make choices that impact society, continually shaping history. During the Holocaust, when the Nazi Party incarcerated millions of Jews, ordinary European citizens and their everyday decisions and shaped history through an amass of cause and effects. Their decisions were greatly influenced by their understanding of the universe of obligation, which sociologist Helen Fein defines as “the circle of individuals and groups ‘toward whom obligations are owed, to whom rules apply, and whose injuries call for [amends]’ (“We and They”56). The majority of society became bystanders to protect themself and their social status, leading upstanders to be a minority. Although multiple bystanders claimed to have no other options when

A few weeks ago, my friend Iz returned a book to me that I lent her last fall. It was my mother’s old Nazi Mind book. When she returned the book to me, a book that is no longer a required text for the class, I wondered how the class had changed over time. Since this year's Trial just recently occurred, I thought it might be an appropriate time to compare Nazi Mind then and now.

“The theory of moral condemnation as the basis of criminal law is argued most cogently by Henry Hart in his classic article The Aims of the Criminal Law.95 Hart concludes that "what distinguishes

World War II was the second major war that broke out across the world. It was fought between the Axis Powers and the Allied Powers. The Axis Powers originally consisted of Germany, Italy, Japan, and later were joined by Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. The Allied Powers were the United States, Britain, France, Soviet Union, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, and Yugoslavia. The United States involvement in World War II lead to many changes overseas and at home. One of the greatest changes that occurred for the U.S. centered on how the war altered women’s roles and how children were affected by these changes.

The debates over the nature of law have long known as the magnet to attract social controversies within the academia, where the enthusiasm in public sphere about morality’s role in laws often lead to criticism on the legal system’s ability to recognize what counts lawful and unlawful, and the questionable legal decisions that were made in real-life cases. Legal philosophers, such as Hart and Fuller are divided in their perspectives on identifying whether or not the legal system during the Nazi era was legitimate. I support Hart’s idea that while the Nazi Germany’s laws might not seem justifiable, they are nonetheless, defensible laws. Fuller, on the other hand, claims that based on the moral values of these regulations,

Hart, a legal positivist, believes that “law is law,” and argued against Radbrunch’s theory in servings as a solution to fix Germany’s judicial system. He argued against his theory and wanted a separation of law and morality because he thought that it would only “cloak the true nature of the problems,” and encourage a “romantic optimism,” rather than addressing the dilemma that the courts had in deciding on convicting Nazi criminals. Though Hart acknowledges that this case poses a difficult situation for the law, he does propose his own solution to the problem. With his positivist approach to the law, saying that the laws are the rules expected of us, and enforced at a particular time, he proposes that the “grudge informer” should be punished through a different and ‘new’ set of laws. These laws he deems “retrospective laws,” would entail punishing acts such as revenge and duplicity. However, this dilemma between choosing if the “grudge informer” was innocent

This focus of this investigation will be “To what extent did the Nuremberg laws affect the lives of Nazi Germany.” The Nuremberg laws develop into social conformities and the execution initiated by Adolf Hitler. The years 1930 to 1950 will be the focus of this investigation, to focus on the evolution of the racial ideologies under Nazi government and post-war period.

The holocaust is an event that most people around the world are educated on in school before earning their diploma. The details regarding the barbaric, inhumane treatment of millions of Jews, or those labeled as different by Adolf Hitler, is difficult to hear and comprehend. We reflect on these events believing this type of atrocity could not happen again. However, under the guidance of a persuasive leader people can be influenced to accept cruelties like this. Whether for the greater good of the people or for the advancement of their own agenda, society can be swayed to perform acts that would normally be foreign to them.

[ 2 ]. Clive Pearson, "HITLER AND THE LAW, 1920-1945", History Review no. 60, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, 2008, 28

In this paper I will take a look at Dworkin?s 1967 definition of legal principles and how they differ from legal rules. This definition from Dworkin will propose that law is determined by both moral and social facts. According to Dworkin this inclusion of moral facts as determinates of law, will make these principles problematic for legal positivist. I will plot out how legal positivists have replied to Dworkin and why I believe Dworkin has, through his ?principled? argument not done enough work to convince us that law needs to be determined by morality outside of the original position of law being determined by social practices (as widely posited by legal positivists).

whether what the commoners acting for the German party were doing was immoral then just because it is immoral from a modern perspective. Namely, one may question whether it makes any sense to analyze the morality of past actions through the lens of a distinct socio-historical context, since any moral system is actually directly dependent upon the circumstances that nurture it. Thus, one may propose that everything that the common population did in serving the government was completely acceptable because the norms of the time contended thus, whereas all of their actions are completely confined to that context. Many humanists, on the other hand, would counter this by contending that the value of human life is absolute and not relatively determinable, such that tentative social structures cannot be used as excuses for inhumane