Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Clarke, David

Titel

Compensating the Victims of State Socialism

Ist Teil von

• Constructions of Victimhood, 2019, p.145-219

Ort / Verlag

Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This chapter discusses the significance of compensation as a mechanism of transitional justice before analysing the development of the forms of compensation put in place in West Germany to address the situation of the victims of state socialism in the post-war period. It shows how German unification reopened the question of compensation and how victims’ organizations came to mobilize a construction of their own victimhood that presented their suffering as a heroic contribution to the overcoming of state socialism and the eventual reunification of Germany. The chapter also considers how this construction can be understood as a response to shifts in the political landscape of the post-unification period and how former civil rights activists came to understand themselves as advocates of the victims’ cause. Finally, the chapter analyses attempts by groups of victims who did not initially receive compensation to construct alternative forms of victimhood in response to contemporary public debates.