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Reine Rechtslehre (“Pure Theory of Law,” 1967) is the title of the major work published in 1934 by Hans Kelsen (1881–1973), a jurist of Jewish origin from Prague. Kelsen’s comprehensive œuvre is comprised primarily of theoretical legal writings on fundamental questions of international law, the state, and democracy. In  Reine Rechtslehre Kelsen presented a synthesis of his neo-Kantian and universalistically oriented general conception of law, the experienced historical origins of which can be located in Kelsen’s late Habsburg and Austrian-Jew…

The trial of Adolf Eichmann took place from April 11 through December 15 in Jerusalem in 1961. Eichmann, an SS-Obersturmbannführer and former leader of the  “Judenreferat” in the Reich Security Head Office (RSHA), was responsible for the deportations of hundreds and thousands of Jews to concentration and annihilation camps during the Second World War. The trial is among the most historically significant legal proceedings of the 20th century. Both the spectacular abduction of Eichmann by the Isra…

The diary kept by Anne Frank (1929-1945) from 1942 to 1944 in her Amsterdam hiding place is one the best-known literary sources of the Holocaust. First published in the Netherlands in 1947, the notes and observations received increasing international attention from the 1950s onwards. At first the diary was read less as a document of the Holocaust than as the touching literary explorations of a young girl. Adaptations of Anne Frank's account, especially in the theatre, led to recurring debates over the universal applicability of her life story. 1. The diaryOn June 12, 1942, Anne Frank…