Ignacio Czeguhn studied law in Würzburg, where he also completed his phD and habilitation. He holds a chair in civil law, European and German legal history and comparative legal history at the Free University of Berlin, is a member of the academic advisory board of the Society for Imperial Chamber Court Research, a member of the Royal Academy of Law and Jurisprudence in Granada and a recipient of the Georges Sarton Medal of the Faculty of Law at Ghent University (2017). Since 2018 he is also corresponding member of the Saxonian Academy of Sciences in Leipzig.

Jan Thiessen studied law at Humboldt University Berlin, Dr. iur. (PhD) and habilitation ibidem. From 2010 to 2017 he held the Chair of Civil Law, German and Contemporary Legal History, Commercial and Corporate Law at Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen. Since 2017 he holds the Chair of Civil Law, Contemporary Legal History and History of Business Law at Humboldt University Berlin. Since 2015 he is Member of the Working Group for Legal Studies and Contemporary History at the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz.

Der Sammelband präsentiert die Vorträge, die anlässlich des Symposiums »From Dictatorship to Democracy« auf Einladung des Forschungsprojektes »Die Berliner Justizverwaltung nach 1945 - sachliche und personelle Kontinuitäten zur NS-Justiz« im Haus der Wannseekonferenz vom 13.-14. September 2021 gehalten wurden. Wissenschaftler und Juristen aus Italien, Japan, Polen, Spanien, Südafrika und Deutschland untersuchen Probleme im Zuge des Übergangs von der Diktatur zur Demokratie.

Ignacio Czeguhn and Jan Thiessen
Introduction

Ignacio Czeguhn
The Berlin Administration of Justice after 1945 - Factual and Personnel Continuities with the Nazi Justice System. Presentation of the Project and State of Research

Vittoria Calabrò
Continuità e discontinuità nel passaggio dalla dittatura alla democrazia: la vicenda del giurista

Gaspare Ambrosini
Bronislaw Sitek and Albert Pielak: From Sovietization to Democratization of Justice in Poland (1944-1997)

Miho Mitsunari
Wartime Sexual Violence and War Responsibility: The »Comfort Women Issue« in Japan

José Antonio Pérez Juan
The Amnesty Measures of the Spanish Transition

Antonio Sánchez Aranda
Franco's Regime. From Totalitarism to Authoritarism in its Repressive Model (April 1936-November 1975)

Ramón M. Orza Linares
La transición a la democracia en los países de América Central

Gerhard Kemp
From Dictatorship to Democracy in South Africa

Claudia Vanoni
Drei Jahre Antisemitismusbeauftragte der Generalstaatsanwaltschaft Berlin - ein Erfahrungsbericht

Samuel Salzborn
Kontinuität, Tradierung und Transformation des Antisemitismus

Jan Thiessen
The Treatment of the Nazi Past in Contemporary German Legal Education

Benjamin Lahusen
Learning from History? Current Developments in the Restitution of Nazi-Confiscated Property

The anthology presents the lectures given on the symposium »From Dictatorship to democracy« at the House of the Wannsee Conference on 13-14 September 2021. The aim of the organizers was to show what problems existed during the transition from dictatorship to democracy in several countries around the world. They all enacted laws or other measures to ensure that fundamental rights and the rule of law would resist anti-democratic ideologies, anti-Semitism, racism, and war crimes in the future. However, the legal system and law in these countries themselves often had their origins in dictatorship. Thus, there were and are obvious and hidden anti-democratic continuities that influence law and the legal system up to the present. Scientifics and jurists from Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, South Africa, and Germany examine these continuities in their contributions.