This research project centres on the person and work of Herbert Jäger (1928–2014) and his influence on the legal-political transformation process in West Germany from 1945 to 1993. The interdisciplinary project lies at the interface between legal and contemporary history. It focuses on two formative socio-political debates of the 1950s and 1960s: the conflict over a liberal view of partnership and sexuality and the treatment of perpetrators of violent National Socialist crimes. The link between the two topics initially appears paradoxical. Although the Nazi trials were rejected by the vast majority of West German society, no other topic had a greater impact on their contemporary historical awareness. Nazi crimes were equated as »sins of yesterday« with the sexual hedonism of post-war society as »sins of today«.
Based on the desire to return to the time before the National Socialists came to power, a rigid sexual criminal law was intended to create a social consensus by returning to traditional moral norms. At the same time, National Socialism and its distortions were to be undone, as it were, by building on legal traditions from before 1933. With his work on sexual criminal law, Jäger countered this with a liberal view of humanity and thus contributed significantly to the emancipation from the authoritarian-patriarchal state to a liberal, liberal-minded society. Jäger's innovative ideas on a different way of dealing with the perpetrators of violent National Socialist crimes were met with »eloquent silence« in the legal policy discourse of the time.
The aim of the project is to analyse the different discursive approaches of both thematic blocks and, in particular, to highlight Herbert Jäger's innovative contribution. Furthermore, his habilitation thesis »Crimes under totalitarian rule« will be critically analysed for the first time as a pioneering work in the field of perpetrator research and, finally, his comprehensive research work at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main will be examined in terms of its significance for criminal law policy.
