Vérités différantes.Historiens et procureurs face aux crimes nazis

Differing Truths. Historians and Prosecutors in the face of nazi Crimes This essays deals with the differences between the way prosecutors and historians research, recollect and judge : history. Using Bruno Streckenbach, former chief of the Gestapo in Hamburg, as a case in point, the it discusses their differing ways of formulating problems and differing practices. Public: prosecutors are bound by the criminal code; their task is to convict someone of an; individually-committed crime. Historians, on the other hand, are free to ask questions and do not have to prove their protagonists guilt. The aim of their , research is to explain the historical context. The actors in historians' narratives are dead, and hence unable to change the text being written about them, whereas the participants in a trial are . given an explicit opportunity to influence : the process of seeking the truth. On the prosecutors' side, the logic of argumentation is oral and theoretical - jurisdiction - on the other side, historians try to convince by writing a plausible scientific story - historiography. Their monological practice of argumentation is quite the opposite of the regulated, but multi-voiced, procedure of a trial.