Memory and Atonement: East Germany and Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge

• In Event: “Onward! No Retreat!”: The Matters & Memory of Asia’s Conversations with Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War II

Abstract

Shortly after the Vietnamese-supported forces of the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation liberated Cambodia from the rule of Khmer Rouge, the new government in Phnom Penh established the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal, at which the Khmer Rouge leaders Pol Pot and Ieng Sary were found guilty in absentia of genocide. Through the tribunal, the Heng Samrin government (made up largely of Khmer Rouge defectors) established itself as a break with the policies of Democratic Kampuchea. Alongside the Cambodian witnesses, international observers and legal experts attended the tribunal, which was the first post-Nuremberg attempt to adjudicate the crime of genocide. As such, the Cambodian communists drew (both directly and indirectly) from the experiences of East Germany, which had itself grappled with the legacy of the Holocaust, foreign invasion, military occupation, and postwar reconstruction in the aftermath of World War II.
This project examines how East Germany’s own experiences with post-genocide justice influenced its engagement with Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge. In particular, it looks at the work of Carlos Foth, the East German prosecutor who first came to prominence in the investigation and in absentia convictions of Nazi officials working in the West German government, including Hans Globke, author of the Nazi racial purity laws, National Security Advisor to West German Chancellor Kondrad Adenauer and liaison to NATO and the Central Intelligence Agency. Foth brought his expertise in the prosecution of war criminals to the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal, working as a consultant for the Heng Samrin government.
In addition to East Germany’s legal influence on the Tribunals, this project also explores how representatives of the DDR transplanted the iconography of the Holocaust to post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia; the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (also known as S-21) drew direct inspiration from East German examples of Holocaust memorials, while documentary filmmakers Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann drew explicit visual comparisons to the Third Reich in their trilogy of documentaries on the Cambodian tragedy. Lastly, this project looks at press statements from East Germany’s state media, which made repeated references to the legacy of German fascism and the Holocaust in its condemnation of the Pol Pot government.
These examples show that the pursuit of justice in Cambodia was not only a distant humanitarian concern for East Germans; it was also an attempt to atone on the international stage for Germany’s own genocidal history by providing its expertise to a country that had only just begun to emerge from the dark years of Khmer Rouge rule. Rather than treating the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal as a mere “show trial,” this project illustrates the contrasting perceptions of justice in the communist and capitalist worlds.

Author

• Court Hansen, Northern Illinois U