Business as Usual : The Germans and Their Law, 1943 to 1948

Examines continuities across 1945, so contextualizes the Nazi period in the longer arc of German history Offers a highly condensed social history of the period, drawing on source material that has received little attention to date. Attempts to dissolve the purportedly clear distinction between National Socialism and the post-war era.

Drawing on extensive archival records, Business as Usual shows how the legal system in Germany continued to operate with the same personnel, administrative routines, and institutional habits between 1943 and 1948, despite violence, mass murder, bombings, and regime change. This strict adherence to legal formalism acted as a “normalization machine” for mass atrocities, facilitating the compromised but seamless transition into the post-war administration. By tracing everyday judicial work in extraordinary circumstances, it reveals how legal institutions endure, adapt, and serve an inestimable purpose even in moments of profound upheaval. Moreover, only within the framework of the normal, ordinary law could the ideological exception of Nazi law unfold. In other words: besides the banality of evil, there is also evilness in banality.