Introduction to the Practices of Denunciation in Modern European History

Fitzpatrick, Sheila; Gellately, Robert

doi:10.1086/245392

Cited by 84 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The Stasi policing practices were believed to have developed from those of the Soviet secret police. 91 Nevertheless, both societies used their unique forms of self-policing to control their society and bring about a sense of discipline and loyalty to their respective regimes and parties. If the Soviet authorities knew what denunciation as a form of policing practice meant in sustaining Stalin's regime, it can only be concluded that the Soviet authorities were not only hypocritical, but were also perpetuating the same crimes they purportedly came to punish.…”

Section: Hypocrisy Bias and Inconsistencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There was simply no difference between National Socialist Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union, while the later German Democratic Republic was a continuation of the two with more sophisticated forms of self-policing. 92 The National Socialist regime punished those who were denounced for opposing the ideals of the NSDAP, just as the Communist Party punished dissenting voices in Soviet Union. The same can also be said about SED in the GDR, which despite assuming power under the guise of establishing democracy, opted to continue a dictatorship following the National Socialist regime.…”

Section: Hypocrisy Bias and Inconsistencymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Prosecution of Informers in Eastern Germany, 1945–51

Szanajda¹

2012

The International History Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This work is an examination of the practices and experiences of administering transitional justice in post-war eastern Germany after 1945, examining the adjudication of informers as indirect perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Allied occupation law allowed for the prosecution of informers retroactively in the German courts through legislation specifically enacted for the purpose of prosecuting crimes against humanity. The implementation of the law and the prosecution of informers in the Soviet occupation zone under the auspices of the military government administration, and then later in the early years of German Democratic Republic of Germany is examined. This work also addresses the theoretical and practical problems associated with the implementation of the law, and the lessons to be drawn from this historically significant attempt to call individuals to account for their crimes against humanity after they had occurred through the use of retroactive legislation.

show abstract

Section: Hypocrisy Bias and Inconsistencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hypocrisy Bias and Inconsistencymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Prosecution of Informers in Eastern Germany, 1945–51

Szanajda¹

2012

The International History Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Fitzpatrick and Gellately 1996). 16 The denouncer is usually personally affected by the consequences of this activity and tends to have a clear personal agenda.…”

Section: Denunciation -A Definition Of a Letter Of Denunciationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infinitives in the 1820 Settler Letters of Denunciation: What can a Contextualised Application of Corpus-Based Results Tell us About the Expression of Persuasion?

Włodarczyk

2010

Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper takes issue with Biber's (1988) findings concerning the significance of infinitives for what he calls the "overt expression of persuasion" (Biber 1988: 115). It aims to demonstrate that statistically generated results of research on large electronic corpora of contemporary English may not be verifiable in small, well-contextualised, single-genre collections, such as the one representing 19th century English used in this study. The collection comprises denunciation letters addressed to the colonial authorities (the Colonial Office) by the first British settlers in the Cape Colony (the 1820 Settlers). The letters follow the generic model of petition (Włodarczyk 2010) understood as an official written request. An act of denunciation, as we may assume, contributes to the inherent persuasiveness of petitions by increasing the illocutionary force (in the sense of Searle 1969Searle , 1979) of the letter. Therefore, patterns of distribution of infinitives as markers of persuasion (Biber 1988) are particularly interesting to trace in the 1820 Settler denunciation letters. The paper shows that some of Biber's statements may not be taken as valid generalizations, as the persuasive potential of infinitives may not be corroborated unless each and every token is thoroughly contextualized. Furthermore, an analysis of requests in denunciations conducted within Speech Act Theory (Austin 1962;Searle 1969;Blum-Kulka 1984;Culpeper and Archer 2008) shows that it is first and foremost politeness concerns (cf. Brown and Levinson 1987), not the increased need for persuasiveness, that determine the degree of the illocutionary force of requests.

show abstract

“…Denunciations are spontaneous communications from individual citizens to the state (or to another authority such as the church) containing accusations of wrongdoing by other citizens or officials and implicitly or explicitly calling for punishment (Fitzpatrick and Gellately 1997). A close look at this definition shows that it highlights only the negative side of the concept.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%