ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the East German experience through the account of judge and later Minister of Justice Hilde Benjamin. It considers the crucial facts about some of the key players and architects of the East German legal framework: the Old Communists. The chapter addresses the show trials in which Benjamin was involved. It then sets out the dynamics of legal propaganda in visual imagery in East Germany. The East German legal framework was dictated by the state constitution from 1949. The constitution drew heavily from the 1919 Weimar document, but East German leaders, like Otto Grotewahl, who wanted to address the Weimar constitution’s loopholes, soon came to be instrumental in drafting the 1949 document. One of the key moments for the dispensing of justice in East Germany occurred in 1947. The chapter considers Benjamin's role in select trials, with the Herwegen–Dessau trials being a critical moment in her career.
