part v • comparative legal history • kjell å modéer it, what we have to keep in mind, this unity of human race, its traditions its needs and its aspirations.This is it,what Germans tried to forget, more than any other country.’20 This fundamental view characterized his legal thinking. Already in the immediate post-war period he was a universalist – and reconciliatory one at that. ‘Today, we are glibly speaking of Nazis as if they were all alike, all of one compact group. But even Nazis are human beings of different individualities.Nazismas a systemof emotions, policies and ideas is an evil, which must be eradicated once and for all. But were these ideals held by all who at one time or another have joined the organization? Are they still held by them? People joined the Party for an infinite variety of motives.…One day there must be an end with accusation and incrimination. One day we must stop to dig in the past and begin to build a new future.’21 Back in Chicago in 1947 he gave several talks about his mission.22 His experiences in the ruins of Germany confirmed him in his view that the victorious powers had to put the past to rest with the Nuremburg trials and then seek reconciliation with the new Germany which would rise from the ashes. Life had to go on. Everything good about Germany’s legal traditions Rheinstein wanted to rescue. He also designed a programme for the young German lawyers of the immediate post-war generation. Yet his commitment to a newly emerging Germany met with scepticism from some of his Jewish colleagues at the Chicago law faculty. They did not welcome his opinions on reconciliation.23 Simultaneously, there were moves in Germany to tempt him back with a professorship. The law faculty in Heidelberg even made him an offer. However, he refused it, as he wanted to continue in the role of the law émigré – a role he played to the full. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 ‘The European Situation’, to the Church Council, Hyde Park Baptist Church, 29 Jan. 1947; ‘United States Military Government in Germany’, to the University of Chicago Law School Association, 31 Jan. 1947; ‘Military Government in Germany’, to the Chicago Literary Club, 5 May 1947. 23 Gebhard Casper, interview, Stanford, 9 Oct. 2014. 262
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