spread a message.39 Sometimes trials were not only didactic, but also destructive.40 For instance, in the 1930s in Moscow, Stalin organized show trials to publicly dispose of some of his collaborators.41 In this case, injustice not only had to be done, it also had to be seen done, to make a variation on the famous quote by Lord Chief Justice Hewart.42 Other examples are the Volksgerichtshof with bulldog-judge Robert Freisler in Nazi-Germany43 and the Gang of Four trial in China.44 In the latter case, television played an important role, to broadcast the message of the new regime all over the world. A cause célèbre where the (printed) press fully played its role of watchdog of the Rechtsstaat, is the Dreyfus affair in France.45 Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the French army who was wrongly accused and condemned of espionage. On 13 January 1898, Émile Zola published an open letter in the newspaper L’Aurore, titledJ’accuse…! (I accuse).In his letter, Zola took the defense of Dreyfus and accused the government of anti-Semitism. The letter caused a huge stir in France and Zola had to Public opinion as safeguard of the Rechtsstaat? the intangible public opinion as safeguard of the rechtsstaat 39 Meierhenrich, Jens & Pendas, Devin O., The Justice of My Cause is Clear, but There’s Politics to Fear: Political Trials in Theory and History. I: Meierhenrich, Jens & Pendas Devin O. (red.), Political Trials in Theory and History, Cambridge 2018, s. 53–56. 40 Meierhenrich & Pendas, The Justice of My Cause is Clear, 2018, s. 56–60. 41 Wald, Alan M., The Moscow Trials. I: Wald, Alan M., The New York Intellectuals, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition, The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s, Chapel Hill 2017, s.128–163. More recently, there has been the Khodorkovsky trials, which are the contemporary equivalent of the Moscow show trials. Sakwa, Richard, The Trials of Khodorkovsky in Russia.I:Meierhenrich, Jens & Pendas Devin O. (red.), Political Trials in Theory and History, Cambridge 2018, s. 369–393. 42 Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart (1870–1943) was Lord Chief Justice of England from 1922 until 1940. 43 Sweet, William, The Volksgerichtshof: 1935–45, The Journal of Modern History, 46 (2) 1974, s. 314–329. 44 Cook, Alexander C.,China’s Gang of Four Trial. The Law v. The Laws of History: I: Meierhenrich, Jens & Pendas Devin O. (red.), Political Trials in Theory and History, Cambridge 2018, s. 263–294. 45 Maxwell, Lida, Public Trials: Burke, Zola, Arendt, and the Politics of Lost Causes, Oxford 2014; Grosswald Curran, Vivian, The Military Trial at Rennes: Text and subtext of the Dreyfus Affair. Touro Law Review, 29 (1) 2012, s. 5–16. 72
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