INTRODUCTION

We may have clear ideas about who constitute the wrongdoers in an autocratic regime, at least from a moral point of view. It is not always easy, however, to translate these moral intuitions into legal charges. Moreover, as we get to know more about individual cases, initial moral convictions may unravel. Consider the border guards who killed individuals trying to flee the former GDR. Even if we are disposed to hold them morally responsible for what they did, their legal liability is a different matter, since the reunification treaty between the two Germanys stipulates that individuals can only be accused of wrongdoing if the acts were crimes according to the legal codes of both countries at the time they were committed. Furthermore, reflecting on what it meant to be an East German who had spent his whole life under a ruthless dictatorship, a prosecutor or judge in the former West Germany might well think, “There but for an accident of geography go I.” As noted in Chapter 3, the border guards almost without exception received suspended sentences.

In this chapter I attempt to carry out three tasks. In Section II, I discuss the psychological profiles of wrongdoers – their character, motives, and background. In Section III, I discuss justifications for alleged wrongdoing, that is, claims that the acts in question were in fact morally required, rather than morally wrong.