The Reader

Why did Michael Berg engulf himself in the legal seminar?

Berg felt the shame of German history. This idea of a generational gap between his parents and himself was a major factor in his reasoning process. Berg was left with “revulsion, shame and guilt.” This was not only felt by himself, but a common trait throughout post-war Germany. For instance, when Hanna directly asks the Chief Judge “what would you have done” under the same circumstances brings to light the difficulty of the times. The judge’s answer was vague. “There are matters one simply cannot get drawn into, that one must distance oneself from, if the price is not life and limb.” Each person involved in the trial was left to this dilemma.

Why was this detachment from reality common to all present in the courtroom? Coming to terms with the self-realization that humanity can be so cruel and immoral strikes at the cord of Berg’s sadness. This battle was fought in Berg’s inner conscious. He withdrew from everyday life and sought refugee in legal history. Berg was a special case. Berg had a love affair with Hanna who turned out to be a guard at concentration camps. This realization turned his psyche upside down. He loved Hanna who inflicted pain and suffering upon so many. How to come to terms with that realization was a life long battle for Berg. What to do when your society at large has committed grave violations of basic humanitarian concepts of morality? This question haunted Berg.

The professor in charge of the seminar was concerned with retrospective law. The special importance of these cases is that the persons accused of these crimes claimed that what they had done was not illegal under the laws of the regime in force at the time these actions were performed. This plea was met with the reply that the laws upon which they relied were invalid as contravening the fundamental principles of morality. A choice had to be made between two evils, that of leaving the defendants unpunished and that of sacrificing a very precious principle of morality endorsed by most legal systems.

The professor’s concern with the separation of law and morality is a key distinction. Basically, what the law is compared to what the law ought to be is the major question. Berg believed for a long time that legal history is striving for beauty and truth. However, this belief as his studies continued began to be questioned and its validity curtailed by empirical facts. Berg makes a key point when he states that law is in motion. Law’s and societal norms change as individuals within that culture change. Temporal concerns are very important to take into account when examining the political morality of that society. Germany is a unique situation because of the political philosophy of Nazism.

This dilemma brings to light the problems of positivism and how much fidelity should a legal system give to written laws. Nazism violated basic principles of justice. During the reign of the Third Reich the principle of equal consideration was nonexistent. Berg believed in rationality and that similar cases should be treated similarly. Berg was touched by the passion of the trials and believed that punishment was a necessary outcome even if the law was retrospective. I think the link for Berg was in his idea that law is in motion and during certain times in history the beauty of the law was absent. However, it is up to individuals within that society to transform the legal apparatus and seek justice.