Human rights language is abstract and ahistorical because advocates
intend human rights to be valid at all times and places. Yet the
abstract universality of human rights discourse is a problem for
historians, who seek to understand language in a particular time and
place. Lora Wildenthal explores the tension between the universal and
the historically specific by examining the language of human rights in
West Germany between World War II and unification. In the aftermath of
Nazism, genocide, and Allied occupation, and amid Cold War and national
division, West Germans were especially obliged to confront issues of
rights and international law.
The Language of Human Rights in West Germany traces the four most
important purposes for which West Germans invoked human rights after
World War II. Some human rights organizations and advocates sought to
critically examine the Nazi past as a form of basic rights education.
Others developed arguments for the rights of Germans--especially
expellees--who were victims of the Allies. At the same time, human
rights were construed in opposition to communism, especially with regard
to East Germany. In the 1970s, several movements emerged to mobilize
human rights on behalf of foreigners, both far away and inside West
Germany. Wildenthal demonstrates that the language of human rights
advocates, no matter how international its focus, can be understood more
fully when situated in its domestic political context.