The People vs. Fritz Bauer

Fritz Bauer is Attorney General and has dedicated his life to hunting down Nazi criminals. His biggest case: Adolf Eichmann. Bauer already sees the case as hopeless when a letter reaches him. A man claims to have tracked down Adolf Eichmann in Argentina ... When Fritz Bauer is appointed Attorney General of Hesse in the 1950s, he sets himself great goals: He wants not only to prosecute the criminals of the Nazi era, but above all to ensure that Germany acknowledges the crimes and comes to terms with its past. For years, Bauer, along with a team of prosecutors, works to arrest Third Reich officials who had fled abroad so they can be tried in Germany. Above all, he wants to bring Adolf Eichmann, the former SS-Obersturmbannführer, to justice. To this end, he works closely with the Israeli secret service. Bauer is increasingly dominated by this goal. And the web of intrigue tightens around him more and more. For the work that Fritz Bauer does, not everyone in post-war Germany likes to see. There are many who are still attached to old ideals and ideologies and see Bauer as a troublemaker and traitor to the country. And therefore an enemy of the state. It has taken many years for the immeasurably important work of Fritz Bauer, who not only led the Auschwitz trials in the 1960s but made them possible in the first place, to be recognized and addressed. 'Durch die dramaturgischen Zuspitzungen und Ausschmückungen kann er vielmehr das gesellschaftliche Klima und die moralischen Prinzipien jener Zeit sicht- und spürbar machen und Grundkonflikte herausarbeiten. Ob im politischen oder privaten Sinne geht es dann um Außenseiter, die sich dennoch nicht der herrschenden Meinung unterwerfen und sich für das, was sie unter Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit verstehen, einsetzen. Auch, wenn sie dabei persönliche Nachteile in Kauf nehmen müssen." (Kino Film Welt)