Fuse Film Review: “The People vs. Fritz Bauer” — The Trials and Tribulations of a Nazi Hunter

Reality is the driving force behind the suspense in this film’s look at the lurid underbelly of post-war Germany.

The People vs. Fritz Bauer, directed by Lars Kraume. Presented by the National Center for Jewish Film Festival, along with Goethe-Institut Boston and the Center for German & European Studies at Brandeis University at Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, on May 4.

A scene from "The People vs. Fritz Bauer."

A scene from “The People vs. Fritz Bauer.”

By Paul Dervis

Several films in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s brought to light the lurid underbelly of post-war Germany. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Funeral in Berlin and The Odessa File are three of the better ones. Still, they were made during the heyday of the spy film genre and often sacrificed reality for the sake of suspense.

The People vs. Fritz Bauer does not have that handicap. Here reality is the driving force behind the suspense.

Fritz Bauer was a lawyer, socialist, and Jew. He became a State Attorney General in West Germany at a time (the fifties) when the government was littered with former Nazis. His driving ambition was to hunt down the architects of the Third Reich, most specifically Adolf Eichmann. But he was continually thwarted in his mission by his superiors, many who had very personal agendas as well as inconvenient connections with the past. This was not a Germany that wanted to look too closely at its recent history. Another complication: Bauer was a closeted homosexual when it was a crime.

Bauer, frustrated in his quest, is despondent. When the film opens he is no closer to tracking down war criminals then when he first took office. After a failed suicide attempt — he is haunted by the fact that he made it to Denmark and escaped the concentration camps while his peers suffered through the Holocaust — he is prepared to abandon his mission.

Just as he’s ready to take a leave his job a letter arrives at his office. A man in Argentina writes that he believes his daughter is dating Eichmann’s son. Is this simply yet another false spotting? Can a second source be found to corroborate the tip? Bauer’s supervisors, whom he distrusts, would like him to drop the investigation, and the Nazi hunter fears that they will find a way to send Eichmann running again if Bauer blatantly pursues the lead. So, even as it will be seen as a treasonous act, he contacts Israel’s Mossad.

Members of Germany’s political infrastructure have an ace in the hole. Blackmail. Bauer had been arrested for soliciting male prostitutes while out of the country, and it had been kept hush. Of course, if it came to light he would be forced out of office. To complicate matters, his right hand man, a young lawyer, married and expecting a child, had a secret life as well. And there are photographs to prove it. (Blackmail appears to have been a commonplace means of control in restructured West Germany.)

To throw his enemies off the scent, Bauer takes up a false lead that claims Eichmann has been spotted in Kuwait. He tells his colleagues that he believes this to be true. Though they are suspicious, this buys Bauer the time he needs to send his secretive information to the Israeli officials. The agreement is that when Eichmann is apprehended, he will be extradited to Germany. This demand, however, is not one that Israel, the United States, or even his own country wants; it is what Bauer himself craves. He needs to put the Devil on trial in the country where the crime was committed, partly because it will serve as a means to roust Eichmann’s fellow war criminals out of their comfy offices.

The Bauer in this film is not a classically heroic figure. As played by Burghart KlauBner, he is a man seething with fear, paranoid and neurotic, seeing hostile, shadowy figures behind every building. And he’s right to be on his toes. There are many who are clearly out to get him. Ronald Zehrfeld, as Bauer’s protege Karl Angermann, is set up as a dramatic contrast — his character is soft and gentle, displaying a sensitivity that makes his final act of bravery profound.

Directed and written (with the help of Olivier Guez) by Lars Kraume, The People vs Fritz Bauer is a masterful work that does a number of difficult things well: not only it is a trenchant exploration of the all-too-recent history of a Germany struggling to come to grips with its sins, but the film presents the gripping story of a complex man attempting to discover the truth and mete out justice in very corrupt times.

Robert Shaw’s The Man in the Glass Booth remains the drama against which all other works tackling Eichmann should be measured — The People vs. Fritz Bauer gives it serious competition. This film makes an excellent opening for the National Center for Jewish Film’s 19th Annual Film Festival.


Paul Dervis has been teaching drama in Canada at Algonquin College as well as the theatre conservatory Ottawa School of Speech & Drama for the past 15 years. Previously he ran theatre companies in Boston, New York, and Montreal. He has directed over 150 stage productions, receiving two dozen awards for his work. Paul has also directed six films, the most recent being 2011’s The Righteous Tithe.

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