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Burkhart Klaussner as Fritz Bauer |
Germany, 1957. Attorney General Fritz Bauer
receives crucial evidence on the whereabouts of
SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann. The lieutenant colonel,
responsible for the mass deportation of the Jews, is allegedly
hiding in Buenos Aires.
Bauer, himself Jewish, has been trying to take crimes from the
Third Reich to court ever since his return from Danish exile.
However, with no success so far due to the fierce German
determination to repress its sinister past. Because of his
distrust in the German justice system, Fritz Bauer contacts the
Israeli secret service Mossad, and, by doing so, commits treason.
Bauer is not seeking revenge for the Holocaust – he is concerned
with the German future.
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The significance of Fritz Bauer, attorney general of Hessen, in
the formation of the Auschwitz trials in the 1960s is
indisputable. However, it didn't become known until after he
died how decisive he was in apprehending Eichmann. Now with his
film THE PEOPLE VS. FRITZ BAUER the Grimme award-winner Lars
Kraume (THE COMING DAYS) has drawn a powerful and gripping
portrait of a courageous man and his battle for truth and
justice. Bauer unflinchingly tackled this thorny subject and
didn't shrink from posing uncomfortable questions to the
Adenauer administration.
Burghart Klaussner (13 MINUTES, THE WHITE RIBBON) personifies
the title character in a congenial manner, down to the finest
details in expressions and gestures. Lars Kraume cast the other
roles in his suspenseful, dense portrait of the young Federal
Republic of Germany with a top quality German ensemble of actors:
Ronald Zehrfeld (BARBARA), Sebastian Blomberg (AGE OF CANNIBALS),
Lilith Stangenberg (THE LIES OF THE VICTORS), and Jörg Schüttauf
(I’VE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER).
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Original Title: Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer
Runtime: 105 min.
Genre: Drama
Director: Lars Kraume
Cast: Burghart Klaußner, Ronald Zehrfeld, Robert Atzorn,
Sebastian Blomberg
Frankfurt am Main in the year 1957: The attorney general in
Hessen, Fritz Bauer (Burghart Klaussner), is found unconscious
in his bathtub. An almost empty red wine glass and an almost
full bottle of sleeping pills are on the rim of the bathtub. A
golden opportunity for the Federal Office of Criminal
Investigation officer Paul Gebhardt (Jörg Schüttauf) because he
sees his chance to get rid of the obnoxious attorney general. He
encourages a police officer to dispose of several other sleeping
pills in Bauer's apartment in order to give the impression Bauer
tried to commit suicide and is no longer fit for his position.
Gebhardt indicates to the ambitious senior public prosecutor
Ulrich Kreidler (Sebastian Blomberg) that one just has to exert
a little more pressure to finally bring about Bauer's downfall.
After he's released from the hospital, however, Bauer succeeds
in quickly calming his concerned boss and fellow party member
Georg-August Zinn (Götz Schubert), the minister president of
Hessen, and to defuse the rumors of attempted suicide.
Bauer is a thorn in the side of many people, because ever since
he returned from exile in Denmark he has been persistently
trying to bring the crimes of the Nazi regime to a court of law.
It's a difficult task in a country that for the most part
doesn't want to deal with its past and where numerous central
positions in business and politics are still occupied by former
National Socialists. Bauer keeps receiving death threats, and he
also encounters heavy resistance within his own office: The
investigations conducted by the state attorneys assigned to him
usually proceed at a sluggish pace and it isn't the first time
that case files have disappeared.
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Ronald Zehrfeld as
prosecuting attorney Karl Angermann |
But one day he receives a vital lead in his search for former
SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Adolf Eichmann, who
was responsible during the Third Reich for the mass deportation
of Jews. A certain Lothar Hermann has written him from Argentina
that he has read that Bauer's office is investigating the
Eichmann case, and he has reason to believe Adolf Eichmann is
living under a false name in Buenos Aires. Because Hermann's
daughter Silvia has fallen in love with Eichmann's son Nick.
Bauer lets his friend and fellow party member Zinn in on his
plans: He wants to bring Eichmann in front of a German court as
the central figure in the so-called "final solution." As all of
the German investigative authorities (the Federal Office of
Criminal Investigation, the Federal Intelligence Service, and
the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) have
National Socialists in their ranks and staff members of Interpol
answered his request by saying they're not responsible for
political crimes, Bauer plans to get the Israeli intelligence
service Mossad involved. Zinn vehemently points out to him that
if he does this he will be committing treason and risks serving
time in prison.
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By means of the request sent to Interpol, Gebhardt at the
Federal Office of Criminal Investigation now knows Bauer is
following a new lead. He assigns Kreidler to place Bauer under
observation – not only to find out who he has his sights set on
but also for another reason: Gebhardt shows Kreidler a police
report that states while he was in exile in Denmark Bauer
apparently had contact with male prostitutes. If he were caught
in Germany with a man in such a situation, his career would be
over immediately. Because according to Paragraph 175 of the
German Civil Code sexual activities between males is illegal.
During lunch in the cafeteria the young public prosecutor Karl
Angermann (Ronald Zehrfeld) asks his boss Fritz Bauer for advice
in criminal proceedings against a man who was arrested for
trying to earn five German marks as a male street prostitute:
Angermann is unsure what penalty he should request, because
mutual masturbation wouldn't even be a statutory offense if the
Nazis hadn't made Paragraph 175 stricter. Bauer advises him to
request six months, but refers him to the "Valentine Court
Ruling" from the District Court of Hamburg in June 1951. In a
similar trial back then, two men were not sentenced to prison
for repeated sexual activities between two persons of the same
sex, but were only sentenced to pay a small fine. During the
following hearing Angermann actually does refer to that court
ruling and demands a penalty of five German marks, which causes
a commotion in the courtroom, and he can't prevent the accused
from receiving a prison sentence of five months. After the
sentence is pronounced, a young woman by the name of Victoria
(Lilith Stangenberg) approaches Angermann: She introduces
herself as a girlfriend of the accused, thanks Angermann for his
courageous summation, and invites him to visit her sometime in
the "Kokett" bar.
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Meanwhile, Bauer flies to Israel and has a meeting with the
director of Mossad, Isser Harel (Tilo Werner), who, however,
thinks the Argentine lead is a dead-end. According to the
information of the Israeli intelligence services the man who
Nick Eichmann calls "father" is not Adolf Eichmann, but rather
his step-father: Nick's mother remarried after the war, explains
Harel. He adds that Mossad will only continue to pursue the lead
to Buenos Aires if Bauer can manage to find a second,
independent source who could verify Adolf Eichmann's identity.
Back in Frankfurt Bauer confides in Angermann by showing him the
letter from Lothar Hermann; he tells him about his meeting with
Mossad, and asks him for assistance in the search for a second
source. Angermann doesn't want to commit treason and instead
would rather get the Federal Intelligence Service involved. But
Bauer is convinced the Federal Intelligence Service won't help
them and would most likely warn Eichmann. Because no one in
Germany wants to see Eichmann in front of a court – for fear he
would name more names during the trial in connection with the
"final solution." Angermann asks Bauer to give him time to think
the matter over; however, after seeing Fritz Bauer's inspiring
appearance on German television in the broadcast "Heute Abend
Kellerklub" he decides to help Bauer in his search for a second
source. He suggests they contact the journalist Friedrich
Morlach (Paulus Manker). They may not be able to rule out that
he also doesn't work for the Federal Intelligence Service or for
the Stasi, the East German secret police, but at any rate he's a
good informant – and above all, he can be bought. After Bauer is
willing to take the risk, Angermann secretly meets with Morlach
in his VW Beetle and puts him on the trail of Eichmann.
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Although Bauer receives a lot of positive reactions to his
television appearance, he also receives almost two dozen
anonymous threatening letters. When he asks the Federal Office
of Criminal Investigation to investigate and find those who
wrote the letters, Gebhardt suggests Bauer could have written
these threatening letters himself. Then out of the blue he
reveals to Bauer they have reliable clues that in the meantime
Adolf Eichmann is living in Kuwait. Bauer, who never mentioned
the name Eichmann to Gebhardt, now worries that his plan has
been found out and Morlach has betrayed him.
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But that's not the case at all – in fact, Morlach brings good
news with him. He's discovered that a former war correspondent
has been conducting interviews for years with Adolf Eichmann in
Buenos Aires, because he wants to write Eichmann's memoirs.
Morlach has brought one of the interview tapes with him as proof
– and indeed, Adolf Eichmann's voice is on the tape. Bauer
suspects Eichmann is working in Buenos Aires for Mercedes. In
order to check this out he drives to the Mercedes-Benz company
headquarters in Stuttgart, where he storms into the personnel
department and into the office of Herr Schneider, a former
commander of a SS task force. He confronts him with the files of
his investigation and in so doing he uses blackmail to get the
information that Eichmann is working under the alias Ricardo
Klement in the Mercedes branch office in Argentina.
One evening Angermann wanders into "Kokett," where he sees
Victoria again, who works there as a singer. After her
performance he visits her in her dressing room, but he flees
when she tries to seduce him. But a few days later he's drawn
back to her again. This time he takes a bottle of champagne with
him into the dressing room. Lying on her chaise lounge, Victoria
opens her negligée and reveals her manliness. Angermann dares to
kiss her passionately and in the end he succumbs to his
forbidden passion.
In the meantime, Fritz Bauer prepares for his second trip to
Israel; Gebhardt's and Kreidler's agents are constantly
shadowing him, speculating that they will possibly be able to
prove Bauer committed treason. At the Ministry of Justice in Tel
Aviv Bauer has a meeting with the Israeli attorney general Chaim
Cohn (Dani Levy) and with Isser Harel. He explains to them that
a second source has confirmed the identity of Adolf Eichmann in
Argentina; he arranges for Mossad to now get involved in the
case, and he vehemently argues that Eichmann should be put on
trial in Frankfurt in order to confront the Germans with their
past.
To give his enemies a false sense of security, after he returns
to Germany he announces during a press conference that he has
sent an extradition request to Kuwait, because he has learned
from the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation that Adolf
Eichmann is living there. And indeed, shortly afterwards several
Mossad operatives succeed in overcoming and kidnapping Eichmann
in a cloak-and-dagger operation on a dimly lit country road in
Argentina.
After Angermann and Bauer celebrate the arrest of Eichmann over
glasses of apple wine in a bar, Angermann makes a detour and
stops in at "Kokett." This time, however, Gebhardt surprises him
in Victoria's dressing room, and he confronts Angermann with
compromising photographs of him in explicit situations with
Victoria. Gebhardt gives Angermann two choices: Either he
accuses Fritz Bauer of treason or he will have to go to prison
himself …