(ffm) In the night of 30 June to 1 July 1968, Fritz Bauer passed away. With a memorial hour in the Paulskirche on Sunday, July 1, the Fritz Bauer Institute remembered the merits of the committed jurist. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid tribute to the former Hessian Attorney General in his speech, while historian Norbert Frei shed light on Bauer's reception history in his memorial lecture. Minister of State Tarek Al-Wazir addressed the guests, and Lord Mayor Peter Feldmann called for Fritz Bauer to still be taken as an example today.
Fritz Bauer, born in Stuttgart in 1903, was persecuted and briefly imprisoned during the Nazi era for political and "racial" reasons. He first emigrated to Denmark and then fled to Sweden. After his return from exile, Bauer became the driving force behind the prosecution of violent National Socialist crimes. In 1956 he became attorney general in Hesse, and from then on a large number of trials moved to Frankfurt am Main.
"Frankfurt once again became a center of critical scholarship and cultural debate in the 1950s. Bauer will not have merely noted the efforts of the Frankfurt judiciary to punish National Socialist crimes," said Mayor Peter Feldmann. Between 1946 and 1948, four trials were held at the Regional Court for so-called euthanasia murders, and in 1953 the verdict in the Wollheim trial caused a sensation. It prompted the debate about compensation for forced laborers by industry. "In his plan to bring Nazi perpetrators to justice, Fritz Bauer could count on the support of the Hessian justice minister," Feldmann explained. "Fritz Bauer did what he could."
The attorney general was concerned with gathering information on a broad basis for the first time about what crimes had been committed against Jews, inmates of sanatoriums, Sinti, Roma, homosexuals, so-called asocials and other persecuted groups. And he wanted to address the responsibility of German society for what had happened. His enlightenment-critical approach pointed far beyond the courtroom.
Bauer played a significant role in bringing about the 1961 Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. The largest and most important criminal case he initiated in Frankfurt was the first Auschwitz trial (1963-1965). Bauer commented on this during the preliminary proceedings: "But one must be aware that these trials are not about revenge and retribution. For us, the decisive idea here is to make the past transparent in the trial and to make a contribution to German history. This, for me, is the deep meaning of all these trials." (Weltbild, 31.1.1961).
Fritz Bauer felt obliged to make an impact on the public. Peter Feldmann paid tribute to Bauer's efforts: "Regular appearances on Hessischer Rundfunk soon ensured that he was well known. Bauer was invited to speak on countless occasions, met political opponents in debating clubs, and sought contact with youth." Bauer often spoke of the "self-enlightenment" of German society about Nazi crimes, which he wanted to achieve and relied on because he believed it to be the basis of a democratic legal consciousness.
The Fritz Bauer Institute, founded in 1995 and one of the first initiatives to commemorate Fritz Bauer's achievements, investigates and documents the history of Nazi mass crimes - especially the Holocaust - and their impact up to the present day. "Fritz Bauer achieved that a broad public at that time dealt with the Nazi crimes and also contributed to the fact that contemporary historical research was dedicated to the topic. In this sense, our aim is to promote critical historical awareness through our work," said contemporary historian Sybille Steinbacher, director of the Fritz Bauer Institute.
"During the years he lived in Frankfurt, Fritz Bauer grew together with the city, which provided him with a political, a personal home," said the Lord Mayor. And yet, he said, he had felt threatened with the start of the investigations into the Auschwitz trial, pursued by anonymous calls and threats. The extent to which Bauer faced hostility is part of the narrative in the 2015 German feature film " The State against Fritz Bauer."
"The references are topical: representatives of the judiciary, politicians, journalists who are critical of the trivialization of the crimes of National Socialism must again expect hostility. We thought we had long since left this situation behind us. I therefore find it not only appropriate, but necessary, that we take our cue from Fritz Bauer. Fritz Bauer never glossed over anything. But he never gave up fighting."
