The official West German government’s hunt for war criminals in the 1950’s was getting nowhere, and a whole slew of prominent Nazis who had been responsible for crimes against humanity were still at large. By now many SS officers had simply swapped their uniforms in exchange for a desk job in one of several important governmental and policing agencies where they could continue wielding their power and protect their ex superiors who were in hiding places dotted around the globe.
One exception was Attorney General Fritz Bauer, a German-Jewish lawyer who had been briefly held by the Nazis in a concentration camp at the beginning of the war and after he had been released, moved to Denmark. Once the war was over he returned to Germany to head up the department set up to bring the Nazi hierarchy to Trial. Based on a true story, the movie starts with Bauer, an elderly fiercely independent man, being rescued from his bath after he has inadvertently mixed sleeping tablets with alcohol. On his return to work a few days later he has to deal with the fact that his distracters are spreading word that this was a suicide attempt as he cannot cope with the pressure of work, and on top of that yet another confidential file has been taken from his locked office.
Reviewing cases with all the State Attorneys that work under him, Bauer re-confirms that not one of them has any concrete leads on any of the Nazis they had now been pursing for years. Then suddenly out of the blue Bauer receives a letter personally addressed to him from a German ex-pat now living in Argentina who believes that the father of his daughter’s new boyfriend is Adolf Eichmann one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. Convinced that this is a genuine sighting Bauer deliberately avoids sharing the news withother appropriate German authorities as he has every good reason to believe that they will simply tip Eichmann off, so instead he flies to Israel and speaks to Mossad their Secret Service. They however are reluctant to act on the tip, and demand that Bauer gets confirmation from a second source before they will proceed.
Back in Germany, aware that consorting with Israel is a traitorous offense, he carefully selects one of his assistant attorneys to help him track down the evidence that Mossad has demanded. He choses young Angerman because he believes that he probably shares a similar dark secret as he does. His right in his assumption and the young married man is also gay. (in the one corny mis-fire in this otherwise well written historical thriller, all gay men wear the same highly patterned socks!) Bauer has always had his occasional dalliances with young men when he visits Denmark a fact which is known to the German State Police who are desperate to have Bauer out of the way but however are unable to act upon their information as the incidents never occurred on German soil Now that they suspect that Bauer and Angerman are getting too close to locating Eichmann they conspire to make life much more uncomfortable for them both especially when they realize that the two Attorneys are both taking big risks to capture their man.
This is a rather compelling but un-showy drama that is steeped in historical facts. The fact that gay men lived in the shadows and did everything possible to void being exposed was no great surprise, but what was completely shocking was the extent of the infiltration of former Nazis into the whole structure of rebuilding a new German Democratic Republic after war. It seemed to suit the new government of Chancellor Adenauer and his major Allies like the US, that war criminals like Eichmann should remain out of custody as they possessed knowledge which would at best indict other important leaders, and at worse even cause the collapse of Germany’s new government.
A stunning performance from veteran actor Burghart Klaußner the doggedly persistent Bauer who never could take any credit for his part in Eichmann’s capture for several years, and he was ably supported by Angerman played by Ronald Zehrfeld who was last seen on our screens in Christian Petzold ‘s excellent Phoenix.
Although firmly based on facts, the whole piece is rife with very credible conspiracy theories, and its interesting that almost 70 years later, we may never still know the whole truth as to what actually happened when Germany rose again from the ashes.
