The People vs. Fritz Bauer

Drama, Thriller, Biography | 2016 | R. 1hr 45min
CAST: Rudiger Klink, Burghart Klaubner, Andrej Kaminsky DIRECTOR: Lars Kraume TUESDAY FILM SERIES

Germany, 1957. Attorney General Fritz Bauer receives crucial evidence on the whereabouts of SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer 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.

Join us for a discussion of The People vs. Fritz Bauer following the 1:45 p.m. screening on Tuesday, November 1, led by Kristopher Imbrigotta, PhD, from the Department of German Studies, University of Puget Sound.

Movie

Reviews

Kraume brings muted colors and a claustrophobic, urgent energy to the procedural part of this story, while reminding us that not every moral hero looks like Captain America - in fact, like Bauer, they can be a rumpled, misanthropic mess.

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times

It's a compelling portrait both of Bauer and of a fraught moment in German history.

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic