From the title of this movie I had expected a courtroom drama, but actually the trial and opposition that screenwriters Lars Kraume (also the director) and Olivier Guez are describing is far more pervasive and insidious. For they take us to West Germany in the late 1950s and 1960s where the government and state institutions are still populated with former Nazis and it’s in no-one’s interest to expose their former crimes. This even goes for the US government that needs a strong West Germany as a bulwark against the Iron Curtain. In such an environment our hero is Fritz Bauer - a Socialist, a Jew and a homosexual. The former two are distasteful to the establishment, the latter is a crime that can lead to imprisonment and blackmail. And yet, he is also an excellent lawyer and not without guile. So when he realises that his attempts to bring Nazis to trial are being stonewalled, and that his own staff are stealing files from his office, and tipping off Nazis in hiding, he decides to commit treason. Given a tip that Adolf Eichmann is in hiding in Argentina, Bauer travels to Israel and gives the information to Mossad, assisting their investigation that ultimately leads to Eichmann’s abduction and trial. Once again, this trial is not in Germany, of course. Germany does not ask for extradition. After all, Eichmann may implicate the Secretary of State Globke, and many others.
