October 28, 2025 • 48 mins
Picture this: A world where the Holocaust is just a tiny footnote in the grand saga of World War II, where Auschwitz is a mere mention in a history book, overshadowed by the local chemical industry. Sounds unreal, right? Well, that was the reality in post-war West Germany—a time when many folks were keen to sweep the past under the rug.
Enter Fritz Bauer, a Jewish judge who had a front-row seat to the horrors of the Nazi regime and was determined to drag his fellow Germans into a confrontation with their past. In this lively chat with journalist Jack Fairweather, we dive deep into Bauer's relentless quest for justice and how he orchestrated monumental trials that forced Germany to reckon with its history. Fairweather, who’s no stranger to the dark alleys of history, sheds light on Bauer’s extraordinary life, his struggles as a gay man in a hostile environment, and his fight against the tide of denial that swept through a country still reeling from the devastation of the war.
The episode is packed with rich historical context and Fairweather’s passion shines through as he recounts how Bauer not only sought justice for the victims but also envisioned a better, more progressive Germany. It’s a compelling narrative that will have you questioning how we confront our own dark histories today.
[00:00] Introduction: The Forgotten Holocaust
[00:43] Meet Fritz Bauer: The Relentless Prosecutor
[00:52] Interview with Jack Fairweather
[01:12] Welcome to St. Louis in Tune
[02:30] Jack Fairweather's Background
[03:17] The Battle for Holocaust Recognition
[08:09] Fritz Bauer's Struggles and Achievements
[18:53] The Importance of Bauer's Story Today
[21:16] Bauer's Role in Capturing Eichmann
[22:32] Bauer's Personal Challenges
[23:42] Conclusion and Upcoming Events
[26:35] Exploring Fritz Bauer's Motivation
[27:15] The Power of Biography
[28:26] Bauer's Vision for Germany
[31:29] The Impact of the Frankfurt Trials
[34:27] Bauer's Strategy and Challenges
[39:02] The Auschwitz Trial
[40:39] Jack Fairweather's Journey
[42:16] Book Recommendations and Event Details
[44:47] Reflecting on Bauer's Legacy
[47:08] Conclusion and Farewell
Takeaways:
- The podcast delves into the chilling reality of post-World War II Germany, where the Holocaust was largely ignored and former Nazis resumed their lives.
- Fritz Bauer, a courageous gay Jewish judge, fought to bring the horrors of the Holocaust to light amidst a society eager to forget.
- Jack Fairweather's book, 'The Prosecutor', reveals how Bauer spearheaded legal battles to confront Germany's dark past and seek justice.
- The episode highlights how Bauer's efforts were crucial in changing the narrative around the Holocaust, particularly through landmark trials.
- Listeners are encouraged to reflect on the importance of confronting uncomfortable truths about history to prevent future atrocities.
- The conversation emphasizes that understanding our past is essential to shaping a more just and aware society today.
This is Season 8! For more episodes, go to
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Imagine a history of the 20thcentury in which the Holocaust is
only a footnote to the SecondWorld War, where the encyclopedia
entry for Auschwitz describesthe flourishing chemical industry
in the nearby town, but omitsthe gas chambers where school textbooks
describe Hitler as, quote,gifted in a variety of ways. And
limit the discussion of themass murder he orchestrated to just
(00:21):
47 words, concluding that nomore than 100 people knew about it.
This isn't an abstract thoughtexperiment. This was West Germany
in the years followingHitler's defeat, when the Holocaust
was all but forgotten and theAllies sanctioned the return of millions
of former Nazis to forge a newcountry to serve as a bulwark against
Communism. That didn't stopFritz Bauer, who is a gay Jewish
(00:44):
judge from Stuttgart whosurvived the Nazis and made it his
mission to force hiscountrymen to confront their complicity
in the genocide. We're goingto talk to award winning journalist
Jack Fairweather about hisbook the Prosecutor Next on St. Louis
in tune. Welcome to St. Luisand tune and thank you for joining
(01:13):
us for fresh perspectives onissues and events with experts, community
leaders and everyday peoplewho make a difference in shaping
our society and world. I'mArnold Stricker along with co host
Mark Langston. Greetings toyou, Mark.
Good, good day.
It is a good day, even thoughit's, it looks like it's, it's horrible
outside. It's cloudy, it's rainy.
(01:33):
It's just officially into fall.
Here we are.
Okay.
And finally we've got somefall weather.
Yep.
Folks, we're glad that youjoined us today. We want to thank
our sponsor, Better RateMortgage for their support of the
show. You can listen toprevious shows@stl and tune.com.
please help us continue togrow by leaving a review on our website,
Apple Podcast or yourpreferred podcast platform. Our thought
(01:55):
for the day is by AlbertEinstein. No problem can be solved
from the same level ofconsciousness that created it.
He thinks on a whole different plane.
A whole different plane. I'mgoing to repeat that again. No problem
can be solved from the samelevel of consciousness that created
it. And that reallyexemplifies our conversation that
(02:17):
we're going to have with JackFairweather today about his book,
the Prosecutor. Jack, welcometo St. Louis in Tune.
Hi. Thanks for having me.
I was really amazed. I want togive a little background about you.
Jack's the best selling authorof the Volunteer, the Costa Prize
winning account of a Polishunderground officer who volunteered
to report on Nazi crimes inAuschwitz. The book's been translated
(02:40):
into 25 languages and formsthe basis of a major exhibition in
Berlin. He served on the DailyTelegraph's Baghdad bureau and is
a video journalist for theWashington Post in Afghanistan. You've
been. Been around, you've doneyour work on the front lines seriously,
in some very serious areas.This is an area that there's a front
(03:02):
there too, but it's. It's likea historical front that you were
really delving into in gettinginto Fritz Bauer. What was the impetus
getting into Fritz Bauer?
You mentioned the book theVolunteer about the war hero who
volunteered to report andexpose Nazi crimes and Auschwitz
(03:24):
and to try and stop thekilling. Of course we know that mission
did not succeed. And it wasthrough that book that I started
wondering how did we come toknow about Auschwitz? How did it
lodge in our popularconsciousness? And came to the shocking
realization that it wasn'tthis obvious thing at the end of
(03:47):
the Second World War, that itactually took a real battle to make
people pay attention. And thatwas the battle that was waged by
Fritz Bauer, thisextraordinary figure from history
who's really unknown to us inthe US Some of your listeners might
(04:09):
have heard of his name inconnection with the capture of Adolf
Eichmann. But for me it wasbecame clear he was a seminal figure
in helping us come to termswith the Holocaust. And as you read
from the intro of the book atthe start of this segment, there
is this terrifying prospectthat we can't, we need to get our
(04:31):
heads into when approachingthe book, which is a world in which
Nazis are back in power. Noone's talking about the Holocaust.
There has not been been thereckoning that we take for granted.
And I really wanted to plungereaders into that dark and terrifying
world. Especially so for a gayJewish man seeking to make his countrymen
(04:56):
come to terms with the past.
You've done a great job oflaying out the historical aspect
of what was going on beforethe war and then during the war and
after the war. And there's alot of people involved and I'm glad
I. When I got to the end ofthe book, then I saw, oh, here's
the list of the people.Because I was trying to keep them
straight in my mind. But theresearch on this is great. And I
(05:20):
saw a previous interviewyou've. This is a book that could
be like a dissertation, butit's very readable and it's historical
in the fact that you get intosome details, Jack, that I never
knew about. And frankly, Ialways thought, gee, everybody knew
about this based upon, Iguess, the Allies had discovered
the camps and had made itknown to the world. But that blew
(05:43):
my whole understanding of thatout of the water. And here we are
80 years later. But thisreally didn't get a kind of a start
until 20 years after the warwhen the Auschwitz trial began. Am
I correct with that?
That is a really importantpoint of reference for readers and
(06:04):
like myself coming to thestory is that we tend to think of
like Nuremberg. We've allheard of Nuremberg and we think that
was the big trial at the endof the war. Nazis held to account
and sort of job done. And itwas an incredible feat at the time
in terms of holding Nazi warleaders to justice and forging new
(06:27):
international laws tohopefully prevent anything like World
War II happening again. Butthere was a big sort of missing piece
there which was the fact that7 million Germans had belonged to
the Nazi party. And how do youbring a country that had been so
(06:51):
complicit in the crimes of theleadership to recognize its past?
And it was not a simple answerto that, but there was a very clear
need from the perspective ofFritz Bauer to force that reckoning.
(07:12):
And it's true that this is asweeping epic of a book, but I think
what I really wanted to holdit together with was Fritz Bauer's
perspective and just this kindof extraordinary courage of one man
and bending the arc of historytowards justice. And of course every,
(07:36):
every book has its, has itsheroes, but I think really in the
case of Fritz Bauer that's.Well, he really does deserve the
center stage, not leastbecause he has been so acknowledged
unacknowledged for so long.And that thought of a Jewish man
who has narrowly survived theNazis. He'd been thrown into a concentration
(08:01):
camp, managed to escape andinto exile in Denmark and Sweden,
on the run with his family.The thought of him getting on board
a train to go back to Germanyat the end of the war and take up
a job as a small timeprosecutor and that he would come
back to Germany with this map,with this extraordinary map and vision
(08:26):
in his mind for how totransform the country. And I was
writing of course about 1940s50s Germany, but it was, it's hard
to not think about like thelessons of today in terms of how,
how important it is to thinkabout our own agency in sort of dark
(08:49):
and difficult times. And Ithink Bauer's story is really inspiring.
Like he country's 7 millionNazis didn't want to hear about Auschwitz.
Took him 20 years. He madesure they heard about Auschwitz through
his landmark trial inFrankfurt, which was his, one of
his crowning Achievements.
(09:11):
I want to mention to listenersthat Jack is going to be at the Jewish
Book Festival December 11thand that particular aspect of the
festival is going to takeplace at the St. Louis County Library,
the Clark family branch onSouth Lindbergh. So you can see him
there, listen to a talk he'sgoing to give, purchase the book
and get the book ahead of timebecause it's frankly, it's eye opening.
(09:33):
When I went through this andwas reading, you gave some, I guess
that Fritz Bauer had done someresearch. How many of the residents
of Germany believed that theywere the Nazis were capable of this
and very few were. They didn'tthink nobody was going to be. We
(09:55):
didn't do anything. There wasnothing like that. And then the turnaround
that you talked about, it wasamazing to me that how information
and misinformation can behidden, maybe it's not amazing, can
be hidden or distracted orgiven out to people that they have
(10:15):
no clue what's going on otherthan people who are engaged. But
that's part of the democraticprocess, that's part of being informed.
And then the press was beingsuppressed at the time. Can you get
into it? Was this like theperfect storm back then?
Oh yeah, yeah. I think it'sreally, yeah, really important to
(10:35):
remember like thecircumstances after Nuremberg. Germany
devastated by the war, dividedbetween east and west rapidly the
major fault line of the ColdWar. And the Americans and the Allies
who were rebuilding the. Thewest really had this imperative to
(10:59):
get the country to stand upquickly on its own two feet. They
wanted Germany to West Germanyto rearm and take its part in NATO
against the Soviet threat andwere prepared to turn a blind eye
to the crimes of the past. Ofcourse some of the most egregious
(11:20):
Nazis could not were beyondthe pale but provided you paid lip
service and it was easy enoughto hide your CV and no one was really
asking questions. And thefirst West German Chancellor, Conrad
Adenauer appointed us as Chiefof Staff. And this I just find extraordinary.
(11:41):
I'm sure your listeners willtoo. But his Chief of staff, the
man tasked with rebuildingWest Germany, was one of the chief
architects of the NurembergRace Laws that had provided the legal
framework for the Holocaust.And this man, Hans Glovka, hadn't
here hadn't been a member ofthe Nazi Party. He had applied but
(12:05):
got rejected for variousreasons. He didn't change the fact
that he enacted Nazi policiesto the hilt. This was the man who,
yeah, played a similar role asarchitect of West Germany and key
American interlocutor andhelped Bring in a vast number of.
For the Nazis back to theirold posts in the government. And
(12:29):
from Adenauer and Globka,forged this narrative. And I think
we're quite sensitive today tothis idea of different narratives,
alternative facts, and thisrelative truth. And I think when
you see it playing out in thebook through, through Adenauer and
Globka presenting a differentnarrative to World War II, one in
(12:53):
which it was the Germans whowere the victims, not the Jews, not
Poles or Russians. It wasGermans who were the victims of Hitler,
the victims of Allied bombing.And this really resonated with Germans
who didn't want to think abouttheir own crimes, wanted to blame
(13:14):
others, wanted to feel, yeah,like they, they were the good guys.
And this was the foundingstory of West Germany and one which
from Fritz Bauer'sperspective, simply could not stand.
It was terrifying for him tosee reality being twisted in this
(13:36):
way. And furthermore thatvictims and survivors like himself
could not get their voicesheard. And that was where he hit
upon this kind of radical ideain some ways, which was to use the
law courts to begin to forcechange. If he could hold one Nazi
(13:58):
to account, he could bring abit of awareness to Germans around
him and. And bit by bit beginto change opinions. And just, just
for context, when Fritz Bauertook up his first job in this small
town, Braunschweig, and in1948, 9, he was in his office while
(14:26):
his sort of fellow prosecutorwas a man who had signed death sentences
for 15,000 disabled kids fortheir death. The chief of police
was a former SS officer inKrakow. He would arrange the deportations
of Poles and Jews toAuschwitz. He was surrounded by more
criminals of the highestorder. And it was one of those, one
(14:50):
of those situations that Ithink again, we're quite familiar
with today in that it's veryhard for people just to speak the
truth then and to say, thisisn't okay, what is happening here,
this prejudice, thisoppression, these people, what they
(15:11):
are doing in charge. And. Andyeah, that was Bowers role. He had
to be extraordinarilypolitical and careful. He would go
for a go out to a localbookshop and hear his fellow colleagues
whisper, whisper as he passed.Oh, there's another Jewish, should
have been gassed. Like this islike a credibly prejudice, dark world,
(15:39):
twisted world in many ways, inwhich the values that we take for
granted, that we learned fromthe Second World War were not in
place. And one, I think that'sreally important to realize the role
of the US and the Allies inbuttressing this. And I Wanted to
tell not just the story ofFritz Bauer, but also the story of
(16:00):
how that West German state wasbuilt in such a corrupt fashion by
the US the head of the Germanintelligence service was a general
called Reinhard Galen, who hadworked as head of intelligence for
Hitler in the east and wasinitially entirely funded by the
CIA, backed by them, andencouraged to spy on West Germans
(16:26):
like Fritz Bauer. Suppress thenewspapers, fear the country, towards
silence about the past. Andthis was the. This was the battle
the Bauer faced. Like, how doI, as a gay Jewish man in this intolerant,
still highly Nazified society,how do I get my voice heard? How
(16:50):
do I get other people to hearthe voices of survivors? And, yeah,
that's the story of the book,and one that I. Yeah, I really hope
does resonate with peopletoday. I. The book came out earlier
this year, and I got to speakto audiences around the country,
and so many just asked me,like, how do you change the mindset
(17:17):
of a country? Is Bauer'ssecret sauce. How did he do it? I
didn't. When I began writingthe book five years ago, I didn't
realize there would be writingsuch a blueprint for our own time.
And. Yeah. And yet historynever repeats itself, of course,
but there are so many lessonsfor us and so much to really inspire
(17:41):
us when it comes to FritzBauer's story.
Jack, will you be speaking atthe Jewish Book Festival? Are you
going to talk or are you justgoing to talk to folks individually
or are you.
I will give a talk and I willget read for. Take you deep into
Fritz Bauer's life and worldand give you a real sense of some
of his extraordinary battlesthat he took on and. Yeah, and also
(18:07):
share some of the researchthat goes into the making of a book
like this.
I'm amazed that I have neverheard of the name Fritz Bauer before.
And it seems like he was avery pivotal individual during and
after the war and has a lot.Did a lot of contributions. And it's
(18:28):
amazing to me, that's a namein history that just hasn't surfaced.
Thank goodness for you. And asyou said, it's a dark and terrifying
world, and boy, it was. And Iworry that people nowadays don't
really grasp what happenedthen and how that can be repeated.
And I don't know if we've gotFritz Bauer folks around much anymore.
(18:51):
Yeah, I think that's why hisstory is so important, because we
do just take for granted ourknowledge of the Holocaust. Right.
Like we think end of the war,confetti, soldiers parading through
the streets. Job done. Andthere is this missing piece in our
education around theHolocaust. Like we learn about the
(19:14):
terrible things and then wedon't actually connect it to our
own time. We don't ask thequestion of like, how did, how did
we get that knowledge of theHolocaust? It wasn't. That's what
Bower's story is so importantfor reminding us that it wasn't just
delivered in 1945 whole. Ithad to be fought for. And that's
(19:39):
why his story. This isn't.This is a story set in West Germany,
but it's really a story for usall. It's this battle for. For our
knowledge of the Holocaust andthe battle to confront mankind's
worst crimes. And B wasn'tsimply fighting against former Nazis
(20:02):
in his own government, alsofighting against global indifference
and that desire to look away,to not confront the hard truths of
the past. And that's one wecan relate to today for sure. And
it's one that. It's one thatBauer was so attuned to. He was someone
(20:26):
whose whole life was definedby this battle against the forces
of Nazism, both as a youngactivist lawyer and judge in stuttgart
in the 1920s and 30s. But thenin post war Germany, those same forces
that would. That he saw actingto corrupt the sort of emergence
(20:50):
of a new Germany. And I thinkreaders will. Yeah. Of the book,
you will be shocked by howdark and unknown this history is
in the post war and yeah. AndBowers role in. Yeah. Doing some
(21:16):
extraordinary things liketracking down Adolf Eichmann. We
many of your listeners will befamiliar with the film about Eichmann
or read some of the accountsby his captors from Mossad. What
perhaps not familiar with isthe story of how he was uncovered
(21:38):
in the first place, which wasby Bauer getting a tip off and from
a source in Argentina and thenhaving to track down Eichmann himself
with the help of this sort andeliciting the help of Mossad very
much. Mossad weren'tinterested tracking down old Nazis
(21:59):
as they saw it in the 1950swhen Israel was battling for its
survival. Bower had to make anumber of trips to Israel to force
the Mossad director to take upthe case and was the orchestrator
of the kidnapping operation.And yeah, I think it's just. It's
a story of just courage andadversity in the face of, yeah, really
(22:26):
extraordinary opposition. AndBauer was really lonely and isolated
in so much of his life. It'sworth noting that his being gay was.
Had huge implications like in.In Denmark and Sweden, both countries
(22:49):
that had liberalized antihomosexuality laws in the in the
30s where he had been able tolive as a gay man. He was returning
to a Germany that kept inplace this anti gay laws that had
been instigated by the Nazis,some of the most pernicious and yeah,
(23:16):
dangerous lawyer people inhistory. And they remained in Place
until 1968 when the firstliberalizations began to happen.
So Bao was forced to livesecret, in hiding and keep a part
of himself undercover as hehimself was seeking to expose the
(23:38):
Nazi pass of those around him.
We're so thankful for Bauerand what he did. I don't know if
we have to go to a break yet, but.
Yeah, Mark, let's take a breakbecause there's a lot of good stuff
that we've just talked aboutthat I want to peel back a little
bit more about Fritz Bauer.This is Arnold Stricker with Mark
Langston. We're talking toJack Fairweather. He's the writer
(23:58):
and author. He's a journalist,but he's the author of the Prosecutor.
And he's going to be speakingat the Jewish book festival at St.
Louis County Library onDecember 11th at 7pm you can get
some tickets and informationat jccstl.com jccstl.com we'll be
right back after this break.Everyone in St. Louis promises a
(24:21):
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401335 an equal housinglender. I want to welcome you back
(25:03):
to St. Louis in tune withArnold Stricker and Mark Langston.
We're talking to JackFairweather, the author of the Prosecutor.
He's going to be speaking atthe Jewish Book Festival at the St.
Louis County Library, ClarkFamily Branch on South Lindbergh.
For more information, go tojccstl.com and prior to the break,
Jack, we were talking a littlebit in some detail about Fritz Bauer
and the things that he was upagainst and thinking about back in
(25:27):
history. I know Mark's got aquestion, but I'm going to try to
set this up for him and allowyou to think through what I'm saying,
because I'm going to want youto elaborate a little bit more. In
thinking about all the peoplethat were significant during post
war Germany and really Japanpost World War II, this individual
was really a hinge point. Hewas a pivot point that had tremendous
(25:49):
amount of stress on him. Hewas very strategic. He was very persistent.
He sought after the truth. Buthe had the Soviet Union, he had the
Cold War in his face. He hadthe CIA against him. He had really
Israel as a new country thatreally wasn't wanting to pursue some
of this thing except on theirown terms. He waged a public campaign
(26:12):
on his own. He was givinginformation and talking to those
people who were agreed withhim or who were inquiring about wanting
to know the truth. And he hadwitnesses who really didn't care
anymore. They were going totell the truth no matter what, because
it was the truth. It wasn'tsomething they were interested in
covering up. So this man,Fritz Bauer, is someone, folks, that
you really need to get toknow, because he is really important.
(26:36):
My only question about Fritzis what motivated him? What was the
spark that made him.
Good question.
Really, really want to pursuethis. This seemed like a burning,
burning in his heart and hissoul. Something that he just would
not let go, which we'rethankful for. We don't know much.
I don't know much about FritzBauer. I'm finding out more and more
(26:56):
about him. I want to know moreabout him, but I'm just wondering
what that spark, what reallymotivated this. You may not even
know, Frank. Maybe none of usknow, but what could have made him
really pursue this? He waslike a dog wanting a bone. He was
really after this. It waspretty intense. It sounds like.
Yeah, in some ways that's thequestion I set myself to answer with
(27:18):
the book and encourage readersto turn to the pages, because it's
a man's life and mission andplays out over time. And I think
that's one of the great powersof biography, is getting to show
(27:39):
the inner workings ofsomeone's heart and soul over as
they grow and develop. And Ithink the short answer to your question
is, of course, that Bauer hada lot of anger. He had seen family
and friends caught up in themachinery of death of the Nazis.
(28:04):
He had his livelihood andhome, his whole world, and Stuttgart
destroyed. And there's a lotof anger and passion directed at
those who thought they couldget away with it and just walk back
into their old jobs. But Ithink there's a sort of deeper vision
(28:28):
in Bowers story that makes himnot. Makes him different to other
Nazi hunters that we know of,like Simon Wiesenthal or Tuvia Friedman,
who were all about trackingdown the perpetrators in the name
of justice. Bauer had thisvision for Germany that was so striking
(28:54):
and different that I think canbe quite inspiring for us today.
Inspiring or. Yeah, like howwe want to think about where the
country goes and how indeed weset about steering a country in that
direction. He, Bauer had avision for a current and liberal
(29:20):
and progressive Germany. Onethat he had glimpsed as a young man,
as a young student, but onethat he lived through as coming out
as a gay man in, you know, inDenmark during his exile there in.
When he found himself in oneof the most liberal societies in
(29:44):
the world at the time, wasable to live freely. And that sort
of vision, that positivevision is one that he brought back.
And it's. He held. He had tohold to lots around him that was
utterly depressing. So manysort of attacks against him. The
(30:07):
fact that he had to hidehimself away and bury so much of
who he was. But he neverreally lost sight of that greater
vision and this idea that wasattached to it. That is I sort of
call to action to us alltoday, which was he came to the realization
(30:29):
that he wasn't going to getNazis to confess in the dark. He
called. He got so many bronzerelease of justice in the courtroom
and heard them mount theirdefenses. Not a single one ever said,
you know what? I was wrong,I'm sorry. They were all had their
(30:49):
excuses, their reasons, theirdenials. And what Bauer realized
was through the drama of thecourtroom was that he wasn't playing
to the Nazis in the dark. Hewasn't possibly even playing to press
(31:11):
galleys gallery or theimmediate audience. He was making
a case to the next generationthat was coming through that he hoped
would be receptive to adifferent idea for what Germany could
become. And when he stagedthis seminal trial in Frankfurt in
(31:32):
the 1960s, in fact, a lot ofWest German school kids got to come.
They were busted. He made sureto arrange it because he really wanted
them to. Yeah, hear the. Thewitnesses speak their truth and learn
from their experiences. AndBauer died in. In the summer of 1968,
(31:55):
which, as in the US was anabsolutely seminal year in. In West
Germany, it was marked thissort of explosion of new ideas. And
in West Germany, they carriedthis added resonance in which young
West Germans began to questionreally for the first Time what it
(32:21):
was their parents had doneduring the war. And Barrel was so
seminal in asking thatquestion in the first place. Giving
those young West German, bothstudents and young people the knowledge
that they needed to use toconfront their parents and. And in
(32:43):
the process begin to changewas it that was into the country
that we know today and likethat arc of history and that ability
to bend the whole country toa. Away from authoritarianism, away
from fascist ideas to a sortof different idea of itself. That's
(33:07):
why you should read this book,why Bauer is such an incredible figure
for us today because he hadthis bigger vision that drove him.
It wasn't just justice, it wassomething bigger.
Seems like there were pivotpoints, there were certain points
that really made an impactthat he was doing. One was the trial
(33:29):
that he started doing. Anotherone was the youth movement that you
just mentioned because he wasturning the tide with some of the
youth. Some of the youth werethough still in that old. I think
they were taking their parentsviewpoint because there was still
anti Jewish, anti Semitickinds of activity directed at some
Jews in Germany. But then itseemed like that the last big kind
(33:52):
of turning point was theAuschwitz visit by the. At the trial
where they went actually toAuschwitz and Birkenau and saw and
put their hands into what wasleft of people. That was. That really
even changed the judge who wasa very staunch, if I might say he
(34:13):
was a very staunch Nazi orfrom the old guard. Was he that strategic
in what he was doing or werethese things that were just evolving
and growing from his main focus?
It's. He saw Auschwitz asbeing really seminal to our understanding
of the Holocaust. And it is,it's just a return listeners to this
(34:38):
mindset which is so shockingto us today. In 1950s, no one was
really talking aboutAuschwitz. Primo Levy wrote in Alexo
just he had written hisamazing memoir directly after the
war and struggled to find apublisher and in 1955 wrote no one
(35:01):
wants to hear about the camps.And yeah, it was the case that Auschwitz
was not this seminal place inour understanding of Nazis and the
worst that mankind can do. AndBowers had a different view. He saw
that it was at the heart ofthe Holocaust and it was. He wanted
(35:24):
a trial that could effectivelyput a itself at the center of proceedings.
And he had this, yeah, verystunning idea behind the trial that
he wouldn't go after the sortof higher ranking officials that
is necessarily. He wanted tohave some of the guards, the orderlies,
(35:49):
the lorry drivers, the gaschamber operators, the sort of the
Regular people who had run thecamp. And because he wanted ordinary
Germans to see themselves inthose perpetrators and recognize
(36:10):
the way in which Nazism hasplayed out across German society,
that it took a community, ittook a culture, it took a whole people
to enable industrialized massmurder in Auschwitz. And that was
just a really extraordinaryvision. What he was having to battle
(36:33):
with was the fact that thatWest German law had deliberately
not taken up the internationallaw laid down and Nuremberg that
recognized things likegenocide and crimes against humanity.
So in West German law, whenBauer was operating, you could only
(36:56):
try Nazis for individualmurders. And that created an absurd
situation in which you hadsomeone who had operated the gas
chamber of Auschwitz. Like,how do you try him for an individual
murder? Like, how do you,like, produce evidence to show his
(37:16):
involvement in the death of asingle individual when he was responsible
or took part in the massmurder of millions? And Bauer was
also battling against thecourt system to change that he wanted
to West German law that areabsolutely necessary that it changed
to recognize genocide and massmurder. And so this was. These were
(37:39):
some of the. Some of thethings he was fighting against. And
there was a time when thetrial itself was really struggling
because his prosecutors werefailing to make the case against
the defendants because theywere having to wrestle with, did
(38:02):
they do this single crime? Andthe witnesses took the stand and
they would be asked, so didyou see this defendant shoot this
individual on this particularday at this hour 20 years ago? Because,
of course, this trial tookplace and began in 1963. 60. And
(38:23):
so almost 20 years after thefact. And the defense lawyers could
all just say, oh, how do you,how can you remember those details?
There were so many years ago,and it was all fuzzy and no one knew
anything. And they were ableto make the past seem indistinct
and inexact and pretend thatnone of the defendants really knew
what was happening in thecamp. And that sets the scene of.
(38:48):
For the sort of denouement ofthe book and this extraordinary moment
of Cold War drama when Bauersaid, enough of this, let's take
the court to Auschwitz.Auschwitz, which was in Poland, Communist
Poland, behind the IronCurtain. He had to do behind the
scene maneuverings to get thePolish government and the West German
(39:11):
government to agree. But inthe end, he succeeded in bringing
the court over the IronCurtain to Auschwitz itself. The
judges and the prosecutors,the defense lawyers, and even one
of the defendants came aswell, along with hundreds of journalists.
(39:32):
And for many people, this wasthe first time they had seen images,
they'd seen TV footage ofAuschwitz. People had by the 1960s
heard about gas chambers. Noone had seen what one looked like
and not had. No one had seenAuschwitz. And, and that was just
(39:53):
incredibly powerful moment inour collective reckoning with the
past. Those images of theruined gas chambers in Birkenau getting
beamed around people's homesaround the world thanks to that trial.
And Bauer really put Auschwitzon the, on the map of our collective
(40:16):
consciousness. And of coursefor us all, everyone who's listening,
we all know what that meansnow. And I wanted this book to really,
yeah, give credit, Hugh Bauer,to the person who really helps get
us to the right view ofAuschwitz's place in history.
(40:38):
How did you become acquaintedwith Fritz Bauer? Where did your
paths cross? Where did you allof a sudden say, hey, I want to write
a book on that is about Fritz Bauer?
Yeah. So I was at the end ofmy last book, the Volunteer, about
this Polish operative whoinfiltrated Auschwitz to report on
Nazi crimes. And I was writingthe list of characters that goes
(41:03):
in the back of the book that,that then which has like small, small
synopsis of their lives. And Iwas looking through the list of the
perpetrators from the camp. Somany of them escaped justice at the
end of the war. And thatshocking to me because I did not
(41:27):
know there was this giant gapin justice in post war Germany, but
there was this one commondenominator running through their
biographies. Finally broughtto justice in 1965 at the end of
the Frankfurt Auschwitz trialby. Led by Fritz Bauer. And so I
(41:47):
was like, oh, who is thisFritz Bauer who seems to have played
such an important role? Andthat led me to, yeah, his extraordinary
story of escaping the Nazisand then fashioning a vision that
was to transform not just WestGermany, but our collective consciousness
of. About the Holocaust.
(42:09):
The extraordinary story Ithink pretty much says it all about
Fritz Bauer. Yeah.
Jack, you've been verygracious with your time with us and
I appreciate that. This is anunbelievable book, folks. If you
read anything in the next, inthis year or next year, this is a
book that you must read andyou must share with your friends.
(42:31):
It would be a great book, avery intense book for a book club,
but it would be a very goodbook for a book club.
And any talk about a movie, Ithink it would sounds like it would
be.
Oh my gosh, that would be agreat movie.
I think it would be fantastic.
So the book is called theProsecutor. It's by Jack Fairweather.
Jack's going to be speaking atthe Jewish Book festival at the St.
Louis County Library. Clarkfamily Branch that's on South Lindbergh
(42:54):
on December 11th at 7pm youcan go to jccstl.com for more information.
Jack, we look forward toseeing you there. And what a. Again,
what a stupendous book. Andthank you for your research and your
time that you devoted togetting the information out about
Fritz Bauer. And because if itwasn't for him, who knows what our
(43:17):
history would be like right.Right now.
Thank you so much for havingme. Both. It's been a real pleasure.
Thank you, sir. Take care.
Yep. Our pleasure. Boy, thankgoodness for Jack.
Oh, my gosh. And for bringingup Fritz. Yeah. To find what's the
common denominator here? Iknow we all think that way. Like,
why is this. Like this. Why isthis. Like, what's this? All pointing
(43:38):
to the same person. Let's knowmore about that person.
How long is the book? How many pages?
The book is. Yes, I have itright here. Talk about something
else while I pull this up andgive you the good answer. Yeah, not
just off the. Okay, here wego. The book is 319 pages.
That's not too bad.
No, but he has over a hundredpages of notes and sources. Like,
(44:02):
he. He has really done hisresearch. He. The characters, the.
Of all the people that hementions in there. It's really. Who
is this? And you got to keeptrack. But it's very detailed. But
it's a very intriguing. Don'tlet the size of the book be a detriment
to you, because it reallyflows well. It's like, I can't wait
to read the next chapter. It'sthat kind of a book. And he goes
(44:23):
from the beginning of FritzBauer's life all the way to the very
end. And he. He's interviewedfamily members. I was going to ask
him, did he fly over there?He's done a lot of research. The
family gave him information.He's gotten letters. And he's written
this previous book that he wonthe award for, which kind of was
almost like a foundationalaspect to push him into this.
(44:46):
So when did Fritz Bauer pass away?
He passed in 1968.
Okay. So he got done with thatlast trial in the mid-60s, and shortly
after that was.
And he passed away. He hadtaken at the time, because he was
working like 18 hours a day,and he had taken some sleeping pills
(45:07):
to sleep, and he was in abathtub relaxing and had a heart
attack. But he was 65 yearsold, and he died in Frankfurt of
a heart attack. But his. Thereis a movie, the People versus Fritz
Bauer. That's in 2015. Andthen Yesterday Girl, 1966. Not quite
(45:28):
sure about that, but thiswould be an outstanding movie. And
Mark, who knew, like, even theterm Holocaust was not widely used
until this really started toget going after the Auschwitz trial
many years later. Yes. Like weall think it's always been around,
or no, everybody knew right away.
It all sounds like it allhappened at one time, but it didn't.
(45:50):
It happened like he was stillprosecuting it 20 years after.
Oh, easily. And attitudesreally had not changed Even into
the 1990s in West Germany,which is wild.
It is crazy.
But it tells you a little bitabout people and what they want to
believe. If you believesomething that's been a lie, how
do you come to grips with thatpersonally and individually and collectively,
(46:16):
as a family or as a society?How do you do that when you believe
the lie?
Very heavy, I'm afraid.
It is very heavy. And becauseit's very heavy.
Oh, yeah.
My gosh. I really recommendthis book, folks. It's a quick read.
Okay.
It would be a great book for abook club. And I think because of
(46:39):
the heavy topic, maybe we justleave it right there, Mark.
Okay.
If that's okay with you.
That's fine. I think it's agood idea.
So, folks, again, the JewishBook Festival. Jack Fairweather,
author of the prosecutorDecember 11th at 7pm St. Louis County
Library, Clark Family Branch.That's 1640 South Lindbergh Boulevard.
That's across from FrontenacPlaza. JCCSTL.com for more information
(47:02):
and for tickets. You will needtickets for this particular event.
So that's all for this show.We thank you for joining us today
and listening. If you'veenjoyed this episode, you can listen
to additionalshows@stlintune.com please consider
leaving a review on ourwebsite, Apple Podcasts, Podchaser
or your preferred podcastplatform. Your feedback helps us
reach more listeners andcontinue to grow. I want to thank
(47:24):
Bob Berthisel for our thememusic, our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage,
our guest, Jack Fairweatherand co host Mark Langston. And we
thank you listeners for beinga part of our community of curious
minds. St. Louis in tune is aproduction of Motif Media Group and
the US Radio Network. Rememberto keep seeking, keep learning, walk
worthy and let your lightshine. For St. Louis in tune, I'm
Arnold Stricker.
Imagine a history of the 20thcentury in which the Holocaust is
only a footnote to the SecondWorld War, where the encyclopedia
entry for Auschwitz describesthe flourishing chemical industry
in the nearby town, but omitsthe gas chambers where school textbooks
describe Hitler as, quote,gifted in a variety of ways. And
limit the discussion of themass murder he orchestrated to just
(00:21):
47 words, concluding that nomore than 100 people knew about it.
This isn't an abstract thoughtexperiment. This was West Germany
in the years followingHitler's defeat, when the Holocaust
was all but forgotten and theAllies sanctioned the return of millions
of former Nazis to forge a newcountry to serve as a bulwark against
Communism. That didn't stopFritz Bauer, who is a gay Jewish
(00:44):
judge from Stuttgart whosurvived the Nazis and made it his
mission to force hiscountrymen to confront their complicity
in the genocide. We're goingto talk to award winning journalist
Jack Fairweather about hisbook the Prosecutor Next on St. Louis
in tune. Welcome to St. Luisand tune and thank you for joining
(01:13):
us for fresh perspectives onissues and events with experts, community
leaders and everyday peoplewho make a difference in shaping
our society and world. I'mArnold Stricker along with co host
Mark Langston. Greetings toyou, Mark.
Good, good day.
It is a good day, even thoughit's, it looks like it's, it's horrible
outside. It's cloudy, it's rainy.
(01:33):
It's just officially into fall.
Here we are.
Okay.
And finally we've got somefall weather.
Yep.
Folks, we're glad that youjoined us today. We want to thank
our sponsor, Better RateMortgage for their support of the
show. You can listen toprevious shows@stl and tune.com.
please help us continue togrow by leaving a review on our website,
Apple Podcast or yourpreferred podcast platform. Our thought
(01:55):
for the day is by AlbertEinstein. No problem can be solved
from the same level ofconsciousness that created it.
He thinks on a whole different plane.
A whole different plane. I'mgoing to repeat that again. No problem
can be solved from the samelevel of consciousness that created
it. And that reallyexemplifies our conversation that
(02:17):
we're going to have with JackFairweather today about his book,
the Prosecutor. Jack, welcometo St. Louis in Tune.
Hi. Thanks for having me.
I was really amazed. I want togive a little background about you.
Jack's the best selling authorof the Volunteer, the Costa Prize
winning account of a Polishunderground officer who volunteered
to report on Nazi crimes inAuschwitz. The book's been translated
(02:40):
into 25 languages and formsthe basis of a major exhibition in
Berlin. He served on the DailyTelegraph's Baghdad bureau and is
a video journalist for theWashington Post in Afghanistan. You've
been. Been around, you've doneyour work on the front lines seriously,
in some very serious areas.This is an area that there's a front
(03:02):
there too, but it's. It's likea historical front that you were
really delving into in gettinginto Fritz Bauer. What was the impetus
getting into Fritz Bauer?
You mentioned the book theVolunteer about the war hero who
volunteered to report andexpose Nazi crimes and Auschwitz
(03:24):
and to try and stop thekilling. Of course we know that mission
did not succeed. And it wasthrough that book that I started
wondering how did we come toknow about Auschwitz? How did it
lodge in our popularconsciousness? And came to the shocking
realization that it wasn'tthis obvious thing at the end of
(03:47):
the Second World War, that itactually took a real battle to make
people pay attention. And thatwas the battle that was waged by
Fritz Bauer, thisextraordinary figure from history
who's really unknown to us inthe US Some of your listeners might
(04:09):
have heard of his name inconnection with the capture of Adolf
Eichmann. But for me it wasbecame clear he was a seminal figure
in helping us come to termswith the Holocaust. And as you read
from the intro of the book atthe start of this segment, there
is this terrifying prospectthat we can't, we need to get our
(04:31):
heads into when approachingthe book, which is a world in which
Nazis are back in power. Noone's talking about the Holocaust.
There has not been been thereckoning that we take for granted.
And I really wanted to plungereaders into that dark and terrifying
world. Especially so for a gayJewish man seeking to make his countrymen
(04:56):
come to terms with the past.
You've done a great job oflaying out the historical aspect
of what was going on beforethe war and then during the war and
after the war. And there's alot of people involved and I'm glad
I. When I got to the end ofthe book, then I saw, oh, here's
the list of the people.Because I was trying to keep them
straight in my mind. But theresearch on this is great. And I
(05:20):
saw a previous interviewyou've. This is a book that could
be like a dissertation, butit's very readable and it's historical
in the fact that you get intosome details, Jack, that I never
knew about. And frankly, Ialways thought, gee, everybody knew
about this based upon, Iguess, the Allies had discovered
the camps and had made itknown to the world. But that blew
(05:43):
my whole understanding of thatout of the water. And here we are
80 years later. But thisreally didn't get a kind of a start
until 20 years after the warwhen the Auschwitz trial began. Am
I correct with that?
That is a really importantpoint of reference for readers and
(06:04):
like myself coming to thestory is that we tend to think of
like Nuremberg. We've allheard of Nuremberg and we think that
was the big trial at the endof the war. Nazis held to account
and sort of job done. And itwas an incredible feat at the time
in terms of holding Nazi warleaders to justice and forging new
(06:27):
international laws tohopefully prevent anything like World
War II happening again. Butthere was a big sort of missing piece
there which was the fact that7 million Germans had belonged to
the Nazi party. And how do youbring a country that had been so
(06:51):
complicit in the crimes of theleadership to recognize its past?
And it was not a simple answerto that, but there was a very clear
need from the perspective ofFritz Bauer to force that reckoning.
(07:12):
And it's true that this is asweeping epic of a book, but I think
what I really wanted to holdit together with was Fritz Bauer's
perspective and just this kindof extraordinary courage of one man
and bending the arc of historytowards justice. And of course every,
(07:36):
every book has its, has itsheroes, but I think really in the
case of Fritz Bauer that's.Well, he really does deserve the
center stage, not leastbecause he has been so acknowledged
unacknowledged for so long.And that thought of a Jewish man
who has narrowly survived theNazis. He'd been thrown into a concentration
(08:01):
camp, managed to escape andinto exile in Denmark and Sweden,
on the run with his family.The thought of him getting on board
a train to go back to Germanyat the end of the war and take up
a job as a small timeprosecutor and that he would come
back to Germany with this map,with this extraordinary map and vision
(08:26):
in his mind for how totransform the country. And I was
writing of course about 1940s50s Germany, but it was, it's hard
to not think about like thelessons of today in terms of how,
how important it is to thinkabout our own agency in sort of dark
(08:49):
and difficult times. And Ithink Bauer's story is really inspiring.
Like he country's 7 millionNazis didn't want to hear about Auschwitz.
Took him 20 years. He madesure they heard about Auschwitz through
his landmark trial inFrankfurt, which was his, one of
his crowning Achievements.
(09:11):
I want to mention to listenersthat Jack is going to be at the Jewish
Book Festival December 11thand that particular aspect of the
festival is going to takeplace at the St. Louis County Library,
the Clark family branch onSouth Lindbergh. So you can see him
there, listen to a talk he'sgoing to give, purchase the book
and get the book ahead of timebecause it's frankly, it's eye opening.
(09:33):
When I went through this andwas reading, you gave some, I guess
that Fritz Bauer had done someresearch. How many of the residents
of Germany believed that theywere the Nazis were capable of this
and very few were. They didn'tthink nobody was going to be. We
(09:55):
didn't do anything. There wasnothing like that. And then the turnaround
that you talked about, it wasamazing to me that how information
and misinformation can behidden, maybe it's not amazing, can
be hidden or distracted orgiven out to people that they have
(10:15):
no clue what's going on otherthan people who are engaged. But
that's part of the democraticprocess, that's part of being informed.
And then the press was beingsuppressed at the time. Can you get
into it? Was this like theperfect storm back then?
Oh yeah, yeah. I think it'sreally, yeah, really important to
(10:35):
remember like thecircumstances after Nuremberg. Germany
devastated by the war, dividedbetween east and west rapidly the
major fault line of the ColdWar. And the Americans and the Allies
who were rebuilding the. Thewest really had this imperative to
(10:59):
get the country to stand upquickly on its own two feet. They
wanted Germany to West Germanyto rearm and take its part in NATO
against the Soviet threat andwere prepared to turn a blind eye
to the crimes of the past. Ofcourse some of the most egregious
(11:20):
Nazis could not were beyondthe pale but provided you paid lip
service and it was easy enoughto hide your CV and no one was really
asking questions. And thefirst West German Chancellor, Conrad
Adenauer appointed us as Chiefof Staff. And this I just find extraordinary.
(11:41):
I'm sure your listeners willtoo. But his Chief of staff, the
man tasked with rebuildingWest Germany, was one of the chief
architects of the NurembergRace Laws that had provided the legal
framework for the Holocaust.And this man, Hans Glovka, hadn't
here hadn't been a member ofthe Nazi Party. He had applied but
(12:05):
got rejected for variousreasons. He didn't change the fact
that he enacted Nazi policiesto the hilt. This was the man who,
yeah, played a similar role asarchitect of West Germany and key
American interlocutor andhelped Bring in a vast number of.
For the Nazis back to theirold posts in the government. And
(12:29):
from Adenauer and Globka,forged this narrative. And I think
we're quite sensitive today tothis idea of different narratives,
alternative facts, and thisrelative truth. And I think when
you see it playing out in thebook through, through Adenauer and
Globka presenting a differentnarrative to World War II, one in
(12:53):
which it was the Germans whowere the victims, not the Jews, not
Poles or Russians. It wasGermans who were the victims of Hitler,
the victims of Allied bombing.And this really resonated with Germans
who didn't want to think abouttheir own crimes, wanted to blame
(13:14):
others, wanted to feel, yeah,like they, they were the good guys.
And this was the foundingstory of West Germany and one which
from Fritz Bauer'sperspective, simply could not stand.
It was terrifying for him tosee reality being twisted in this
(13:36):
way. And furthermore thatvictims and survivors like himself
could not get their voicesheard. And that was where he hit
upon this kind of radical ideain some ways, which was to use the
law courts to begin to forcechange. If he could hold one Nazi
(13:58):
to account, he could bring abit of awareness to Germans around
him and. And bit by bit beginto change opinions. And just, just
for context, when Fritz Bauertook up his first job in this small
town, Braunschweig, and in1948, 9, he was in his office while
(14:26):
his sort of fellow prosecutorwas a man who had signed death sentences
for 15,000 disabled kids fortheir death. The chief of police
was a former SS officer inKrakow. He would arrange the deportations
of Poles and Jews toAuschwitz. He was surrounded by more
criminals of the highestorder. And it was one of those, one
(14:50):
of those situations that Ithink again, we're quite familiar
with today in that it's veryhard for people just to speak the
truth then and to say, thisisn't okay, what is happening here,
this prejudice, thisoppression, these people, what they
(15:11):
are doing in charge. And. Andyeah, that was Bowers role. He had
to be extraordinarilypolitical and careful. He would go
for a go out to a localbookshop and hear his fellow colleagues
whisper, whisper as he passed.Oh, there's another Jewish, should
have been gassed. Like this islike a credibly prejudice, dark world,
(15:39):
twisted world in many ways, inwhich the values that we take for
granted, that we learned fromthe Second World War were not in
place. And one, I think that'sreally important to realize the role
of the US and the Allies inbuttressing this. And I Wanted to
tell not just the story ofFritz Bauer, but also the story of
(16:00):
how that West German state wasbuilt in such a corrupt fashion by
the US the head of the Germanintelligence service was a general
called Reinhard Galen, who hadworked as head of intelligence for
Hitler in the east and wasinitially entirely funded by the
CIA, backed by them, andencouraged to spy on West Germans
(16:26):
like Fritz Bauer. Suppress thenewspapers, fear the country, towards
silence about the past. Andthis was the. This was the battle
the Bauer faced. Like, how doI, as a gay Jewish man in this intolerant,
still highly Nazified society,how do I get my voice heard? How
(16:50):
do I get other people to hearthe voices of survivors? And, yeah,
that's the story of the book,and one that I. Yeah, I really hope
does resonate with peopletoday. I. The book came out earlier
this year, and I got to speakto audiences around the country,
and so many just asked me,like, how do you change the mindset
(17:17):
of a country? Is Bauer'ssecret sauce. How did he do it? I
didn't. When I began writingthe book five years ago, I didn't
realize there would be writingsuch a blueprint for our own time.
And. Yeah. And yet historynever repeats itself, of course,
but there are so many lessonsfor us and so much to really inspire
(17:41):
us when it comes to FritzBauer's story.
Jack, will you be speaking atthe Jewish Book Festival? Are you
going to talk or are you justgoing to talk to folks individually
or are you.
I will give a talk and I willget read for. Take you deep into
Fritz Bauer's life and worldand give you a real sense of some
of his extraordinary battlesthat he took on and. Yeah, and also
(18:07):
share some of the researchthat goes into the making of a book
like this.
I'm amazed that I have neverheard of the name Fritz Bauer before.
And it seems like he was avery pivotal individual during and
after the war and has a lot.Did a lot of contributions. And it's
(18:28):
amazing to me, that's a namein history that just hasn't surfaced.
Thank goodness for you. And asyou said, it's a dark and terrifying
world, and boy, it was. And Iworry that people nowadays don't
really grasp what happenedthen and how that can be repeated.
And I don't know if we've gotFritz Bauer folks around much anymore.
(18:51):
Yeah, I think that's why hisstory is so important, because we
do just take for granted ourknowledge of the Holocaust. Right.
Like we think end of the war,confetti, soldiers parading through
the streets. Job done. Andthere is this missing piece in our
education around theHolocaust. Like we learn about the
(19:14):
terrible things and then wedon't actually connect it to our
own time. We don't ask thequestion of like, how did, how did
we get that knowledge of theHolocaust? It wasn't. That's what
Bower's story is so importantfor reminding us that it wasn't just
delivered in 1945 whole. Ithad to be fought for. And that's
(19:39):
why his story. This isn't.This is a story set in West Germany,
but it's really a story for usall. It's this battle for. For our
knowledge of the Holocaust andthe battle to confront mankind's
worst crimes. And B wasn'tsimply fighting against former Nazis
(20:02):
in his own government, alsofighting against global indifference
and that desire to look away,to not confront the hard truths of
the past. And that's one wecan relate to today for sure. And
it's one that. It's one thatBauer was so attuned to. He was someone
(20:26):
whose whole life was definedby this battle against the forces
of Nazism, both as a youngactivist lawyer and judge in stuttgart
in the 1920s and 30s. But thenin post war Germany, those same forces
that would. That he saw actingto corrupt the sort of emergence
(20:50):
of a new Germany. And I thinkreaders will. Yeah. Of the book,
you will be shocked by howdark and unknown this history is
in the post war and yeah. AndBowers role in. Yeah. Doing some
(21:16):
extraordinary things liketracking down Adolf Eichmann. We
many of your listeners will befamiliar with the film about Eichmann
or read some of the accountsby his captors from Mossad. What
perhaps not familiar with isthe story of how he was uncovered
(21:38):
in the first place, which wasby Bauer getting a tip off and from
a source in Argentina and thenhaving to track down Eichmann himself
with the help of this sort andeliciting the help of Mossad very
much. Mossad weren'tinterested tracking down old Nazis
(21:59):
as they saw it in the 1950swhen Israel was battling for its
survival. Bower had to make anumber of trips to Israel to force
the Mossad director to take upthe case and was the orchestrator
of the kidnapping operation.And yeah, I think it's just. It's
a story of just courage andadversity in the face of, yeah, really
(22:26):
extraordinary opposition. AndBauer was really lonely and isolated
in so much of his life. It'sworth noting that his being gay was.
Had huge implications like in.In Denmark and Sweden, both countries
(22:49):
that had liberalized antihomosexuality laws in the in the
30s where he had been able tolive as a gay man. He was returning
to a Germany that kept inplace this anti gay laws that had
been instigated by the Nazis,some of the most pernicious and yeah,
(23:16):
dangerous lawyer people inhistory. And they remained in Place
until 1968 when the firstliberalizations began to happen.
So Bao was forced to livesecret, in hiding and keep a part
of himself undercover as hehimself was seeking to expose the
(23:38):
Nazi pass of those around him.
We're so thankful for Bauerand what he did. I don't know if
we have to go to a break yet, but.
Yeah, Mark, let's take a breakbecause there's a lot of good stuff
that we've just talked aboutthat I want to peel back a little
bit more about Fritz Bauer.This is Arnold Stricker with Mark
Langston. We're talking toJack Fairweather. He's the writer
(23:58):
and author. He's a journalist,but he's the author of the Prosecutor.
And he's going to be speakingat the Jewish book festival at St.
Louis County Library onDecember 11th at 7pm you can get
some tickets and informationat jccstl.com jccstl.com we'll be
right back after this break.Everyone in St. Louis promises a
(24:21):
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house into your dream home isa better mortgage. At Better Rate
Mortgage, we open the door toso much more. Whether you're purchasing
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Remember, at Better RateMortgage, a better rate is just the
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401335 an equal housinglender. I want to welcome you back
(25:03):
to St. Louis in tune withArnold Stricker and Mark Langston.
We're talking to JackFairweather, the author of the Prosecutor.
He's going to be speaking atthe Jewish Book Festival at the St.
Louis County Library, ClarkFamily Branch on South Lindbergh.
For more information, go tojccstl.com and prior to the break,
Jack, we were talking a littlebit in some detail about Fritz Bauer
and the things that he was upagainst and thinking about back in
(25:27):
history. I know Mark's got aquestion, but I'm going to try to
set this up for him and allowyou to think through what I'm saying,
because I'm going to want youto elaborate a little bit more. In
thinking about all the peoplethat were significant during post
war Germany and really Japanpost World War II, this individual
was really a hinge point. Hewas a pivot point that had tremendous
(25:49):
amount of stress on him. Hewas very strategic. He was very persistent.
He sought after the truth. Buthe had the Soviet Union, he had the
Cold War in his face. He hadthe CIA against him. He had really
Israel as a new country thatreally wasn't wanting to pursue some
of this thing except on theirown terms. He waged a public campaign
(26:12):
on his own. He was givinginformation and talking to those
people who were agreed withhim or who were inquiring about wanting
to know the truth. And he hadwitnesses who really didn't care
anymore. They were going totell the truth no matter what, because
it was the truth. It wasn'tsomething they were interested in
covering up. So this man,Fritz Bauer, is someone, folks, that
you really need to get toknow, because he is really important.
(26:36):
My only question about Fritzis what motivated him? What was the
spark that made him.
Good question.
Really, really want to pursuethis. This seemed like a burning,
burning in his heart and hissoul. Something that he just would
not let go, which we'rethankful for. We don't know much.
I don't know much about FritzBauer. I'm finding out more and more
(26:56):
about him. I want to know moreabout him, but I'm just wondering
what that spark, what reallymotivated this. You may not even
know, Frank. Maybe none of usknow, but what could have made him
really pursue this? He waslike a dog wanting a bone. He was
really after this. It waspretty intense. It sounds like.
Yeah, in some ways that's thequestion I set myself to answer with
(27:18):
the book and encourage readersto turn to the pages, because it's
a man's life and mission andplays out over time. And I think
that's one of the great powersof biography, is getting to show
(27:39):
the inner workings ofsomeone's heart and soul over as
they grow and develop. And Ithink the short answer to your question
is, of course, that Bauer hada lot of anger. He had seen family
and friends caught up in themachinery of death of the Nazis.
(28:04):
He had his livelihood andhome, his whole world, and Stuttgart
destroyed. And there's a lotof anger and passion directed at
those who thought they couldget away with it and just walk back
into their old jobs. But Ithink there's a sort of deeper vision
(28:28):
in Bowers story that makes himnot. Makes him different to other
Nazi hunters that we know of,like Simon Wiesenthal or Tuvia Friedman,
who were all about trackingdown the perpetrators in the name
of justice. Bauer had thisvision for Germany that was so striking
(28:54):
and different that I think canbe quite inspiring for us today.
Inspiring or. Yeah, like howwe want to think about where the
country goes and how indeed weset about steering a country in that
direction. He, Bauer had avision for a current and liberal
(29:20):
and progressive Germany. Onethat he had glimpsed as a young man,
as a young student, but onethat he lived through as coming out
as a gay man in, you know, inDenmark during his exile there in.
When he found himself in oneof the most liberal societies in
(29:44):
the world at the time, wasable to live freely. And that sort
of vision, that positivevision is one that he brought back.
And it's. He held. He had tohold to lots around him that was
utterly depressing. So manysort of attacks against him. The
(30:07):
fact that he had to hidehimself away and bury so much of
who he was. But he neverreally lost sight of that greater
vision and this idea that wasattached to it. That is I sort of
call to action to us alltoday, which was he came to the realization
(30:29):
that he wasn't going to getNazis to confess in the dark. He
called. He got so many bronzerelease of justice in the courtroom
and heard them mount theirdefenses. Not a single one ever said,
you know what? I was wrong,I'm sorry. They were all had their
(30:49):
excuses, their reasons, theirdenials. And what Bauer realized
was through the drama of thecourtroom was that he wasn't playing
to the Nazis in the dark. Hewasn't possibly even playing to press
(31:11):
galleys gallery or theimmediate audience. He was making
a case to the next generationthat was coming through that he hoped
would be receptive to adifferent idea for what Germany could
become. And when he stagedthis seminal trial in Frankfurt in
(31:32):
the 1960s, in fact, a lot ofWest German school kids got to come.
They were busted. He made sureto arrange it because he really wanted
them to. Yeah, hear the. Thewitnesses speak their truth and learn
from their experiences. AndBauer died in. In the summer of 1968,
(31:55):
which, as in the US was anabsolutely seminal year in. In West
Germany, it was marked thissort of explosion of new ideas. And
in West Germany, they carriedthis added resonance in which young
West Germans began to questionreally for the first Time what it
(32:21):
was their parents had doneduring the war. And Barrel was so
seminal in asking thatquestion in the first place. Giving
those young West German, bothstudents and young people the knowledge
that they needed to use toconfront their parents and. And in
(32:43):
the process begin to changewas it that was into the country
that we know today and likethat arc of history and that ability
to bend the whole country toa. Away from authoritarianism, away
from fascist ideas to a sortof different idea of itself. That's
(33:07):
why you should read this book,why Bauer is such an incredible figure
for us today because he hadthis bigger vision that drove him.
It wasn't just justice, it wassomething bigger.
Seems like there were pivotpoints, there were certain points
that really made an impactthat he was doing. One was the trial
(33:29):
that he started doing. Anotherone was the youth movement that you
just mentioned because he wasturning the tide with some of the
youth. Some of the youth werethough still in that old. I think
they were taking their parentsviewpoint because there was still
anti Jewish, anti Semitickinds of activity directed at some
Jews in Germany. But then itseemed like that the last big kind
(33:52):
of turning point was theAuschwitz visit by the. At the trial
where they went actually toAuschwitz and Birkenau and saw and
put their hands into what wasleft of people. That was. That really
even changed the judge who wasa very staunch, if I might say he
(34:13):
was a very staunch Nazi orfrom the old guard. Was he that strategic
in what he was doing or werethese things that were just evolving
and growing from his main focus?
It's. He saw Auschwitz asbeing really seminal to our understanding
of the Holocaust. And it is,it's just a return listeners to this
(34:38):
mindset which is so shockingto us today. In 1950s, no one was
really talking aboutAuschwitz. Primo Levy wrote in Alexo
just he had written hisamazing memoir directly after the
war and struggled to find apublisher and in 1955 wrote no one
(35:01):
wants to hear about the camps.And yeah, it was the case that Auschwitz
was not this seminal place inour understanding of Nazis and the
worst that mankind can do. AndBowers had a different view. He saw
that it was at the heart ofthe Holocaust and it was. He wanted
(35:24):
a trial that could effectivelyput a itself at the center of proceedings.
And he had this, yeah, verystunning idea behind the trial that
he wouldn't go after the sortof higher ranking officials that
is necessarily. He wanted tohave some of the guards, the orderlies,
(35:49):
the lorry drivers, the gaschamber operators, the sort of the
Regular people who had run thecamp. And because he wanted ordinary
Germans to see themselves inthose perpetrators and recognize
(36:10):
the way in which Nazism hasplayed out across German society,
that it took a community, ittook a culture, it took a whole people
to enable industrialized massmurder in Auschwitz. And that was
just a really extraordinaryvision. What he was having to battle
(36:33):
with was the fact that thatWest German law had deliberately
not taken up the internationallaw laid down and Nuremberg that
recognized things likegenocide and crimes against humanity.
So in West German law, whenBauer was operating, you could only
(36:56):
try Nazis for individualmurders. And that created an absurd
situation in which you hadsomeone who had operated the gas
chamber of Auschwitz. Like,how do you try him for an individual
murder? Like, how do you,like, produce evidence to show his
(37:16):
involvement in the death of asingle individual when he was responsible
or took part in the massmurder of millions? And Bauer was
also battling against thecourt system to change that he wanted
to West German law that areabsolutely necessary that it changed
to recognize genocide and massmurder. And so this was. These were
(37:39):
some of the. Some of thethings he was fighting against. And
there was a time when thetrial itself was really struggling
because his prosecutors werefailing to make the case against
the defendants because theywere having to wrestle with, did
(38:02):
they do this single crime? Andthe witnesses took the stand and
they would be asked, so didyou see this defendant shoot this
individual on this particularday at this hour 20 years ago? Because,
of course, this trial tookplace and began in 1963. 60. And
(38:23):
so almost 20 years after thefact. And the defense lawyers could
all just say, oh, how do you,how can you remember those details?
There were so many years ago,and it was all fuzzy and no one knew
anything. And they were ableto make the past seem indistinct
and inexact and pretend thatnone of the defendants really knew
what was happening in thecamp. And that sets the scene of.
(38:48):
For the sort of denouement ofthe book and this extraordinary moment
of Cold War drama when Bauersaid, enough of this, let's take
the court to Auschwitz.Auschwitz, which was in Poland, Communist
Poland, behind the IronCurtain. He had to do behind the
scene maneuverings to get thePolish government and the West German
(39:11):
government to agree. But inthe end, he succeeded in bringing
the court over the IronCurtain to Auschwitz itself. The
judges and the prosecutors,the defense lawyers, and even one
of the defendants came aswell, along with hundreds of journalists.
(39:32):
And for many people, this wasthe first time they had seen images,
they'd seen TV footage ofAuschwitz. People had by the 1960s
heard about gas chambers. Noone had seen what one looked like
and not had. No one had seenAuschwitz. And, and that was just
(39:53):
incredibly powerful moment inour collective reckoning with the
past. Those images of theruined gas chambers in Birkenau getting
beamed around people's homesaround the world thanks to that trial.
And Bauer really put Auschwitzon the, on the map of our collective
(40:16):
consciousness. And of coursefor us all, everyone who's listening,
we all know what that meansnow. And I wanted this book to really,
yeah, give credit, Hugh Bauer,to the person who really helps get
us to the right view ofAuschwitz's place in history.
(40:38):
How did you become acquaintedwith Fritz Bauer? Where did your
paths cross? Where did you allof a sudden say, hey, I want to write
a book on that is about Fritz Bauer?
Yeah. So I was at the end ofmy last book, the Volunteer, about
this Polish operative whoinfiltrated Auschwitz to report on
Nazi crimes. And I was writingthe list of characters that goes
(41:03):
in the back of the book that,that then which has like small, small
synopsis of their lives. And Iwas looking through the list of the
perpetrators from the camp. Somany of them escaped justice at the
end of the war. And thatshocking to me because I did not
(41:27):
know there was this giant gapin justice in post war Germany, but
there was this one commondenominator running through their
biographies. Finally broughtto justice in 1965 at the end of
the Frankfurt Auschwitz trialby. Led by Fritz Bauer. And so I
(41:47):
was like, oh, who is thisFritz Bauer who seems to have played
such an important role? Andthat led me to, yeah, his extraordinary
story of escaping the Nazisand then fashioning a vision that
was to transform not just WestGermany, but our collective consciousness
of. About the Holocaust.
(42:09):
The extraordinary story Ithink pretty much says it all about
Fritz Bauer. Yeah.
Jack, you've been verygracious with your time with us and
I appreciate that. This is anunbelievable book, folks. If you
read anything in the next, inthis year or next year, this is a
book that you must read andyou must share with your friends.
(42:31):
It would be a great book, avery intense book for a book club,
but it would be a very goodbook for a book club.
And any talk about a movie, Ithink it would sounds like it would
be.
Oh my gosh, that would be agreat movie.
I think it would be fantastic.
So the book is called theProsecutor. It's by Jack Fairweather.
Jack's going to be speaking atthe Jewish Book festival at the St.
Louis County Library. Clarkfamily Branch that's on South Lindbergh
(42:54):
on December 11th at 7pm youcan go to jccstl.com for more information.
Jack, we look forward toseeing you there. And what a. Again,
what a stupendous book. Andthank you for your research and your
time that you devoted togetting the information out about
Fritz Bauer. And because if itwasn't for him, who knows what our
(43:17):
history would be like right.Right now.
Thank you so much for havingme. Both. It's been a real pleasure.
Thank you, sir. Take care.
Yep. Our pleasure. Boy, thankgoodness for Jack.
Oh, my gosh. And for bringingup Fritz. Yeah. To find what's the
common denominator here? Iknow we all think that way. Like,
why is this. Like this. Why isthis. Like, what's this? All pointing
(43:38):
to the same person. Let's knowmore about that person.
How long is the book? How many pages?
The book is. Yes, I have itright here. Talk about something
else while I pull this up andgive you the good answer. Yeah, not
just off the. Okay, here wego. The book is 319 pages.
That's not too bad.
No, but he has over a hundredpages of notes and sources. Like,
(44:02):
he. He has really done hisresearch. He. The characters, the.
Of all the people that hementions in there. It's really. Who
is this? And you got to keeptrack. But it's very detailed. But
it's a very intriguing. Don'tlet the size of the book be a detriment
to you, because it reallyflows well. It's like, I can't wait
to read the next chapter. It'sthat kind of a book. And he goes
(44:23):
from the beginning of FritzBauer's life all the way to the very
end. And he. He's interviewedfamily members. I was going to ask
him, did he fly over there?He's done a lot of research. The
family gave him information.He's gotten letters. And he's written
this previous book that he wonthe award for, which kind of was
almost like a foundationalaspect to push him into this.
(44:46):
So when did Fritz Bauer pass away?
He passed in 1968.
Okay. So he got done with thatlast trial in the mid-60s, and shortly
after that was.
And he passed away. He hadtaken at the time, because he was
working like 18 hours a day,and he had taken some sleeping pills
(45:07):
to sleep, and he was in abathtub relaxing and had a heart
attack. But he was 65 yearsold, and he died in Frankfurt of
a heart attack. But his. Thereis a movie, the People versus Fritz
Bauer. That's in 2015. Andthen Yesterday Girl, 1966. Not quite
(45:28):
sure about that, but thiswould be an outstanding movie. And
Mark, who knew, like, even theterm Holocaust was not widely used
until this really started toget going after the Auschwitz trial
many years later. Yes. Like weall think it's always been around,
or no, everybody knew right away.
It all sounds like it allhappened at one time, but it didn't.
(45:50):
It happened like he was stillprosecuting it 20 years after.
Oh, easily. And attitudesreally had not changed Even into
the 1990s in West Germany,which is wild.
It is crazy.
But it tells you a little bitabout people and what they want to
believe. If you believesomething that's been a lie, how
do you come to grips with thatpersonally and individually and collectively,
(46:16):
as a family or as a society?How do you do that when you believe
the lie?
Very heavy, I'm afraid.
It is very heavy. And becauseit's very heavy.
Oh, yeah.
My gosh. I really recommendthis book, folks. It's a quick read.
Okay.
It would be a great book for abook club. And I think because of
(46:39):
the heavy topic, maybe we justleave it right there, Mark.
Okay.
If that's okay with you.
That's fine. I think it's agood idea.
So, folks, again, the JewishBook Festival. Jack Fairweather,
author of the prosecutorDecember 11th at 7pm St. Louis County
Library, Clark Family Branch.That's 1640 South Lindbergh Boulevard.
That's across from FrontenacPlaza. JCCSTL.com for more information
(47:02):
and for tickets. You will needtickets for this particular event.
So that's all for this show.We thank you for joining us today
and listening. If you'veenjoyed this episode, you can listen
to additionalshows@stlintune.com please consider
leaving a review on ourwebsite, Apple Podcasts, Podchaser
or your preferred podcastplatform. Your feedback helps us
reach more listeners andcontinue to grow. I want to thank
(47:24):
Bob Berthisel for our thememusic, our sponsor, Better Rate Mortgage,
our guest, Jack Fairweatherand co host Mark Langston. And we
thank you listeners for beinga part of our community of curious
minds. St. Louis in tune is aproduction of Motif Media Group and
the US Radio Network. Rememberto keep seeking, keep learning, walk
worthy and let your lightshine. For St. Louis in tune, I'm
Arnold Stricker.
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