What "The People vs. Fritz Bauer" does so well is distill large, complicated political issues into an intimate, personal story about one man's desire to bring not only justice, but catharsis to post-war Germany, mired in a fog of complacency.
The People vs. Fritz Bauer
2015 · 1h 45m · R
Drama, History, Mystery
Directed by
Lars Kraume
Free account saves your watchlist and ratings.
The People vs. Fritz Bauer
Overview
It is the late 1950s. Flourishing under the economic miracle, Germany grows increasingly apathetic about confronting the horrors of its recent past. Nevertheless, Fritz Bauer doggedly devotes his energies to bringing the Third Reich to justice. One day Bauer receives a letter from Argentina, written by a man who is certain that his daughter is dating the son of Adolph Eichmann. Excited by the promising lead, and mistrustful of a corrupt judiciary system where Nazis still lurk, Bauer journeys to Jerusalem to seek alliance with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. To do so is treason — yet committing treason is the only way Bauer can serve his country.
Director and cast
- Lars Kraume Director
- Burghart Klaußner as Fritz Bauer
- Ronald Zehrfeld as Karl Angermann
- Sebastian Blomberg as Ulrich Kreidler
- Jörg Schüttauf as Paul Gebhardt
- Lilith Stangenberg as Victoria
- Laura Tonke as Ms. Schütt
- Götz Schubert as Georg-August Zinn
- Cornelia Gröschel as Charlotte Angermann
- Robert Atzorn as Charlottes Father
- Matthias Weidenhöfer as Zvi Aharoni
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Director Lars Kraume's mounting of this tale, while capable enough, is also rather staid and conventional.
From start to finish, it's absorbing.
By focusing on his subject's unwavering moral certainty, Kraume denies his ethical complexity and diminishes the difficulties of his challenging stance to educate the society that wanted him dead.
Though relatively conservative in its approach, Lars Kraume's teleplay-style treatment of a still-touchy subject has the nerve to name names, implicating everyone from chancellor Konrad Adenauer to Mercedes-Benz.
More films
Operation Finale (2018)
Drama · History · Thriller · PG-13
In 1960, a team of Israeli secret agents is deployed to find Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi architect of the Holocaust, supposedly hidden in Argentina, and get him to Israel to be judged.
- Runtime
- 2h 4m
- Cast
- Oscar Isaac, Ben Kingsley, Mélanie Laurent
Nuremberg (2025)
Drama · History · PG-13
In postwar Germany, an American psychiatrist must determine whether Nazi prisoners are fit to go on trial for war crimes, and finds himself in a complex battle of intellect and ethics with Hermann Göring, Hitler's right-hand man.
- Runtime
- 2h 29m
- Director
- James Vanderbilt
- Cast
- Rami Malek, Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon
Truth & Treason (2025)
Drama · History · Thriller · PG-13
In 1941 Nazi Germany, 16-year-old Helmuth Hübener begins questioning the regime after learning the truth about the war and seeing his Jewish friend persecuted. With two friends, he secretly listens to banned foreign broadcasts and distributes leaflets exposing Nazi lies. As the Gestapo closes in, the teenagers face mounting danger for ...
- Runtime
- 2h 1m
- Director
- Matt Whitaker
- Cast
- Ewan Horrocks, Rupert Evans, Ferdinand McKay
13 Minutes (2015)
Drama · History · R
The breathtaking story of a man who nearly would have changed the world. In 1939, when Hitler tricked millions of people at the height of his power, radical Georg Elser — disparaged as an assassin — is one of the greatest resistance fighters.
- Runtime
- 1h 54m
- Director
- Oliver Hirschbiegel
- Cast
- Christian Friedel, Katharina Schüttler, Burghart Klaußner
The Good German (2006)
Crime · Drama · Mystery · R
An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.
- Runtime
- 1h 48m
- Director
- Steven Soderbergh
- Cast
- George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire











Comments
Talk about the film with other members