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Eight years ago, a German documentary film had its glittering premiere at the Berlinale and is shown all over the world in numerous language versions – just not on First German Television. Its title is Fritz Bauer – Death in instalments. It is about the man who brought Auschwitz to justice and died in 1968 under unexplained circumstances. The German Film and Media Rating described the film as an „immeasurably important contemporary document“ that reveals new aspects of a chapter in German history and unanimously awarded it the highest rating of „particularly valuable“.
Why did ARD refuse to show the film on the first channel? Was it really only due to the length of 90 minutes, as was initially claimed, or was it due to the content, which documents German post-war society’s unwillingness to come to terms with the Nazi era? With ARD’s commitment to transparency and viewer proximity in my ears, I tried to find out the truth and was in for a shock. Very quickly, I was moved by something else in addition to my journalistic curiosity: my attachment to the Hessian Attorney General, who gave me the manuscript of one of his most important speeches for publication shortly after the start of the Auschwitz trial. On 7 March 1964, the anti-fascist weekly newspaper Die Tat provided me with a whole page for it, today the only source for Bauer’s often quoted sentence: „Nothing belongs to the past, everything is still the present and can become the future again.“
After his return from exile, Fritz Bauer made many enemies because of his persecution of Nazi criminals and his political commitment. To the annoyance of the CDU and the German government, he initiated preliminary proceedings against Hans Globke, State Secretary in the Federal Chancellery and former commentator on the Racial Law, and he was one of the most prominent opponents of the emergency laws. His critics accused him of setting a bad example with his constant statements on current problems. The CDU moved for Bauer’s impeachment, but failed in the Hessian state parliament due to opposition from the SPD. During a debate on the causes of Nazi crimes, which I witnessed at first hand as a journalist in 1962, the CDU member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament and later Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl argued with the Hessian Attorney General that the period of time since the so-called Third Reich was still far too short to be able to make a final judgement on National Socialism.
The documentary film, Fritz Bauer – Death in Instalments , is about these political disputes and the resistance Fritz Bauer had to deal with, and no one doubts the coherence of its content. When journalist Rainald Becker took over as editor-in-chief of ARD on 1 July 2016, I asked him to reconsider the decision from 2014 not to show the film on the first channel and took the opportunity to identify myself as one of the contemporary witnesses who have their say in the film. After all, the film had not only been broadcast by two national programmes, but had also been shown on Phoenix, the events and documentary channel of ARD and ZDF. It took ten days before the new ARD editor-in-chief informed me through an employee on 8 September 2016: „Rainald Becker does not question the decision of his predecessor Thomas Baumann regarding the film ‚Fritz Bauer – Death in Instalments‘. The film will not be shown on German First Television.“ Not a word about the reasons.
On 23 November 2016, Becker informed me: „Please understand that our coordination will not comment further on this Saarländischer Rundfunk project.“ The next day, he wrote: „I have taken note of your email and am forwarding it to Saarländischer Rundfunk as the responsible party. I would also like to ask you to refrain from further correspondence with me.“ Had someone got cold feet? Contrary to what the ARD editor-in-chief tried to make out, Saarländischer Rundfunk, as co-producer, was by no means responsible. It was not it that decided to reject the film, but precisely the ARD coordination department, for which Reinald Becker was responsible as Thomas Baumann’s successor, or the ARD Historical Working Group in the form of its chairwoman Claudia Schreiner.
I had already contacted her on 22 August 2016 with the question of whether the documentary might not comply with the legal requirements for the design of broadcasts. But Claudia Schreiner left my letter unanswered. I then presented my concerns to the ARD Chairwoman and Director General of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Karola Wille, and described the rejection of the film as a media policy scandal. The ARD chairwoman did not dignify me with an answer either. Finally, I asked the chairman of the ARD programme advisory board, Paul Siebertz, to take up the matter. But the chairman of this committee did not reply either.
Instead, after nine weeks, on 5 December 2016, ARD Chairwoman Wille surprisingly got in touch, presumably at a hint from the Chairman of the Programme Advisory Board. She wrote to me that ARD was aware of my concerns. The Chair of the Historical Working Group, the level of the ARD editors-in-chief and the Programme Director of First German Television had been included in the extensive correspondence by letter and email. She apologised for not being able to meet me on a „historical-professional level“, but unreservedly acknowledged the decision of the „round of all ARD editors-in-chief and heads of culture“ not to show the film on ARD.
But did this panel really make the decision? On 6 September 2016, the programme directorate of First German Television told me something completely different. According to this, the film did not receive the required number of points in the ARD’s historical working group „after extensive discussion, in order to be submitted to the cultural and chief editors‘ conference responsible for Erste for a decision.“ How could the ladies and gentlemen decide on something that was not even presented to them for a decision? Against this background, what is the point of the announcement that ARD editor-in-chief Rainald Becker does not question „the decision of his predecessor Thomas Baumann on the film ‚Fritz Bauer – Death in Instalments'“? Did Baumann ultimately decide on his own to ban the film from German First Television? That would be awesome.
Back to the letter from Professor Dr Wille, in which she quotes from the minutes of the meeting of the ARD Historical Working Group on 24 November 2014: „The project did not achieve the required number of points… Points of criticism included the approach to content, which places too much emphasis on the murder thesis.“ In response to my enquiry, the ARD chairwoman informed me on 14 February 2017 through her programme director, a trained sports journalist, „that we cannot comply with your request to submit the specific arguments of the Historical Working Group.“
So was everything that was trumpeted about the murder thesis and its alleged overemphasis just hot air? But there was also the following sentence in the minutes of the Historical Working Group: „The HR reports that various contemporary witnesses and the Fritz Bauer Institute distanced themselves from the film during the screening of the 90-minute documentary in Frankfurt.“ In response to a written enquiry, the acting director of the Institute, Prof. Dr Werner Konitzer, firmly denied this. The legal director of Hessischer Rundfunk, Jürgen Betz, whom I had asked for advice and who is now retired, wrote to me that if the facts had occurred as I described them, „ARD does have an explanation problem“. His colleague, the television director of Hessischer Rundfunk, Gabriele Holzner, would look into my questions.
Ms Holzner confirmed that Hessischer Rundfunk had informed the Historical Working Group about the – as she wrote – scandal at a public screening of the film in Frankfurt at the end of 2010. The conference of editors-in-chief and heads of culture at ARD had also been informed. As proof of the scandal, she enclosed an article from the FAZ newspaper from 2 December 2010. But there is not a word in this article about the Fritz Bauer Institute distancing itself from the film. It says that the director of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Raphael Gross, who was present, praised the film’s achievement of conveying individual outrage at the crimes of National Socialism.
The claim that various contemporary witnesses distanced themselves from the film is also not supported in the article. Only Bauer’s executor Manfred Amend, who appears nineteen times in the documentary film and criticises at one point that an autopsy was not carried out on Fritz Bauer „to determine whether it was a natural death, a suicide or a death that pointed to external negligence“, has distanced himself from the film. He now described rumours that Fritz Bauer’s death was not natural as „frivolous suspicions“. He refused to make a final statement, as the FAZ expressly noted.
The claim that the film places too much emphasis on the murder theory is also false. Only 48 of the 1,014 lines of dialogue deal with the circumstances of Fritz Bauer’s death. Nobody claims that Fritz Bauer was murdered, although there was no lack of death threats against Fritz Bauer. Two weeks after the rejection of the documentary film about the initiator of the Auschwitz trial, the First German Television showed a documentary film about the supreme SS leader Heinrich Himmler, which the Berlin Tagesspiegel wrote showed the „mass murderer as a bourgeois“. The title of the film: Der Anständige . Did no one think to reject the film because it placed too much emphasis on the thesis of the innocent Himmler?
Unimpressed by the facts, the television director of Hessischer Rundfunk confirmed her rejection of the film. No screening on the 50th anniversary of Fritz Bauer’s death? No. Further discussion of the different points of view would lead to nothing, she wrote to me on 6 March 2017, especially as the decision not to broadcast the film on the first channel had been made and there was no prospect of a new discussion.
The high-pitched tone reminded me of an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung from 23 November 2015 with the headline „Her Majesty, the ARD „. It said: „ARD can do things differently, it offers socially important journalism. But it must finally learn that it owes its audience transparency and a say… ARD is not a pre-democratic kingdom in which majesties make lonely decisions.“
When the film Fritz Bauer – Death in Instalments was shown on Phoenix on 7 May 2016, I took this as an opportunity to ask the programme director Michaela Kolster about her motives. For the first time, I heard a human tone. She replied that the film had received „a lot of acclaim and positive reviews at home and abroad“. Neither television journalistic nor film documentary reasons argued against broadcasting the film. That is why the film was also included in a wide range of reports on the main topic of „The Holocaust in Court“ on Phoenix.
Viewers in Switzerland, Austria and Germany were able to see the film on 3sat. This is a public television programme operated by the national broadcasters of ARD, ZDF and Austrian and Swiss television. On 9 October 2016, at the same time as ARD editor-in-chief Rainald Becker confirmed to me that the film would not be shown on German First Television, it was being shown at prime time on the ARD news channel „tagesschau24“. In a promotional text, ARD described the film as an „impressive portrait of one of the most important jurists of the 20th century“.
On 17 January 2018, I asked the new ARD chairman and director of Bayerischer Rundfunk, Ulrich Wilhelm, to show the film on the occasion of the upcoming 50th anniversary of Fritz Bauer’s death, as all objections had proven to be unfounded. Six weeks later, without a word of explanation, he informed me via the programme directorate of the First German Television: „We still have no plans to broadcast the documentary ‚Fritz Bauer – Death in Instalments‘ on First German Television.“
„However,“ it continues, „we will certainly honour the former Hessian Attorney General Fritz Bauer on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death.“ A feature film showing Fritz Bauer at work will be broadcast in May. The film that will be broadcast is one that Fritz Bauer’s biographer, Irmtrud Wojak, writes shows one of the pioneering personalities of the 20th century as a pathetic caricature of himself. „Even if it is madness, it has method“. (Shakespeare , Hamlet).