In Büdingen in Upper Hesse, the SPD wants to name a new pedestrian bridge after Fritz Bauer. Deputy head of the local council Manfred Scheid-Varisco has already submitted a motion to this effect for the local council meeting on 14 December.
„The new bridge connects two institutions, the city administration and the district court. Their work is central to a functioning democracy. This has not always been the case,“ the SPD explains the motion in a press release. „The former Hessian Attorney General Fritz Bauer – supported by the then Minister President Georg August Zinn – fought very early on against forgetting and covering up. His name is associated with the restoration of the honour of the resistance fighters of 20 July 1944, the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials and, last but not least, the capture and transfer of Adolf Eichmann to Israel.“
The Social Democrat Fritz Bauer was one of the first to be imprisoned by the Nazis in Stuttgart in 1933 for his resistance. He managed to emigrate to Denmark in 1935. When the Nazis also wanted to deport the Jews from Denmark to the extermination camps in 1943, Bauer, who came from a Jewish family, fled to Sweden.
Returning to Germany in 1949, Bauer not only stood up for humanity and justice, he also refused to follow the trend in post-war German justice to conceal his own involvement in the mass murder and dismiss it as mere complicity or ideological blindness.
„With the possible naming of the bridge, a man could be honoured who has dedicated himself unflinchingly and fearlessly to the task of enforcing justice and humanity. Especially in times when right-wing populists and neo-Nazis are scenting the morning air, it is important to stand upright – and Fritz Bauer is a good role model for this,“ the SPD explains its motion.
The Workers‘ Welfare Association and „Demokratie leben“ have now invited Fritz Bauer biographer Irmtrud Wojak to give a lecture in the Willi-Zinnkann-Halle on 28 June 2017 at 7.30 pm.
