Autor/Autorin
As a Holocaust survivor and political returnee, the lawyer Dr Fritz Bauer returned from exile to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 and from then on made it his mission to bring the crimes of the National Socialists to justice. Fritz Bauer had experienced first-hand what happens when freedom of expression and artistic freedom are suppressed or even completely abolished during the twelve years of the Nazi regime. Fritz Bauer was an important voice of resistance for survivors in post-war Germany. At a time when the majority of the population wanted to forget and suppress the terrible crimes, he held up a mirror to German society. As Bauer himself said, he wanted to do more than just lip service to the law and justice, humanity and peace. After the war and the Holocaust, his aim was to help the opposition and the spirit of resistance of the young democrats in the Weimar Republic to find new vigour.
„How does democracy actually work, Mr Bauer?“
The lawyer Fritz Bauer answered this question from our „Democracy Workshop“ for schoolchildren through his own life. Bauer had already experienced anti-Semitic hostility at school as a child. He experienced the injustices associated with this at first hand. As a schoolboy, this made him want to become a policeman with a sabre. However, his mother did not encourage him in his childish doubts about the injustices of the world. Instead, she gave him the „Golden Rule“, known in almost all religions: „Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself“. Fritz Bauer later said that this sentence had left a deep impression on him. It was something of a decision about his political existence.
You can find the documentation of the first Democracy Show on our publisher’s website HERE .