Autor/Autorin
Keine Autorendaten verfügbar.
By Kurt Nelhiebel (Bremen)
When the crimes committed under National Socialism caught up with the Federal Republic at the end of the 1950s and the question of the roots of the evil that had led to Auschwitz was raised, there was a sense of alarm among the many accomplices who had remained unpunished and, as fresh-faced democrats, helped to determine the fate of the Federal Republic. It was primarily the resistance fighters, the opponents and victims of the Nazi regime who had returned from the concentration camps or exile, who also demanded a personal renunciation of the evil spirit of National Socialism as a prerequisite for democratic renewal. In doing so, they disturbed the well-being of a society that had left the Nazi past behind, basked in the glamour of an „economic miracle“ and enjoyed its role as an ally of the West in the fight against communism.
One of these „troublemakers“ was Fritz Bauer, who, as Attorney General, exposed the Nazi regime in court as an unjust state and freed the resistance fighters from the stigma of supposed treason. With the Auschwitz trial, he wanted to put a stop to forgetting forever and encourage Germans to say no whenever they encounter injustice by the state. With her biography of Fritz Bauer, historian Irmtrud Wojak has secured an honourable place in German history for this extraordinary man. It is fitting that the new edition is being published at the same time as Hitler’s work „Mein Kampf“ is polluting the German book landscape and is available to the unteachable as a legal stimulant.
The former President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Jutta Limbach, called Irmtrud Wojak’s academic work a biography with flair, against which all other biographies must be measured, including the latest feature films in which Fritz Bauer is portrayed as a caricature of himself. The author proved her flair in particular by working out the essence of Fritz Bauer’s life, his love for people, his indomitable will in the fight against injustice, his advocacy of a reform of criminal law that would punish the perpetrator in view of his specific guilt, but then give him the chance to atone and repent, thus making it easier for the convicted person to return to a regular life. She calls him a lawyer with a sense of freedom, a fighter for resistance as a human right. Not everyone liked that.
The Fritz Bauer Institute, of all places, criticised her for not keeping enough distance from her subject, and she was forced out as deputy director. To this day, her biography of the man who gave the institute its name has been boycotted by the academic institution, a moral bankruptcy but also a political scandal, as the institute is financed by public funds. Irmtrud Wojak’s efforts as founding director of the so-called Munich NS Documentation Centre to not limit the culture of remembrance to the commemoration of the victims, but also to include the German resistance fighters and, above all, to name the perpetrators of the past, displeased the city authorities so much that they threw her out as if they feared the monster in the soul of the German people, who feared the truth like the devil fears holy water.
In a way, Irmtrud Wojak shares the fate of Fritz Bauer, whom the political class would have preferred to shoot to the moon during his lifetime, but this has not prevented his representatives from adorning themselves with him on occasion and wearing his name on their lapels like a medal of valour. The latest outgrowth of everyday madness is the proposal to use the annotated edition of Hitler’s „Mein Kampf“ as teaching material in public schools. And the Fritz Bauer biography by Irmtrud Wojak? Young people could learn here what is important in times like these, when Fritz Bauer’s advice to posterity seems to be coming true: „Nothing belongs to the past, everything is the present and can become the future again.“
January 2016
„An upright jurist, a biographer with flair.“
Prof Dr Jutta Limbach, former President of the Federal Constitutional Court, former President of the Goethe Institute
„In 2009, an excellent 638-page biography by Irmtrud Wojak („Fritz Bauer 1903-1968“) was published, followed a year later by the award-winning film „Death in Instalments“ by Ilona Ziok. Ziok had spent seven years researching the person of Fritz Bauer and Wojak ten years working on her habilitation thesis. It was also Wojak who curated the Fritz Bauer Institute’s magnificent exhibition on the Auschwitz trial, which was shown in Frankfurt/Main, Hanover, Berlin and Munich from 2004 onwards and was then unfortunately disposed of. Both Wojak and Ziok are in possession of extensive material of great historical value about Fritz Bauer.“
Prof Dr Erardo C. Rautenberg, Attorney General of the State of Brandenburg
„On 30 June 1968, Bauer was found lifeless in his flat. The exact circumstances of his death remain unknown. The fact that the city of Frankfurt has still not honoured its long-serving Attorney General with an award should be recommended to the Social Democratic Lord Mayor as an urgent official act. Bauer is one of the great personalities in German history. Social democracy can be proud of him and his work.“
Anton Maegerle, Vorwärts.de, 12 April 2012.
„Finally, a biography of Fritz Bauer, the jurist who contrer en RFA la protection tacite des crimals nazis. We have never heard with any certainty how the general prosecutor Fritz Bauer died. Whatever the cause of his death, it is certain that on 30 June 1968, aged just 65, he died too young. The lute that he had to carry out to force all the resistances, to oblige all the most hostile authorities to stand up for justice, forcibly mined his body. Fritz Bauer was a home exemplaire, and of admirable civic courage.“
Jean Luc Bellanger, Mémoire, no. 849, Janvier 2011, p. 9f.
„More than forty years after his death, Fritz Bauer is finally being properly honoured. Last year, Irmtrud Wojak’s thorough biography was published by C. H. Beck Verlag.“
Eckhard Fuhr, Die Welt, 17 February 2010
„Irmtrud Wojak now closes this gap in an impressive way with the first biography of the great prosecutor Fritz Bauer. (…) The vivid description of the life of this exile from Germany – the insight into the quarrels, jealousies and the daily struggle for survival of the politically active exiles – alone makes this book worth reading. (…) Wojak paints an oppressive picture of the post-war atmosphere. (…) Wojak’s well-researched and brilliantly written biography is more than just the life story of a single man – it is the biography of an era after the catastrophe.“
Jürgen Zimmerer, Literaturen, September 2009
„Now he has finally received the biographical appraisal that was long overdue. (…) Anyone unfamiliar with the biographies of Willy Brandt or Herbert Wehner, for example, will learn many new and surprising things about emigration in Scandinavia and the left-wing opposition to Hitler. (…) Irmtrud Wojak’s commendable book will hopefully help to ensure that Germany no longer remains a hostile foreign country for Fritz Bauer.“
Hans-Martin Lohmann, Die Zeit, 18 June 2009
„In her biography, Irmtrud Wojak makes clear just how much commitment, influence and disappointment is hidden behind such dates: Fritz Bauer 1903 – 1968 is a long overdue tribute to the Swabian humanist, radical enlightener and political jurist. (…) Its core: the reconstruction of a democratic legal system in Germany, accompanied by the enlightenment and self-enlightenment of society. (…) After reading this biography, however, we know that the sixtieth birthday of our democracy, which thrives not least on a critical examination of the past, is also thanks to him.“
Carsten Hueck, Deutschlandradio Kultur, 20 May 2009
With empathy and knowledge, she describes the story of a man who made the realisation of human rights and education about the past his life’s work. (…) In her biography of Fritz Bauer, she not only succeeds in honouring his life’s work and creating an impressive portrait. She also gives her readers a deep insight into the history of National Socialism and how it was dealt with. The fact that she simultaneously makes the atmosphere of the West German economic miracle society and the defensive attitude of the Adenauer era tangible is what makes her study so multi-layered. A brilliant and outstanding biography that we hope many readers will enjoy.“
Marlis Jos, SWR 2, 18 May 2009
„But what Bauer’s biographer Irmtrud Wojak writes about the most spectacular of his trials applies to them all: ‚The significance of the Auschwitz trial lay and lies first and foremost in the fact that it came about at all‘.“
Hannes Schwenger, Der Tagesspiegel, 6 April 2009
„Now you can read an excellent biography of Bauer’s contribution to saving the honour of the less glorious German judiciary. The author is a proven expert: Irmtrud Wojak, 45, a historian who has made a name for herself with her in-depth research on the Nazi era and was recently appointed founding director of the Nazi Documentation Centre in Munich.“
Rolf Lamprecht, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23 February 2009