Opening of the Fritz Bauer Forum – Day 2

The time has finally come – the Fritz Bauer Forum is opening!

Following the laying of the foundation stone in August 2021 and the opening of the library in summer 2023, where many exciting events and workshops have taken place since then, the time has finally come! We want to celebrate – with a conference, a cultural program and much more from 22-24 May 2025. We cordially invite you to get to know the Forum and its new rooms and to come and talk to us.

To mark the opening, the Fritz Bauer Forum invites you to a conference on Friday, 23 May 2025 entitled: ‘Law and Morality. The Legacy of Fritz Bauer: Human Rights and Morality in the Institutionalised Understanding of Law’. We will look back and forward, to the major Nazi trials initiated and shaped by Bauer, especially the Eichmann trial in Israel and the Auschwitz trial in the Federal Republic of Germany, and we want to discuss the significance of Bauer’s understanding of law and morality for developments in the institutionalised understanding of law today.

Programme booklet

PANEL 1 | 10.00 am – 1.00 pm
The historical background: 1944 (Fritz Bauer’s book Kriegsverbrecher vor Gericht is published) to 1968 (Fritz Bauer’s death in Frankfurt am Main)

Welcome: Irmtrud Wojak and Gerd Hankel

Dr Hans Christian Jasch and Prof. Dr Lorena De Vita (10.00 – 11.00 a.m.)
The Eichmann Trial 1961 and the Survivors

Dr Ulrike Jureit and Prof. (em.) Dr Cornelius Nestler (11.00 – 12.00)
The Auschwitz Trial 1963-1965

Prof. Dr phil. habil. Stephan Lehnstaedt and Prof. (em.) Moshe Zimmermann (12.00 – 13.00)
The Eichmann Trial a Hearing Process – Law and Morality in the Public Discussion of Young Israeli Society

Moderation: Dr Kathrin Pieren

PANEL 2 | 14.00 – 17.00 hrs
Developments from 1968 until today

Prof. Dr Arnd Pollmann and Dr Thies Münchow (14.00 – 15.00)
Human rights and human dignity.
Challenges for the future

Prof. Dr Maria Sibylla Lotter and Prof. Dr Pierre Thielbörger (15.00 – 16.00)
Political and moral confrontation with the Holocaust and international humanitarian law.
What relationship, what goal?

Prof Dr Svenja Goltermann and lawyer Natalie von Wistinghausen (16.00 – 17.00)
(Victim) Witnesses to the Prosecution – Protection, Evidence, Reparation
Protection, probative value, reparation

Moderation: Dr Gerd Hankel

LECTURE | 6.00 p.m.
Prof. Dr Jan Philipp Reemtsma

If you would like to attend the conference and the evening lecture, please register by 19 May 2025 at magdalena.koehler@fritz-bauer-forum.de.