Up to the present day Germany is uncomfortable with playing a major role in World politics. This uneasyness is attributable to the atrocities of the Second World War almost 80 years ago. It is hard to imagine that from mid 1950 to mid 1960, that is in the period of "das Wirtschaftswunder" just after the Second World War, Germany tried very hard to forget the past and look the other way. Only when the generation of the "baby boomers" began to ask their parents difficult questions in the second half of the sixties this period of silence game to an end.
In mid 2010 two films were made about this period of silence. First in 2014 "Im Labyrinth des Schweigens" (Giulio Ricciarelli) and a year later "Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer" (Lars Kraume). The first film is about the preparation for the "Auschwitz trial" in the first half of the 60's. "Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer" is about the hunt for Adold Eichmann in teh second half of the 50's.
The two films are interrelated. "Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer" can be seen as the prequel to "Das Labyrinth des Schweigens" because Fritz Bauer is in this film the boss of Johann Radmann (the main character).
In "Das Labyrinth des Schweigens" the silence is mostly passive (looking in the other direction) and the young main character is taken by surprise by it. In "Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer" the silence is more active (consciously sparing war criminals, however not going that far and being that organized as described in "The ODESSA file" from Frederick Forsyth). Fritz Bauer is experienced enough to be very aware of this active resistance. He knows that priorities have shifted from the Second World War to the Cold war. Statements of a war criminal in court could well form a political risk for the young state of West Germany. It's no coincidence that Fritz Bauer has more confidence in the Israeli Mossad than in his own colleagues to catch Eichmann!
Fritz Bauer is played by Burghart Klaussner, an experenced actor who played for example also in "The white ribbon" (2009, Michael Haneke). He does an excellent job. He plays Bauer partly as a sort of grumpy old man, bit like inspector Frost.
