The Legacy of the Human Rights Movement: Prosecutor-General Fritz Bauer on Genocide and Human Rights

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the legacy of Fritz Bauer — the Prosecutor General of the Land of Hesse in West Germany — and analyzes his understanding of the possibility of building the rule of law in Germany, understanding the criminal past of Germany and realizing the responsibility of the German citizens for the genocide of the Jewish people. Fritz Bauer was one of the most consistent supporters of the criminal prosecution against Nazi criminals in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). In Bauer’s view, the Nuremberg trials were supposed to witness the desire of the German state to restore the rule of law, preserve the memory of millions of victims of Nazism, celebrate the triumph of justice and human rights. In the course of the court proceedings, Fritz Bauer sought to show that millions of German citizens who supported the Hitler regime and shared the ideology of National Socialism were responsible for Nazi atrocities. The merit of Fritz Bauer’s goal was to recognize the Third Reich as an illegitimate State and rehabilitate the participants of the Anti-Hitler Resistance Movement. In his articles and court speeches, Bauer justified the right of citizens to resist the criminal authorities, argued that disobeying criminal orders was the only possible option for lawful behavior in an illegitimate State. Fritz Bauer was convinced that it was possible to prevent the repetition of the past and prevent the neo-Nazis from coming to power only through the democratic education of the younger generation of the Germans, ensuring universal respect for human rights and dignity.