The People vs. Fritz Bauer Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The People vs. Fritz Bauer Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 29, 2016

Scores of Baby Boomers are probably more or less genetically incapable of separating actor Werner Klemperer from his role as Colonel Klink in one of the oddest sitcoms ever to dot the sixties’ (and early seventies’) broadcast universe, Hogan's Heroes. Ironically for an actor best remembered for playing a (somewhat dimwitted) Nazi, Klemperer was half Jewish (his father was noted Jewish conductor Otto Klemperer), coming from a family which escaped Nazi Germany fairly early in Hitler’s ignominious reign. Klemperer went on to serve with the United States Army during World War II and had a number of interesting film appearances in the fifties and sixties, including as a Nazi defendant in Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg. In that same year of 1961, Klemperer, seemingly consigned to being typecast (even before his stint as Colonel Klink), played one of the most notorious Nazis, Adolf Eichmann, in the now little remembered Operation Eichmann, a film which attempted to document not just Eichmann’s horrifying activities during World War II, but his subsequent escape to South America, where he successfully hid for many years before ultimately being captured by the Israeli secret service agency Mossad, extradited (some might allege kidnapped) to Israel for a trial, and subsequently hung for his crimes in 1962. Klemperer isn't the only actor to take on this villainous role, however. This fascinating if disturbing sidebar to the horrors of World War II has provided source material for a number of big and small screen endeavors, including The House on Garibaldi Street, many of which have focused on the efforts of noted Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Perhaps because his contributions to the capture of Eichmann were kept under wraps for many years after his death, Fritz Bauer is a name much less widely recognized in the annals of bringing Nazis to justice, at least outside of Germany. Bauer was something of a legend in his native country, though as with many legends he earned that status only after overcoming considerable hurdles, many of which were constructed by Germans desirous of keeping former Nazis hidden, as if out of sight equated with out of mind. The People vs. Fritz Bauer is an often compelling history lesson in this underappreciated side of the Eichmann story, though it tends to also revel in some (homo)sexual subtext which makes the film a kind of odd parallel to another historical effort documenting the travails of a gay “pioneer”, The Imitation Game.

Fritz Bauer (Burghart Klaußner*) is intent on helping Germany come to terms with its (then recent) past. The People vs. Fritz Bauer actually begins with a television broadcast featuring the real life Bauer exhorting younger Germans to accept their national history in a way that their parents are probably incapable of doing, and that generational aspect is an interesting if subliminal aspect to some of what then plays out in the film. Part of Bauer’s attempts to help Germany reconcile itself with its history includes trying to bring various former Nazis to justice, though Bauer’s team in the German judiciary has been spectacularly unsuccessful in these efforts.

Bauer has already been seen to be perceived as perhaps emotionally unbalanced, especially after the intersection of too many sleeping pills and a warm bath make it look like he may have attempted suicide (there’s a great vignette in the back of a car where Bauer informs his superior that he owns a pistol and if he decides to commit suicide, it will be a fait accompli, not something to be guessed about). That uncertainty plays into at least some of what the German higher ups think of Bauer’s attempts to forage out hidden Nazis, but what really motivates some of them against Bauer is evidence that he’s gay, something that is still illegal in 1950s Germany, ironically due in part to a law held over from the Nazi era.

Bauer is also Jewish, something that probably subliminally (and maybe even overtly) affects the way the German judiciary and police officials view him, as if his religious-ethnic background accounts for his single mindedness in bringing Nazis to justice. When he receives a tip from an Argentinian man that Adolf Eichmann (Michael Schenck) is probably living in that country, Bauer instinctively understands he’s not going to get much help from the Germans (a number of bureaucratic defenses are raised against pursuing the villain), and therefore decides to secretly approach the Mossad, something that may end up getting Bauer accused with treason for pursuing.

All of the factual information in The People vs. Fritz Bauer is quite compelling and (to modern eyes) a little maddening, with a bunch of Nazi sympathizing bureaucrats setting up obstacles to Bauer at every turn. But the whole gay subtext angle, while perhaps psychologically relevant (and I’m not even sure about that), is played for sometimes lurid and often too “on the nose” material courtesy of a fictionalized character named Karl Angermann (Ronald Zehrfeld). Angermann is an acolyte investigator of Bauer’s who is a closeted gay man himself and who, despite being newly married, ends up having an illicit relationship with a drag queen named Victoria (Lilith Stangenberg), a chanteuse (supposedly) at a local gay nightclub. It ends up giving part of The People vs. Fritz Bauer a needlessly tawdry undercurrent, one which may in fact help to highlight the general zeitgeist of at least some elements in Germany at the time, but which almost seems at times like a bus and truck version of Cabaret has suddenly intruded on this otherwise historical opus.

The film is highlighted by a commanding performance by Klaußner, who resembles Bauer quite a bit to begin with and who brings a kind of fussily neurotic but resilient and intense demeanor to the character. Zehrfeld, who kind of looks like a slightly beefier Brendan Fraser, does what he can with a character whose only purpose is to reflect the restrictive tenor of the times. The film also exploits the real life Bauer’s fascination with mid century modern designers through some unique production design elements.

*German orthography is a bit arcane at times, but for those interested, information on the letter ß (which amounts to a double "s", more or less, anyway) can be found here.

The People vs. Fritz Bauer Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The People vs. Fritz Bauer is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Media Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. I haven't been able to track down any authoritative technical information on this shoot, but the transfer is often impeccably sharp, if also fairly tamped down quite a bit of the time in terms of traditional "pop" of the palette. A lot of scenes have a just slightly cool, detached appearance, with flesh tones slightly desaturated and a somewhat blue tint. One sequence which takes place in Jerusalem is bathed in honey colored yellow tones, though no real deficit in detail levels results. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, the production design mimics what was evidently the real life Bauer's fascination with modern designers, with some interesting (if often black and white) geometric designs offered on elements like wallpaper and curtains. Speaking of black and white, there are a few brief moments where either monochromatic archival film (either real or recreated) or still photographs are utilized, and contrast is excellent in these moments.

The People vs. Fritz Bauer Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The People vs. Fritz Bauer features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (largely but not exclusively) in German. The film offers occasional moments of immersion like the crazy jeep trip Bauer takes across the desert at one point or in some of the evocative Argentinian moments featuring Eichmann, but the film is a rather quiet procedural much of the time and therefore doesn't offer a lot of "wow" moments in terms of surround activity. That said, fidelity is fine throughout the audio presentation, with dialogue and effects rendered cleanly and clearly, and with no problems of any kind to report in this review.

The People vs. Fritz Bauer Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making of People vs. Fritz Bauer (1080p; 13:32) has some good interviews and behind the scenes footage, as well as some interesting information on production design elements which sought to recreate Bauer's real life interest in contemporary designers.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 8:38)


• Trailer (1080p; 2:22)

The People vs. Fritz Bauer Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bauer's story is a weirdly unknown and therefore underappreciated sidebar to the well documented efforts of Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal, and anyone with even a passing interest in this subject will probably be interested in The People vs. Fritz Bauer. (For those wanting a somewhat less salacious and more scholarly approach to the Eichmann arrest, check out Hunting Eichmann, an excellent book.) The film might have done better to have left some of the provocative sexual elements by the wayside, especially since they don't really materially affect the subject at hand. Technical merits are strong, and The People vs. Fritz Bauer comes Recommended.