Human rights, civil rights

Returning to Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War Fritz Bauer – a gay Jewish lawyer and outspoken critic of Hitler – was determined to reclaim the Germany he had once loved. But he soon saw that the perpetrators of the Holocaust had largely got away with their crimes. Top Nazi officers – mass-murders and cruel sadists – had been given plum jobs at major German companies; held prestigious offices in top universities; were in positions of power as lawyers, judges and political advisors. The war was over and many were keen to forget and move on. Thus began Bauer’s dogged fight for justice and a reckoning with the past. Drawing on recently released CIA files, unpublished family papers and secret diaries, this is the story of one man’s battle to bring down the perpetrators of the greatest crime in human history, and to make sure the world never forgets what happened.