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Lecture

Philip Rubenstein
Fritz Bauer: The Man Who Found Eichmann and Put Auschwitz on Trial

Thursday 1.06.2023

Summary

The incredible story of Fritz Bauer, the German Jewish lawyer who tracked down Adolf Eichmann and who put Auschwitz on trial on German soil.

Philip Rubenstein

an image of Philip Rubenstein

Philip Rubenstein was director of the Parliamentary War Crimes Group, which, in the mid-to-late 1980s, campaigned to bring Nazi war criminals living in the UK to justice. Philip was also the founder-director of the Holocaust Educational Trust and played a role in getting the study of the Shoah onto the national school’s curriculum in the UK. These days, he works with family businesses, advising on governance and continuity from one generation to the next.

The answer is both. He had a run-in with the chief of police who had been a Nazi thug before rising to power in Stuttgart. As soon as the Nazis came into power, he targeted Fritz Bauer and arrested him early on.

No, I think he was a complicated man. He didn’t talk about being Jewish in public. But I believe that was because he was a very practical person and I think he felt that German bias would impede his work. He claimed he was a humanist. But I think in every fibre of him, he was a German and Jewish, and he wanted to create a Germany that he could be proud of.