The Prosecutor: One Man's Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice

by Jack Fairweather

From the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Volunteer, the powerful true story of a Jewish lawyer who returned to Germany after World War II to prosecute war crimes, only to find himself pitted against a nation determined to bury the past.

At the end of the Nuremberg trial in 1946, some of the greatest war criminals in history were sentenced to death, but hundreds of thousands of Nazi murderers and collaborators remained at large. The Allies were ready to overlook their pasts as the Cold War began, and the horrors of the Holocaust were in danger of being forgotten.

In The Prosecutor, Jack Fairweather brings to life the remarkable story of Fritz Bauer, a gay, Jewish judge from Stuttgart who survived the Nazis and made it his mission to force his countrymen––and the world––to confront their complicity in the genocide. In this deeply researched book, Fairweather draws on unpublished family papers, newly declassified German records, and exclusive interviews to immerse readers in the shadowy, unfamiliar world of postwar West Germany where those who implemented genocide run the country, the CIA is funding Hitler’s former spy-ring in the east, and Nazi-era anti-gay laws are strictly enforced. But once Bauer landed on the trail of Adolf Eichmann, he wouldn’t be intimidated. His journey took him deep into the dark heart of West Germany, where his fight for justice would set him against his own government and a network of former Nazis and spies bent on silencing him.

In a time when the history of the Holocaust is taken for granted, The Prosecutor reveals the courtroom battles that were fought to establish its legacy and the personal cost of speaking out. The result is a searing portrait of a nation emerging from the ruins of fascism and one man’s courage in forcing his people––and the world––to face the truth.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Holocaust, World War II, War, Biography Memoir

496 pages, Hardcover

Published February 25, 2025

About the author

Jack Fairweather, is a British journalist and author.

He has been a correspondent for the Washington Post and the Daily Telegraph, where he served as the Baghdad and Persian Gulf bureau chief of British troops. His reporting during the Iraq War earned him Britain’s top press award.

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a quirk of any book on the Holocaust that the quality of the writing is proportional to how badly you feel while reading it. Sure, you may feel bad because the book is not good, but the truly transcendent narratives ensure the reader truly feels the horror. In the case of Jack Fairweather's The Prosecutor, I felt depressed, angry, and quite annoyed. Yes, all of those feelings are to Fairweather's credit.

The Prosecutor is about Fritz Bauer, a gay, Jewish, German judge who has to flee from Germany during World War II because...well, pick any of the previous descriptors of Bauer. I should make it clear that if you are looking for an in-depth biography of Bauer, then you will be disappointed. Fairweather does give background and explains Bauer's motivations but the author is much more interested in the why and how of what Bauer does after World War II.

The main thrust of the story is Germany wiped its hands after the Nuremberg trials and effectively said, "Well, thank goodness THAT is over with." Bauer believed deeply that Germans had not looked in the mirror and reckoned with how so many people could take part in mass murder. Even more galling, Bauer felt the Nuremberg trials should have been the start, not the finish. Fairweather meticulously explains the motivations of various people and the numerous hurdles Bauer faces. (Side note: When I say "meticulously", I am not kidding. Fairweather's list of sources is insanely long in a good way!) If you are a huge fan of Fairweather's previous work, The Volunteer, then you will definitely want to grab this one.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Crown Publishing.)

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a 5 star read for me. Or listen, as I have borrowed it on Libby as an audiobook. I’m not much impressed with the narrator, he is simply not my cup of tea, sounds tomme like he is reading a report from a stamp collector Congress (apologies to all stamp collectors).

It makes for a harrowing read/listen, I can only listen for a short spell at a time, it is deeply disturbing and a lot of the facts are new to me. I had heard about the Nuremberg trial, but not about the Frankfurt trials in the 60s when a lot of lesser important previous Nazis were prosecuted. For the first time in my life I have grasped what Hannah Arenth means when she talked about the ‘banality of evil’, it simply didn’t make sense to me before now, that I have heard about the tedious Eichmann who testified in court about eliminating Jews as if it was some daily routine chore to get over with.

At the same time there are grotesque information about how survivors of the KZ-camps were treated when they gave testimony, for some reason those who came from far away had been booked into the same hotels that the accused former Nazis were staying at, so that they risked bumping into them at the breakfast buffet! Not to talk about the harassment they were subjected to, death threats were common as most of the German public wanted to get on with their lives and not think about the fact, that lots of former Nazi officers unnoticed slipped into the jobs available in the rebuilding of the German republic.

Another almost facetious fact was one of the problems the prosecutors faced when they tried to contact personnel at Auschwitz which had been turned into a museum, unless the Israelian prosecutors promised that Israel would become marxist, they refused to open their archives. Auschwitz is placed in Poland and thus belonged to the former Soviet union’s sphere.

…


I can certainly say that this is the most riveting book I have listened to in months, not to say years. May many more read or listen to this, I think it is definitely an important book for our time .

[Edgarr Alien Pooh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a Jewish lawyer who returned to Gemany after the Second World War and made it his mission to chase down Nazi war criminals who had escaped prosecution. Working tirelessly in West Germany after the country was split into four sections, governed by different nations. His name was Fritz Bauer.

In the years after the War Germany was still struggling with its identity. Many right-wing parties were trying to re-install a version of Naziism, the population were dealing with guilt and/or denial and the fledgling nation of Israel was trying to cope with the influx of settling Jews.

While the world knows about the Nuremberg trials, it is also commonly known that VERY few of the leading Nazis faced the trial. Some killed themselves and some escaped but even those who did face the trial, a lot received short prison terms and only a few were hanged.

Many of the displaced Nazis and Gestapo found employment in the 'new' Germany, most returned to their previous vocations but some found their way into the law courts, some even as judges. As you can tell, Fritz faced an uphill battle against the 'old enemy' as a Jew and a homosexual man.

The bulk of this book is about Fritz's stunning success finding Adolph Eichmann in South America and bringing him to trial in Israel. Eichmann was "credited" with sending more than four thousand Jews to Auschwitz/Birkenau making him one of the most sought after escapees. He was considered third in line behind Hitler and Himmler, both of whom had committed suicide.

It was Eichmann's deeds and his eventual capture that lead to the widespread term, Holocaust, in the media and general public. An extremely well researched book about a VERY important man.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting and detailed book looking at 1 man's mission to bring nazi war criminals to justice in 1950/60's western Germany

[Jeanne Adamek · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warning: long review.
This is one of the most important books about the Holocaust I have ever read. Fritz Bauer was a gay closeted Jew who was instrumental in the bringing to justice of its perpetrators. It's not an easy book to read. The subject matter is tough, and Fairweather presents extensive research. There are large numbers of characters, most of whom I was unfamiliar with. The list of characters at the book's end is very helpful. At times, I skimmed, but toward the end, it was simply riveting. Here are some of the most striking parts of the book for me.

p. 151 "The camp [Auschwitz] had been turned into a museum in which the main exhibition contained little reference to Jewish suffering, and the rise of Nazism was blamed on American capitalism."

Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's former head of military intelligence for the eastern front, never joined the Nazi Party. He disliked the crude racism. But after what he saw as the national humiliation of the Weimar years, he embraced Hitler's promise to restore German prestige. He regarded the war as a means to an end, which was how he could support Hitler's drive to subjugate Europe without feeling himself to be motivated by racial or ideological hatred. By the end of the war, Gehlen had become profoundly disillusioned with Hitler, who called him "crazy General Gehlen." He was removed from his post in 1945. He knew if he were captured by the Soviets, he'd be imprisoned, tortured, and executed. To avoid this fate, he began to prepare to pitch his services to the Americans as an intelligence expert with extensive knowledge of the Red Army.

p. 154 "The Americans shared Gehlen's view that the former Nazis of Buenos Aires posed no real threat. Neither did they deem it necessary to alert Bauer to Eichmann's hiding place. Indeed, they agreed with Gehlen that the Nazi past was chiefly a concern because of Moscow's growing efforts to weaponize it to destabilize West Germany."

Thomas Harlan, a 28-year-old playwright whose father, Veit, had been a leading film director in the Third Reich. Goebbels had praised Veit Harlan's movie Jud Süss as "an antisemitic film as we could only wish for"; it was made obligatory watching for all SS men and played at their barracks in Auschwitz. Thomas Harlan was determined to rebel against his father's legacy. He and a friend, Klaus Kinski, made a documentary provisionally titled I Want to Go to the Jews. in Israel, they met survivors of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising, in which a small band of Jewish underground members held off a German force of 2,000 SS men, tanks, and artillery for almost a month. Harlan was inspired to write a play, partly in Yiddish, about the events, titled Myself and No Angel, which opened in West Berlin in September 1958. Bauer falls in love with Harlan, but the romance does not last.

p. 159 The production came to Gehlen's attention when, at its 50th performance, Harlan took the stage to announce that he was launching a petition against the rehabilitation of Nazi war criminals in West Germany. He had learned from a journalist friend about two mass murderers pursuing successful postwar careers. Heinz Jost, the former head of an Einsatzgruppe responsible for murdering 100,000 Jews, had been released after serving only a few years of a life sentence and was working as a real estate agent in Düsseldorf.. Franz Six, a former department head in the Reich Main Security Office, another pardoned lifer, had become the director of a publishing firm. Harlan demanded that both men "be brought before a proper German court immediately to correct the impression for the German and foreign public that murder is a career in Germany."

p. 166 "Bauer knew he couldn't trust the federal criminal police [in Argentina], but he still needed someone to pursue the lead [to find Eichmann] on the ground in Argentina. The only people he could think to turn to were the Israelis. It was a risk: He had no contacts inside the country and he couldn't count on finding interest. The Final Solution didn't feature prominently in Israeli public debate as the new state focused on its survival and forging a story of heroic self-determination."

p. 174 Israel's reluctance to pursue Eichmann in the summer of 1958 was particularly frustrating to Bauer, as his own prosecution of Hermann Krumey, the SS officer responsible for deporting Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, deputy to Adolf Eichmann, had stalled. "A judge had ruled that Krumey couldn't have known that sending Jews to Auschwitz meant death, and he'd been released pending fresh charges." Bauer was exasperated because he sensed a change in West Germany after the trial of Einsatzgruppen killers that year. "West Germans had started to speak out about the mass murder of Jews without reflexively mentioning their own suffering."

As Bauer learned about the trial of Wilhelm Boger, deputy head of the Gestapo in Auschwitz, a bold idea began to take shape in his mind. "The problem with applying German law to the crimes of the Final Solution was that the German criminal code did not recognize state-sponsored mass murder. Perpetrators could be convicted only for individual murders, and even then their intent to kill had to be established. But what if, instead of trying camp personnel separately, an array of functionaries were bought together under a single indictment that had the potential to reveal the role of each individual in the killing apparatus?... such a trial had the potential to implicate thousands in the running of the camp and expand the legal definition of murder to include anyone who had knowingly participated in the machinery of genocide."

p. 181 "Bauer explained he wouldn't seek Eichmann's extradition to the Federal Republic, despite the outstanding arrest warrant. He knew that Eichmann would likely only get a few years, given the leniency of West German courts toward former Nazis."

p. 183 West Germany saw the worst outbreak of antisemitism since the war. "On December 24, 1959, two young men painted huge swastikas and "JUDEN RAUS" ("JEWS OUT"0 across the walls of a new synagogue and on a memorial to those who had resisted Hitler in Cologne. Over the following days, hundreds of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries were daubed with swastikas and Nazi slogans." "One right-wing activist wrote a pamphlet that gained national attention in which he claimed that the Final Solution had been carried out by the Jews themselves in collusion with the Nazis."

Bauer disagreed fundamentally with Adenauer's interpretation of the attacks. He believed that Nazism was deeply embedded in the German psyche. This ran counter to the emerging consensus among historians who had begun to explain Hitler's rise to power as a result of Germanys' defeat in WWI and the unrest of the Weimar years. Bauer thought that this ignored the centuries of German thought that had steadily eroded an ethic of personal responsibility. People had been taught to idolize order over their convictions.

Adenauer was pathetic. He staffed his government with former Nazis because he thought that they were competent and this was the best way to preserve the fledgling democracy.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jack Fairweather's The Prosecutor is a deeply researched exploration of the fight for justice in post WWII Germany. This slow burn tells the engaging story of Fritz Bauer, a Jewish lawyer who not only survived the Nazi regime against all odds but dedicated his life to bringing war criminals to justice. His unwavering mission to expose and fight those still protecting the Nazi regime in West Germany truly comes alive in this historical account. While I initially expected a primary focus on Bauer's challenging task of tracking down and prosecuting Nazis, the book delves much deeper, spanning decades to reveal the complexities of his life and his profound commitment to accountability. 3.5/5

[Alex Lesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to this on audio over the last few days and wow a truly haunting look at a part of WWII I knew almost nothing about

Set mostly post war, it shows how the general feeling in Germany was that many Nazis were “just following orders” and didn’t have to carry any real blame for what they’d done.

It was only due to the relentless work of people like Bauer that challenged that idea, shifting the story from a few bad actors to a much harder truth, that this was a systemic failure and everyone involved was culpable. My god, it is sobering to think how much of the Holocaust was covered up after the war, and how close we came to a world where the full horror was never really exposed.

Did you know, it was 20 years after the war before Bauer was able to have the Auschwitz trial, up until then, all these men were still working in public service, police, justice system etc all that time!!! after being responsible for murdering millions of people!! And meanwhile, holocaust survivors were left left to try to rebuild their lives after their families were murdered, their livelihoods sold off, and a society that treated them with indifference or outright hostility

I'm glad to have stumbled across this and to have learnt about Fritz and the impact he had on the world

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is a deeply researched book that does a deep dive into one man's obsession in bringing nazis to justice, as well as holding his country [Germany] and peoples accountable for the atrocities of the Holocaust [which I loudly applaud him for], much of this book, unfortunately, failed to fully grab my attention and I admit that I got lost [and not in the good way] in the narrative more than I am used to.

This is a very dense book [more like a college text book IMO] that does jump around a lot [hence my losing track of the narrative - I spent a lot of time wondering just where we were again] and there were sections [especially when the author focuses on Fritz Bauer's life in minutiae, and less on the search for nazis] that felt very dull and plodding [and that is not what typically comes to mind when reading a book about chasing and prosecuting nazis]. When we finally get to the trial, the book really picks up and I was fully engaged until the book ends.

I fully recognize how important this book and its subject matter is, and I would still recommend people read it, just be prepared for a rather dense read.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jack Fairweather, and Crown Publishing/Crown for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Ash Linthorne · Rating 4 out of 5]

So interesting … really enjoyed it

[Tammy Tosti · Rating 3 out of 5]

I certainly admire Fritz Bauer’s dedication to bringing Nazis to justice and making his countrymen acknowledge their role in the Holocaust. This book reads like a textbook you might read in college with plenty of detail about what took place in the courtrooms, on the hunt for the Nazis and shares survivors first hand accounts.

It’s not light reading by any means, nor should anything on this subject matter be but I say this so you allow yourself time to process all that takes places in the three hundred or so pages.

[Dorian Santiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

This riveting biography of Fritz Bauer and his efforts to bring Nazis to justice within Germany post-Nuremberg—a decades-long effort—was a tremendous eye-opener.

Upon picking up the book, I was interested in the intersection of Bauer’s identities as a Jewish and gay man who had lived in exile in Denmark and Sweden during the rule of Hitler. However, his fervency was primarily fueled by his attachment to justice for the six million victims of the Holocaust, and proving a purveyor of both, than his own personal fittings into persecution (although they are not negligible features of his life).

Jack Fairweather excellently synthesized the multiple factors which subverted Bauer’s pursuit of national reconciliation of the Nazi past in Germany: the geopolitical infrastructure of the burgeoning Cold War and the unlikely alliances it made in the wake of capitalism versus communism (to include an American agency bankrolling former SS officers), the limited German legal framework of confronting its lurid Nazi past whereby prosecutorial pursuits had to weigh individual intent to murder rather than indicting complicity in state-sponsored mass murder—or rather, genocide—and the evasion of national guilt that was imbued with explanations of righteous following of orders, no matter the cost, and consistent neglect or denial of survivors’ testimonials.

In short, you felt the burden that Fritz Bauer carried for many years as an attorney general who steadfastly hoped that German society would be able to comprehensively answer for its national moral crimes, rather than lose sight of the millions of souls’ deserved justice while only considering out-of-reach Nazi leadership as responsible.

The accounts in this book are vivid, and even then, it makes you wonder how much more will never be uncovered due to the destruction of evidence and years of subversion by many agents. Remarkable read.

[Patrick Notchtree · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for a book club, report on the meeting
I am guessing that this book might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I found it fascinating. I am an historian and of German history in particular so for me, this book was made to measure. I learned a lot about post war Germany especially and the time of Konrad Adenauer - yes, I remember Adenauer well. That he was offered the chancellorship in 1933 and turned it down was new to me. If only he had accepted, how different world history would be! I had been unaware though of just how, when he did become West Germany's first chancellor after the war, just how much of the Nazi era administration remained in place. Adenauer, a fervent anti-Nazi, ,did this because he recognised the need for continuity of administration. (Later in Iraq all of Saddam's institutions were swept away leaving a vacuum of chaos. Maybe we should have learned from Adenauer.)
Not all started with a positive view point. One reader thought that when The Prosecutor was chosen, he thought 'this is not the book for me'. He thought here’s enough bad stuff going on in the world without having to be reminded about even worse historical misery. There’s only a certain level of misery that one can deal with. And also, he'd had too much of a reminder of watching the History Channel with a racist relative. But once read he thought The Prosecutor turned out to be a compelling and deeply moving account of Fritz Bauer’s life, a German prosecutor who played a crucial role in bringing Nazi war criminals to justice in the aftermath of World War II.
One comment was that Bauer was a man ahead of his time, fighting not only for justice but for the moral reckoning of a society that had been complicit in monstrous acts. A reader thought it was odd, but Fairweather’s account of some of the actions that lead up to the rise of Nazism, the extreme yet everyday murderous actions of the regime and its everyday people, together with the hugely inspiring account of Bauer’s fight for justice and accountability, didn’t leave him an emotional wreck. He thought maybe it was the conversational yet factual style of writing. A reader noted Bauer also fought against Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code, which made sexual relations between males a crime. Fairweather’s writing brings Bauer’s complex character to life - someone who didn’t just want to prosecute criminals, but to ensure that Germany confronted its dark past. Fairweather’s account of Bauer’s refusal to let fear or political pressure silence him almost feels like a balanced rallying cry for anyone who's ever been marginalised or silenced.
The extraordinary life of Fritz Bauer, a German-Jewish prosecutor who was instrumental in bringing Nazi criminals to justice. The value of this book is in how meticulously it has been researched. It details Bauer as a courageous and isolated figure in post-war West Germany, a nation eager to bury the past, and shows how his life was full of moral calculations in the pursuit of justice.
The story of Bauer's role in the capture of Adolf Eichmann was a new revelation. A friend has written a well researched novel about that, but this book found much more about Bauer's role. That and the Auschwitz trial which he than engineered led to a change in German outlook with regard to the Holocaust. Maybe he pushed too hard too soon and Germany wasn't ready to face the past but his determination was well and truly vindicated.
Fairweather describes Bauer's calculated risks, most notably his decision to secretly go against his own government by tipping off Israel's Mossad intelligence service about the whereabouts of Adolf Eichmann, a key architect of the Holocaust. Fearing that the German justice system would fail to act, Bauer’s act of "treason" ultimately led to Eichmann’s capture and trial in Jerusalem, a moment that forced the world to confront the full scope of Nazi atrocities.
The story of Bauer's own survival, as a German Jew, in the Nazi years is an adventure as well as being a testament to the character of the Danish people.
As a gay man in a society that was hostile to his identity, Bauer made the difficult choice to live a largely private life, sacrificing his personal expression to avoid giving his political and legal opponents any ammunition to discredit his crucial work. His unwavering pursuit of justice was thus deeply intertwined with a profound personal sacrifice. Reading the book one reader said he felt Bauer's aching loneliness.
The book also shines a light on Bauer's relentless efforts to orchestrate the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials. These trials, unlike the earlier Nuremberg proceedings, focused on the people who ran this genocidal machine, forcing ordinary Germans to confront the reality of their nation's complicity. Fairweather portrays Bauer as a man who understood that true justice required not just the punishment of a few high-ranking officials, but a complete moral reckoning for an entire society. He captures the immense opposition Bauer faced from a government and legal system still populated by former Nazis, making his story a compelling account of individual heroism against overwhelming denial.
This book opens the door into 'realpolitik' and the problems of choosing expediency over principle. It is superbly researched with copious notes. Fritz Bauer deserves wider recognition and I hope this book achieves that. A further comment was we need books like this to truly understand history. Textbooks too often miss the complexity of motives and sacrifices that define these pivotal moments and the people who shaped them. He said he learnt so much from this book and how well it was written was a huge part of that.
A member thought the book is a must-read not only for history buffs but for anyone who cares about the importance of standing up for what's right, even when the odds are stacked against you. He said a thank you to Proud Pages. He wouldn’t have picked up this book, never mind read it. But he said he didn’t enjoy reading it. There are some awful, monstrous acts that are difficult to understand. Committed by, as the book points out, by ordinary people. The almost matter-of the-fact writing helped him to commit to reading about them.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has greater scope than a biography, serving as a thorough treatise of a specific trial and its underlying crimes against humanity while also covering Germans' evolving response to their collective guilt in the first 15-20 years postwar. It is not light reading but is well written and whetted my appetite for other books on my TBR shelf, such as "Out of the Darkness."

[Ruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is responsible for my depression for the past 2 weeks. I found it a little difficult to follow, but this is probably because it presumes a prior knowledge of post-war Germany. Confronting, depressing, well researched.

[Sydney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, this book failed to hold my interest, and I ultimately admitted defeat halfway through—something I rarely do. I’m not sure if the material was simply too dense for me, which isn’t usually an issue, but I found myself unable to stay engaged or motivated enough to see it through to the end.

My initial expectation was to dive into the gripping process of tracking down Nazis, yet the book took a much broader approach, delving deeply into Fritz Bauer’s entire life story, spanning several decades. While I can appreciate the significance of his background in shaping his mission, I found myself wading through lengthy narratives about every person Bauer encountered, each leading down a rabbit hole into their personal history—along with extensive accounts of the Nazis’ lives. While these details surely add depth and context, my singular focus was on Bauer’s pursuit of justice, and the book’s structure simply didn’t align with what I had hoped to explore.

That being said, reading preferences are highly personal, and I still encourage anyone intrigued by this subject matter to give the book a chance. Others may find value in its meticulous storytelling and historical context, even if it didn’t resonate with me in the way I had hoped.

[Tessa {bleeds glitter}]

Will not be rating as I don't feel comfortable rating this kind of book.
I'm horrified how much of the history discussed I didn't know and haven't heard of, despite the fact that I'm a native German and had years of historical education solely around Nazi history. It made me curious if people with German grandparents ever talk about their part in the Holocaust, in the years after. I'm guessing not, because it's probably a pretty hard thing to talk about with anyone, admitting abiding people committing atrocities or doing even worse, especially to a grandchild you presumably want to love and admire you. Maybe that's partially why Germany has been leaning further and further right all the time now, maybe if we all remembered what we are capable of if we silence our empathy and the people trying to appeal to our humanity, we wouldn't be talking about immigrants the way so many people are. Because it is horrible and terrifying how easy it is to push this "us vs. them" mentality. The atrocities committed, not just the murders, but the violence and the hatred and the abuse committed by everyday people all the way up to the highest leaders, is terrifying. We are capable of so many horrible things and while I refuse to call it human nature, because it isn't, it so easily can be made to seem normal, even right.
It didn't surprise me per say how hard it was to make Germans consider their own part in the Holocaust, but it did take me by surprise how hard it was to make the allied forces want to make Germans face up to their complicity. Fairweather does a great job of explaining the political machinations behind the facts, behind all hurdles Bauer had to jump through to finally set the precedent he wanted to: Make the whole world see the attempted genocide for what it was.
The book is meticulously researched and well explained all around, be that historical, political or personal backgrounds.
The really sad thing is (because maybe I've forgotten some of the historical parts in the 11 years I've been out of school) that I'm absolutely certain we never talked about Bauer. With all the talk about the horror of the Holocaust, how "I was just following orders" isn't a valid excuse, how Germans, for the most part, have owned up to their complicity and their crimes and sworn "never again", we didn't talk about Bauer ever. Not one lesson in my many years on Nazi history did we talk about anything other than the Nuremberg trials, even though those didn't actually classify the Holocaust as a genocide, as the true horror it was. Why is that?
Bauer truly is a hero, who deserves much more recognition for what he did, what he sacrificed so much of his life to do.
What kind of took me out of what I considered to be a biography, was the lack of focus on Bauer in the second half. While he's front and center in the first, after the end of the war so many other people virtually take his place. Not that it wasn't important to talk about their Nazi history, about their part in the BND and so forth, but it didn't quite sit right with me how much focus they took away from Bauer. He's degraded to a secondary character in what I, once again, considered a biography of him.
To sum this up, obviously I would recommend reading this book. Remembering the Holocaust, the Nazi rise to power and the complicity of a whole nation, will always be important, might be especially important in current political climates. It is important to remember the more than six million people that suffered and were killed simply for existing, because some people decided they really shouldn't. Because so many watched on in apathy. It's important to remember that duty can never come at the cost of humanity, that "I was following orders" is just as much an admission of guilt as "I was giving the orders". People are not illegal, they are not a burden, they are not wrong for seeking the same as so many others get to have. And sometimes doing the right thing is illegal and may put you in danger as well.

[Dmytro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read more than 40 books this year, and this may be the best of them.

I am Ukrainian and deeply interested in history. World War II and its aftermath featured prominently in our school curriculum, and I’ve also read extensively on the subject on my own. Yet my understanding of how German society confronted (or failed to confront) the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust, and the mass complicity behind them, was, I now realise, surprisingly rudimentary.

The story we were told went roughly like this: After the end of World War II, Germans were educated about the crimes through schools, television, newspapers, and visits to concentration camps; they understood the enormity of what had happened, atoned, and vowed never to repeat it. Then Willy Brandt knelt in Warsaw in 1970. End of story.

This book shattered that simplified narrative.

By following the life of Fritz Bauer, a Jewish German prosecutor and Attorney General of Hesse in the 1950s and 1960s, Fairweather exposes a far messier and more disturbing reality. Former Nazis, including war criminals, occupied senior positions in Adenauer’s first West German government, the military, and the security services. They worked actively to suppress investigations and to ensure that the past would be ignored and forgotten.

Even more unsettling is how acceptable this was to the Western Allies. With the Cold War underway, containing the Soviet Union and rebuilding West Germany as an economic and military bulwark took precedence over justice. German society itself largely wanted to “move on.” Anti-Jewish sentiment resurfaced, culminating in outbreaks of violence as late as 1959.

Against this backdrop, Fritz Bauer, and a small number of others like him, fought almost alone to force a moment of national reckoning. His struggle was not only about prosecutions, but about a deeper and more frightening question: how millions of seemingly ordinary people became participants in unprecedented crimes - and how such a descent might be prevented in the future.

I won’t spoil whether Bauer succeeded, or to what extent. Instead, I’ll leave you with that question as you read this exceptional book - one that feels as urgent today as it is historical.

[Ricki Brodie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living in a time where expressing opinions or threatening the status quo were met with outrage, death threats and ostracism, our hero dedicated his life to make Nazis and Germans accountable for the Holocaust. Fritz Bauer, a gay, Jewish jurist fled Nazi Germany but felt compelled to come home after the war.

Bauer was upset because he felt that the Nuremberg trials were only the beginning of a reckoning; however, the Americans and Adenauer’s West Germany wanted to leave the past behind. Bauer could not abide by this. He was made attorney general of two remote jurisdictions where he made it his mission to go after Nazis responsible for Auschwitz. He was thwarted by having Nazi jurists preside over his trials. He enlisted the help of younger lawyers to work with him.

Bauer received a lead to the whereabouts of Adolph Eichmann. Knowing that the German government employed several ranking SS officials, Bauer took his information to the Israelis. He then decided to put several Nazis on trial for their murderous roles at Auschwitz, having the younger attorneys as prosecutors. Through Bauer’s efforts the trial became an international phenomenon as well as an embarrassment for the German people.

While Nuremberg trials put the spotlight on the upper echelons of Nazi elite, Bauer wanted the camp personnel and Germany to understand their complicity. Jack Fairfield did a Herculean amount of research in documenting the times and Bauer’s insatiable desire for justice. He took you from Germany to Israel to Argentina to Poland. He made you feel the isolation, fear and loneliness Bauer felt in not being able to explore his homosexuality in pursuit of a greater cause. The graphic descriptions will have you crying along with survivors.

This is a book everyone should read. Given the status of the world today, it is important to see heroes not backing down.

Thank you NetGalley and Crown Publishing for this advance copy. All opinions are my own.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Prosecutor by Jack Fairweather is the true story of Fritz Bauer (1903-1968) who was a German Jew who set about trying to bring the perpetrators of evil to justice after World War II. He was relentless in his pursuit.
At the end of World War II, Bauer estimated that eight million Germans had belonged o the Nazi party and two hundred and fifty thousand served in the SS. Many of the mass murderers and perpetrators of evil, either fled Germany or seamlessly blended back into society at the end of the war. “Few wanted to admit that fighting for Hitler was wrong.” Attitudes in the older generation, frighteningly, persisted into the 1960’s. Only with education, did the attitudes of subsequent generations of Germans change, as they admitted that the Holocaust did happen. Change started with the youth.
Jack Fairweather has clearly and methodically researched the life of Fritz Bauer, who was a good man who refused to stand by and do nothing. Along with others, including Simon Wiesenthal, Bauer helped to bring Adolf Eichmann to justice.
Bauer helped to put individuals on trial, as well as the human machinery that was Auschwitz. He introduced Auschwitz to the world through the horrifying testimonies of those who were there. The judges and others from the court, actually toured Auschwitz to see the site of the greatest mass murders in history, saying, “you need to see it… only then can you imagine the magnitude of the crime.”
The author has written a very comprehensive account of a time of pure evil. Words are just too inadequate to describe the horrors.
The Prosecutor is a harrowing, but necessary read. May we never forget the six million innocents who perished.
I received a free copy via Net Galley. A favourable review was not required. All opinions are my own.

[Sarah Ewald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hard to read book that takes you down the road to look at the atrocities done by the Nazis to fellow men. Follows the life of Fritz Bauer from his escape from the horrors in his country to Scandinavia to his return as a prosecutor to bring justice for the Holocaust victims.

Regarding the gassing of people at Auschwitz:
"A doctor was meant to stay until the end of the process--around 15 minutes-- to confirm that everyone was dead. But they usually left early to avoid the scene that was revealed when the doors were opened and the fans switch on: a press of bodies around the door and in the corners as people had climbed over one another to try to get away from where the pellets had landed. One Sonderkommando unit hastily cleared out the bodies and washed the blood and excrement from the floors; another checked the mouth of each corpse for gold fillings and shaved off the women's hair for use as cheap insulation elsewhere in the Reich. Then the bodies were either dragged to the oven room or incineration pits for burning. The whole killing process, from the moment the coded message arrived to the dumping of the ashes in the nearby river might take only a few hours. During the mass murder of Hungarian Jews in the summer of 1944, up to ten trains had arrived around the clock and queues formed from the ramp (from the trains) to the gas chamber."

I was particularly taken by the descriptions of Hitler's early days in corralling the government with what we are seeing today in America with Trump. It can't happen here?

Inspiring book filled with many characters, good and bad. A book that is difficult to read and comprehend how humanity had reached such a low, but necessary to learn from this horrible chapter in history.

[Daisy Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ordinary men claiming to be simply following orders. This was the defence of many Nazi officers. That they had no choice but to carry out superior orders, no matter the criminality or depravity.

Many West Germans (as was) wanted to move on and plead ignorance. Perhaps the shame was overwhelming.

The Nuremberg trials left thousands unpunished. And one man could not let that happen. With a small team, Bauer begins a new indictment, one he hopes will change the law and mete out commensurate punishment for all who took part in the genocide.

It doesn't exactly go to plan. Some were imprisoned for life, but most were treated with leniency.

Yet Bauer and his team had succeeded in getting the truth out into the world. A truth that had largely been hidden. He gave a voice to the survivors, many of whom began to heal after testifying, and even facing their torturers.

The truth inspired countless films and books.

This book was absolutely forensic in detail, but read like a novel. Many things were brutal to read. There were times I had to step away for a moment. The reader should feel sickened and saddened by this, and the sense that humans haven't learnt this terrible lesson from history.

I don't think a book I've read about the Nazi government has ever affected me quite as much as this book. We can somehow be desensitized by a broader view of the atrocities. But when you hear one person's experience of what they've seen, heard, smelt, endured, it hits differently.

A beautifully written elegy to a man who dedicated his life's work - at great danger to himself - to exposing the truth, and seeking justice.

[D.B. John · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Very good, kept me up reading late. This is history telling at its best, told in a gripping compelling narrative and with a light touch (the stodge is reserved for the footnotes at the end). As an undesirable person from the Nazi point of view, Fritz Bauer ticked almost every box: he was a firebrand left-wing activist, gay, Jewish, and from a wealthy family. In Germany after the war he resumes his career as a jurist and all those ex Nazis who have quietly settled into jobs in the police and the government are his targets for justice. It was an uphill challenge for him bring prosecutions in a country where the mindset and culture was still nazified, even if daily life was was becoming more progressive and democratic. We feel the gut punch of disappointment he must have felt when Auschwitz murderers used the letter of the law to insist on their innocence or to downplay what happened, not helped by the sitting Nazi-era judge. (All received lightish sentences). Sadly Bauer's real achievement didn't bear fruit until after his untimely death from a heart attack, no doubt brought on by stress, exhaustion, and chain smoking. His efforts brought the Holocaust to full public awareness in Germany, and the newer generation were far less willing to absolve previous one. He achieved no less than a national cultural shift in attitude. But as the author points out, Nazism put down deep roots, and itself drew from very deep and ancient roots. (Nothing of the sort can be said for communism). Sadly, as the Holocaust passes out of living memory, those roots are starting to bud once more.

[Mr. Book · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can also see this review, along with others I have written, at Mr. Book's Book Reviews.

Thank you, Crown Publishing, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This book will be published on February 25, 2025.

Mr. Book just finished The Prosecutor: One Man’s Battle To Bring Nazis To Justice, by Jack Fairweather.

This is a biography of Fritz Bauer, who was a Jewish judge who was arrested by the Nazis in 1933 as an enemy of the state, for his political opposition to them, and sent to a concentration camp (prior to them being used as death camps). He was eventually released after six months, but his legal career appeared to be over. Even after being released from the prison camp, he was still in constant legal peril, not only because of his religion, but due to their harsh laws against homosexuals. Eventually, after close calls, he was able to safely flee from the Nazis.

Bauer eventually returned to Germany after the war and, as a prosecutor, went after Nazis. He was involved in bringing Eichmann to justice.

I give this book an A.

Goodreads and NetGalley require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley, Goodreads and Mr. Book’s Book Reviews

Mr. Book finished reading this on December 5, 2024.

[Jason M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. As disturbing as it is brilliant. I only had one nightmare of being imprisoned in a concentration camp over the five or six days that it took me to finish. While the book runs 478 numbered pages, the narrative ends on page 322 -- nearly one-third of the book is taken up with endnotes, sources, a dramatis personae, and the index. It's a story I didn't know: the biography of Fritz Bauer, a Jewish, socialist, gay judge and prosecutor in Germany, and a Holocaust survivor himself, interned in a camp in occupied Denmark and freed just a week before his fellow prisoners were shipped East to certain death. Bauer from his attorney general's office in West Germany after the war led the campaign to prosecute the disturbing number of Nazis and other wartime criminals who made up Konrad Adenauer's right-wing government. He helped find Eichmann in Argentina (information the West German spy chief, another ex-Nazi, knew all along) and spearheaded the Auschwitz trial which, in the U.S., Hannah Arendt covered for The New Yorker and coined the phrase "the banality of evil". Bauer is an elusive figure, mostly closeted, and Fairweather doesn't get us too deep into his head. Some plot threads are left dangling, like Bauer's indictment of Eichmann's deputy Hermann Krumey, which is long forgotten and then resolved in one stray sentence towards the end. Minor flaws aside, this is a white-knuckle read, not just for its descriptions of the Holocaust, but also for its searing look at how the Nazis abused the legal system to evade accountability even for decades after the war ended.

[Susan Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tough read, not because it is not well written or interesting. It is tough because it shows how easily humans can descend to monsters and then just slough off their complicity in the Holocaust. Thankfully there were people like Fritz Bauer. He and his parents escaped Germany just in time to avoid being sent to the death camps. While they knew first hand the atrocities that had been committed even in the earlier days, the wholesale extermination of Jews in an orderly and well oiled machine surprised them. While the book does cover Bauer’s homosexuality, they do not get bogged down with it. He did have a bullseye on him had he been forced to stay not just as a Jew.

He returned after the war determined to make the German people acknowledge their complicity, be it passive or active, in the Holocaust. Even as a District Attorney he was thwarted constantly but Nazis who had blended nicely into the framework of West Germany. Some held positions of great power and were able to hide in plain sight. He was relentless and after numerous attempts, he was able to put Auschwitz’s and the people who ran in the spotlight and forced Germany to see and admit to themselves what they had done. For a short while the world did accept blame for what has been an easy scapegoat throughout history. Sadly, with the rise of antisemitism, I fear we will descend again into something very ugly. This book should stand as a warning.

Five purrs and two paws up.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book chronicles Fritz Bauer’s crusade to hold German society accountable for enabling Nazi war crimes. It addresses the West German government’s apparent compulsion to dismiss these criminal atrocities as the conspiracy of a few, rather than confronting the uncomfortable possibility of widespread complicity at all levels of German society.

Beautifully written, easy to read and thought provoking, this book ends with a powerful reminder: “the strength of democracy and the guarantee that Nazism will never return…lies in our commitment to seek connection with those we struggle to understand.” A timely reminder indeed for our own troubled times.

The author succeeds in painting a vivid picture of the geopolitical landscape of a post-WW2 Germany caught in the middle of a burgeoning Cold War and how these wider factors affected Bauer’s pursuit of accountability. One particularly incredulous example was when a German judge had to recuse himself from trial due to having Jewish links only to be replaced by another who turned out to be a notorious wartime Nazi abetter.

Bauer ultimately failed in his attempts at using the law to compel German society into confronting its complicity in the Nazi atrocities, but his efforts helped spark later public discourse, especially among the young German university students. Sadly, he did not live to witness the legacy of his efforts.

The only reason this book hasn’t earned a 5-star rating is that the flow of the narrative covering the early Bauer years felt a bit stilted compared to the rest of the book.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Prosecutor by Jack Fairweather is a compelling and well researched historical account dealing with the battle for justice in post war Germany. The book follows the life of Fritz Bauer, a Jewish lawyer who survived the Nazi regime only to return and prosecute war criminals.

Fritz Bauer pursued justice while Germany was eager to bury its past. While the Nuremberg Trials brought a handful of top Nazi leaders to justice, hundreds of thousands of war criminals walked free, protected by Cold War politics and a German government still riddled with former Nazis. Fritz Bauer is an unlikely champion for the cause, a gay man in a country where homosexuality is not legalised. He investigated Adolf Eichmann one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, which led him deep into a corrupt secret world where former SS officers and intelligence operatives still branded power.

This is a compelling read where Fairweather uses unpublished letter, declassified records as well as interviews to tell his story. Fritz Bauer despite facing an almost impossible task fought for justice putting himself at risk.

A fascinating compelling read of a time that should never be forgotten.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Penguin Random House for supplying a copy of this book in exchange review.

[Kolt A · Rating 4 out of 5]

To fully understand the horrors of the Holocaust, it’s important to place a distinction between the leadership responsible for implementing the racial laws that led to the devastation and the murders and those that claimed to just be “following orders.”

This books looks at those perpetrators of Auschwitz responsible for the crematorium, the gas chambers, the selection process and those connected to the leadership and their subsequent trials for their participation in the atrocities there and the struggle to get West Germans to accept their part in allowing those horrors to persist without questioning.

Fritz Baer, an early victim of the concentration camps, who escaped to Copenhagen and then to Sweden with his family, set out to bring former Nazis to justice that not only had escaped it, but were allowed to be employed in West German government, police organizations such as the BND and in CIA affiliated groups all in the name of fighting communist aggression.

His fight brought down Adolf Eichmann, the chief organizer of genocide, but saw others get away or receive light sentences in trials later on because most west Germans just wanted to forget the Holocaust and move on.

If you’re interested in a book that brings survivor testimonies to light and exposes the gruesome horror they witnessed, while following the trials of those involved, I highly recommend this.

[Keila (speedreadstagram) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to @prhaudio and @crownpublishing for this audiobook. All thoughts are my own.

I found The Prosecutor to be a deeply compelling and eye-opening book. I was struck by how it brings to light Fritz Bauer’s extraordinary courage as a Jewish judge who confronted the shadowy postwar world of West Germany. I was particularly moved by his unyielding pursuit of justice, especially in the face of resistance from his own government and the dangerous network of spies. I appreciated how the book shed light on the Allies’ troubling willingness to overlook crimes during the Cold War and the challenges of ensuring the Holocaust's legacy wasn’t forgotten. I couldn’t help but reflect on the importance of the courtroom battles Bauer fought to hold perpetrators accountable, and I admired Fairweather’s ability to vividly capture the high-stakes reality of Bauer’s mission.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in history, justice, or stories of extraordinary personal bravery. I believe it provides an essential reminder of the cost and importance of confronting the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.