Film Screening and Discussion on the First Auschwitz Trial
Between Historical Reckoning and Legal Responsibility

The Investigation is based on the 1965 play of the same name by Peter Weiss and explores the first Auschwitz trial, which began in Frankfurt am Main in 1963 and concluded in August 1965. The proceedings had a lasting impact on how Germany confronted its Nazi past. Initiated by Hesse’s Attorney General Fritz Bauer, the trial broke the widespread public silence surrounding Nazi crimes and aimed to hold the perpetrators to legal account. Both the film and the play focus on how the extermination in the Auschwitz concentration camp was organised and what responsibility the defendants bore.

At the Delphi Cinema screening on 13 November, Dr Andrea Rudorff, historian at the Fritz Bauer Institute, provided historical context for the film excerpts. The screening was followed by a discussion led by Annemarie Hühne-Ramm, Executive Director of the Hans and Berthold Finkelstein Foundation, with legal historian Prof Dr Georg Steinberg and Judge Jonathan Schramm. Together, they reflected on how Nazi crimes have been dealt with through the courts and explored what lessons can be drawn from this legal reckoning for the present day.

The Complexity of Auschwitz: Challenging Simplified Narratives

In her historical review, Dr Rudorff warned against oversimplified representations of Auschwitz’s history. Condensed portrayals, she explained, risk giving the false impression that everything has already been seen or said. In reality, Auschwitz’s history is far more complex and layered than what is collectively remembered. Dr Rudorff encouraged a deeper engagement with the details and specific circumstances - such as the audio recordings of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, which are available online, or the original trial documents, which offer further insight into the history of the camp.

Legal Reckoning and Its Shortcomings

In the panel discussion following the film excerpts, Annemarie Hühne-Ramm, legal historian Professor Dr Georg Steinberg, and Judge Jonathan Schramm shed light on why the legal reckoning with Nazi crimes ultimately failed. The courts followed a legal interpretation that had become standard at the time: that specific, individual acts had to be proven against each defendant. In many cases, this was impossible due to a lack of evidence. As a result, the approximately 20 defendants received comparatively light sentences, and three were acquitted altogether. Legally speaking, the Auschwitz trial marked neither a watershed moment nor a doctrinal shift. Fritz Bauer’s view - that all those who had worked at Auschwitz were complicit and should be held criminally liable - did not prevail in the courts.

Legal Education Today: Technique Without Reflection?

During the Auschwitz trial, a common legal interpretation had emerged that, for example, members of Einsatzgruppen or concentration camp personnel acted merely as recipients of orders from superiors. According to this logic, even high-ranking SS officers were punished as mere accessories to murder. This did not correspond to the legal view of Fritz Bauer, who repeatedly emphasized that everyone who had worked in camps such as Auschwitz was involved in the murders committed there and must be punished for them. It was often assumed that the provisions of the German Criminal Code required proof of a specific criminal act, but by now it has been clearly shown that this was not necessarily the case. As early as the 1950s, there were rulings—also based on the German Criminal Code—that interpreted what happened in extermination camps as a collective event and regarded any activity there as participation in murder. Since the verdicts against John Demjanjuk and Oskar Gröning in the 2010s, this legal interpretation has once again prevailed, without any change in the legal situation itself. Judge Jonathan Schramm emphasized how important it is for legal education to engage with this history of legal interpretation and reported that it receives far too little attention.

That is why the project Injustice by Law? A Reader on National Socialism and Legal Education (“Unrecht mit Recht? Ein Reader zu Nationalsozialismus und juristischer Ausbildung”) was launched. Funded by the Alfred Landecker Foundation and developed by the Working Group on Contemporary History and Legal Education within the Forum Justizgeschichte e.V., the reader helps law students understand how laws have historically been instrumentalised for political ideologies. As Schramm explained, the aim is to highlight the ambiguity of legal reasoning and how it functions. Many people initially view law as something inherently good. Yet historically, terms like “law” and “lawyer” have not always aligned with the protection of human rights, because legal concepts first pass through abstraction. Using the example of the Wannsee Conference, Schramm showed how abstract legal language can be used for hours while completely erasing the human realities behind it.

Schramm concluded with a warning: legal education today, he argued, is heavily focused on the application of law, but not on questioning it. “Yes, we have legal provisions,” he said, “but are they really the best way to regulate something? How else - how better - could it be done?” This, he stressed, must play a more central role in legal studies.

In her closing remarks, Dr Rudorff called for the courage to step out of line and say “no” - even today. Very few perpetrators at the time were actually punished for refusing to carry out orders. Those who declined to work in the camps could be reassigned to the front, and in some cases, records show that individuals were transferred from Auschwitz back into civilian roles.