Friends of the
Fritz Bauer Institute Association

The Association

The Friends of the Fritz Bauer Institute Association was founded in 1993. Its members’ ideas and financial support played a decisive part in establishing the foundation Fritz Bauer Institute, Study and Documentary Center on the History and Impact of the Holocaust. The Friends’ Association raises funds, campaigns for new members and seeks to heighten public awareness of the Institute’s projects and discussion forums. It supports the Institute’s academic, educational and documentary work in accordance with its chief goal: to keep the Institute growing and help it maintain its independence. People from all walks of life join the Association to help further the Institute’s work and make it more widely known. Through its civic engagement for the Institute, the Association expresses its belief in the need for continuing public confrontation with National Socialist crimes.

The Fritz Bauer Institute

The Fritz Bauer Institute was founded on Janaury 15, 1995 by the City of Frankfurt am Main, the State of Hessen, and the Friends of the Fritz Bauer Institute Association.
The Fritz Bauer Institute has its place in society as a center for academic, educational and artistic confrontation with National Socialist politics of destruction and their impact up to the present day.
The Fritz Bauer Institute carries out research projects on the history, reception and impact of the Holocaust, develops traveling exhibitions, organizes public events, publishes research findings and academic writings from various fields as well as artistic and literary works and historical documents. It develops educational materials and encourages interdisciplinary discourse and critique.
The educational projects at the Fritz Bauer Institute take into special consideration the connection between interculturality and historical consciousness, in international comparison as well as within German immigrant society.
Institute employees help train and counsel teachers, institutions, cities and communities.
The Fritz Bauer Institute is building up an interdisciplinary library and documentary center. This includes the development of databanks offering access to various audiovisual documents on the history and impact of the Holocaust.

Fritz Bauer

Fritz Bauer was born July 16, 1903 to a Jewish-German family in Stuttgart.

He became a judge in Stuttgart in 1930, was fired in 1933 and sent to a concentration camp for several months. He emigrated to Denmark in 1936 and later fled to Sweden. Bauer returned to Germany in 1949. He fought for reforms in civil law and prison sentences, for resocialization and for society’s responsiblity in the way justice is implemented. In 1960 Fritz Bauer played a crucial role in the capture of Adolf Eichmann, subsequently leading to the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem.

In 1956 Fritz Bauer became Hessian State Prosecutor General, and as such he initiated the Auschwitz Trial which took place from 1963 to 1965 in Frankfurt am Main. This trial marked the beginning of widespread public confrontation with the Holocaust in Germany.

Fritz Bauer considered the Auschwitz Trial a form of societal self-enlightenment, within the realm of justice, on „the dangerous elements in our history". While planning a large-scale „euthanasia" trial, Fritz Bauer’s heart gave out on July 1, 1968. The trial never took place.

The Friends of the Fritz Bauer Institute Associationis committed to Fritz Bauer’s intellectual and political legacy.

Executive board of the Association

• Brigitte Tilman, Präsidentin des Oberlandesgerichtes a. D. (President)

• Dr. Ursula Schoen (Vice-President)

• Gundi Mohr

• Dr. Karen Körber

• Thomas Eisenbach

• Dr. Rachel Heuberger

• Dieter Hoffmann

• Herbert Mai

• Frank Pötter

Information

We would be happy to send you further information on the Fritz Bauer Institute and the Association.
Members of the Friends of the Fritz Bauer Institute Association receive the Newsletter on the History and Impact of the Holocaust (in German) twice a year. 
Members can also subscribe to the Institute’s Yearbook on the History and the Impact of the Holocaust (in German) at a reduced members-only-price (the regular bookstore price is € 29,90). Orders may be sent directly to the Institute.

Support

You too can help us to heighten public awareness about the holocaust by becoming a member or making a donation. More than 1,300 members in Germany and abroad support the Institute – active citizens, renowned personalities and associations, institutions, businesses as well as numerous counties, cities and townships. 
Here is an excerpt from our membership list.

Why not join us? 
Miminum membership dues € 60,–/year · Special rate € 30,–/year.

Bank account
Frankfurter Sparkasse
BLZ: 500 502 01 · Konto: 319 467