Josef Rudolf Mengele, also known as the Angel of Death, was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers, and was one of the doctors who administered the gas. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred 280 kilometres (170 mi) from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.
Maximilian Schell was an Austrian-born Swiss actor, who also wrote, directed and produced some of his own films. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1961 American film Judgment at Nuremberg, his second acting role in Hollywood. Born in Austria, his parents were involved in the arts and he grew up surrounded by performance and literature. While he was still a child, his family fled to Switzerland in 1938 when Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, and they settled in Zurich. After World War II ended, Schell took up acting and directing full-time. He appeared in numerous German films, often anti-war, before moving to Hollywood.
The Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, known in German as der Auschwitz-Prozess, or der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess, was a series of trials running from 20 December 1963 to 19 August 1965, charging 22 defendants under German criminal law for their roles in the Holocaust as mid- to lower-level officials in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death and concentration camp complex. Hans Hofmeyer led as Chief Judge the "criminal case against Mulka and others".
Fritz Bauer was a German Jewish judge and prosecutor. He was instrumental in the post-war capture of former Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann and played an essential role in beginning the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials.
After the Truth is a 1999 German film depicting the fictional trial of Dr. Josef Mengele, known as the "death angel of Auschwitz". The film, starring Götz George as Mengele and Kai Wiesinger as his lawyer, is based on the original English-language screenplay by American writers Christopher and Kathleen Riley. The German title translates to "Nothing but the truth".
Hans Wilhelm Münch, also known as The Good Man of Auschwitz, was a German Nazi Party member who worked as an SS doctor during World War II at the Auschwitz concentration camp from 1943 to 1945 in German occupied Poland. He was acquitted of war crimes at a 1947 trial in Kraków.
Mephisto is a 1981 political drama film co-written and directed by István Szabó, and based on the novel of the same title by Klaus Mann. It stars Klaus Maria Brandauer as a German stage actor who finds unexpected success and mixed blessings in the popularity of his performance in a Faustian play as the Nazis take power in pre-WWII Germany. As his associates and friends flee or are ground under by the Nazi regime, the popularity of his character ends up superseding his own existence, until he finds that his best performance is keeping up appearances for his Nazi patrons.
Heinz Jakob "Coco" Schumann was a German jazz musician and Holocaust survivor. He became a member of the Ghetto Swingers while transported to Theresienstadt at the age of nineteen. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Schumann performed as a jazz guitarist, with Marlene Dietrich, Ella Fitzgerald, and Helmut Zacharias.
The German Doctor is a 2013 Argentine historical drama film directed, produced, and written by Lucía Puenzo, based on her own novel Wakolda (2011). The film stars Àlex Brendemühl as Nazi SS officer and physician Josef Mengele, infamous for performing human experiments in the Auschwitz concentration camp. It also stars Florencia Bado, Natalia Oreiro, Diego Peretti, Elena Roger, and Guillermo Pfening.
Jack is a 2014 German drama film directed by Edward Berger. The film had its premiere in the competition section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. It was one of eight films shortlisted by Germany to be their submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards, but it lost out to Labyrinth of Lies.
The Fencer is a 2015 biographical drama film about the life of Endel Nelis, an accomplished Estonian fencer and coach. It was directed by Klaus Härö and written by Anna Heinämaa. Filming began in Estonia in late February 2014.
13 Minutes is a 2015 German drama film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel that tells the true story of Georg Elser's failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in November 1939. The title of the film is drawn from the fact that Elser's bomb detonated in a venue that Hitler had left just 13 minutes before.
Son of Saul is a 2015 Hungarian historical drama film directed by László Nemes, in his feature directorial debut, and co-written by Nemes and Clara Royer. It is set in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, and follows a day-and-a-half in the life of Saul Ausländer, a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando.
We Are Young. We Are Strong is a 2014 German drama film directed by Burhan Qurbani, a fictionalized account of the 1992 xenophobic Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots. It was one of eight films shortlisted by Germany to be their submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards, but it lost out to Labyrinth of Lies.
The People vs. Fritz Bauer is a 2015 German drama film directed by Lars Kraume. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.
In the Fade is a 2017 German drama film written and directed by Fatih Akin. It stars Diane Kruger as a German woman whose husband and son are killed in a terrorist attack perpetrated by neo-Nazis. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where Kruger won the Best Actress award. It was selected as the German entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, making the December shortlist, but it was ultimately not nominated. It did, however, win the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Sobibor is a 2018 Russian war drama film co-written, directed by and starring Konstantin Khabensky. The picture also stars Christopher Lambert and was released on 3 May 2018 in Russia. It was selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. It received generally positive reviews from critics.
Thomas Gnielka was a West German journalist.
Ronen Steinke is a German political journalist and author whose essays and books on issues of law and society have been discussed in The Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, De Volkskrant, Le Figaro, The Asahi Shimbun and The New York Review of Books. In 2013, Steinke published the biography of the German-Jewish prosecutor Fritz Bauer, who secretly worked with the Mossad and brought Nazi war criminals to justice in the 1960s. The book, which received a preface by the President of the German Supreme Court, inspired the award-winning 2015 film The People vs. Fritz Bauer.
