Akte Grüninger
| Akte Grüninger | |
|---|---|
| Screenplay by |
Bernhard Lehner Mike Schaerer |
| Story by |
Anne Walser Golli Marboe |
| Directed by | Alain Gsponer |
| Theme music composer |
Richard Dorfmeister Michael Pogo Kreiner |
| Country of origin | Switzerland Austria |
| Original language(s) | Swiss German, German |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Bernd Lange |
| Cinematography | Matthias Fleischer |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Distributor | The Walt Disney Company (Switzerland) GmbH |
| Release | |
| Original release |
|
Akte Grüninger is a Swiss-Austrian feature film that was produced in 2013 for the Swiss television SRF. The television film focuses on the events in late summer 1938, when Paul Grüninger saved the lives of up to 3,600 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria by pre-dating their visas, enabling them to migrate 'illegally' to Switzerland.
In August 1938, Switzerland closed its borders to Jewish refugees that tried to evade the Nazi regime. Every migration of Jewish people by crossing the green border to Switzerland was declared by the Swiss government to be illegal, and refugees had to be sent back to Germany and Austria respectively. Furthermore, hundreds of people without a valid visa, tried to cross the green border to be secure in Switzerland from the Holocaust, most of them by crossing the border to the Canton of St. Gallen. Those "illegal migration" and the background of those border crossings, its support by officials and citizens in Switzerland, got in the focus of the Swiss immigration police. Its senior official, Heinrich Rothmund (Robert Hunger-Bühler), ordered the police inspector Robert Frei (Max Simonischek), a ruthless and authoritarian faithful official, in the canton of St. Gallen to investigate. The Jewish refugees appear to be supported by parts of the local population, with approval of the police commandant of the Canton St. Gallen, Paul Grüninger (Stefan Kurt). Frei's investigation confirm the suspicion that police captain Grüninger allowed Jewish refugees to enter without a valid visa, he also falsifies documents and personally helps refugees to illegally cross the border into Switzerland. Grüninger indeed confesses, but he does not handle, so his opinion, against the law and thus against the state security of Switzerland. His motives are also based on pure humanity. Frei is overawed by Grüningers integrity, intransigence and his personal sight, and he gets in doubt of the legality of the investigations.
In alphabetical order
The events in August 1938 and thereafter and the characters base on facts respectively on historical personalities, the role of inspector Frei is fictitious.Paul Grüninger was dismissed by the government without notice in March 1939. Two years later, Grüninger was sentenced by the district court of St. Gallen because of official misconduct and forgery to a fine – he was degraded, dismissed from the police service, sentenced to a fine and received no pension. In 1995 the district court of St. Gallen revoked the judgment against Paul Grüninger, and in 1998 the government of the Canton of St.Gallen paid compensation to his descendants. Ostracized and accused and slandered as a womanizer and corrupt fraudsters, even as a Nazi by some people in the 2000s, the former chief of police for the rest of his life was no longer fixed point: Paul Grüninger died in 1972, nearly forgotten in Switzerland, without rehabilitation by the Swiss authorities – in 1971, the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial foundation in Israel honoured Grüninger as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.
...
Wikipedia