He played an instrumental role in the post-war capture of former Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann and the beginning of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. Bauer was born in Stuttgart , to a Jewish family. His parents were Ella Hirsch and Ludwig Bauer. Bauer found himself feeling at home in Stuttgart, a city with a left-wing working class majority that had a reputation as a "progressive" city where Weimar culture flourished.
Their entire outlook was conservative and authoritarian in spirit. The Kaiser had gone, but the generals, public officials and judges remained". Bauer believed that this favoritism towards the Nazis encouraged their violence. The judges weren't at all fond of the republic and they used the guise of judicial independence to sabotage the new state". Bauer served as the chairman of the Stuttgart chapter of the Reichsbanner and from onward found himself engaged in a feud with Dietrich von Jagow , the SA leader for Southwestern Germany.
Workers don't like intellectuals". You could sense his resolve and unwavering belief in the absolute righteousness of his cause". We were urging people to defend the Weimar Constitution , but also combat the extremism of the Weimar era".
Hail Freedom! Hail Victory! On 23 March , while Bauer was at work in his office, a group of policemen arrived to arrest him without charges. Bauer was tormented by the SA guards at Heuberg who found various ways to humiliate him and often beat him.
In November , Bauer was transferred from Heuberg to a newly founded prison, Oberer Kuhberg concentration camp , located in former Army barracks in Ulm, where the guards were professional policemen instead of the SA, and conditions were better.
