selenak

Well, there's always the question "underrated by whom?", because in history, as with every fandom, the monent you name someone as neglected or only appreciated by a few, dozens of voices show up to declare "no, I totally appreciate X too!" or "are you kidding, X is so super popular!"

Also, I have more than one favourite. Still, for now, I'll name Fritz Bauer, because he's still not known by a lot of people in the English-speaking world, i.e. underrated. As a German-Jewish gay social democrat judge going after Nazis in post-war Germany, instrumental in the Mossad finding Eichmann, prime mover of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, working where the majority of his colleagues in the justice system still were, in fact, Nazis, as a former exile whose surviving family remained abroad, Bauer had to put up with such a lot of hate mail (the old fashioned type, in the pre cyber age, was just as disturbing) and direct verbal abuse even after the Third Reich was over - and yet, he kept believing in the law, having witnessed its most terrible abuses. He believed in humanity, having witnessed the worst it was capable of. He believed we can be better, not by ignoring the past but by taking responsibility for it. He put himself on the line not like some action hero with a gun, but by facing the hate and indifference around him every day while doggedly continuing to work for justice.

He was also capable of befriending Thomas Harlan, son of Veit Harlan, aka the director of some of the most vicious Nazi propaganda movies (including Jew Suess). (An article about their relationship in German apropos the publication of their correspondance is here. ) In more recent years, Bauer was honored through institutions, museums, speeches, publications etc. in Germany, - only last year, on the 50th anniversary of his death, our head of state, President Steinmeier, held a speech about him in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt -, and of course the movie The People vs Fritz Bauer alerted a new generation to his story, but still, in the non-German speaking world, this courageous and very human man is mostly forgotten, and thus most definitely underrated. In a world which is rapidly turning backwards, we would do well to remember him and, like him, act, even if it looks hopeless.

The Other Days