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. 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 migrations" and the background of those border crossings, its support by officials and citizens in Switzerland, got in the focus of the Swiss immigration police.
The Swiss immigration police senior official, Heinrich Rothmund (Robert Hunger-Bühler), ordered the police inspector Robert Frei (Max Simonischek), a ruthless and authoritarian faithful official, to investigate in the canton of St. Gallen. 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. Grüningers 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 Grüninger's integrity, intransigence and his personal sight, and Frei gets in doubt of the legality of the investigations.
