The television film focuses on 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.

Migration of Jewish people across the green border to Switzerland was declared by the Swiss government to be illegal, and refugees were sent back to Germany and Austria.

The Jewish refugees appeared to be supported by parts of the local population, with approval of the police commandant of the Canton St. Gallen, Paul Grüninger (Stefan Kurt).

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, though in 1971, the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial foundation in Israel had honoured Grüninger as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

[3] Akte Grüninger was produced by the Swiss television broadcaster SRF, and supported by the arte network and by the Fernsehfonds Austria foundation.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung claims "the film is daring in its production of Swiss history, with the neuralgic issues that it raises in quite delicate and relevant points - more than most recent movies produced in Switzerland".