"Litten represented four victims of a brutal assault perpetrated by members of Hitler's Sturmabteilung, or SA, on a dance hall frequented by leftist workers; by the time the assault ended, three people were dead. At trial, the defense sought to portray the SA as a disciplined political organization, under orders from Hitler to use force only as self-defense. In his three-hour cross-examination of the head of the Nazi party, Litten managed what precious few dared to attempt."
"Hitler had expected the young lawyer to be intimidated; instead, Litten aggressively and skillfully dissected him under oath, reducing the supposedly gifted orator to a stammering rage. In trapping Hitler in contradictions and exposing him as an inveterate liar, Litten also made clear the Nazis' goal of destroying the Weimar Republic. Hitler left the witness stand rattled and humiliated, henceforth forbidding Litten's name to be uttered in his presence."
"Hitler's revenge came two years later, barely a month after he had been installed in power. In the wake of the Reichstag fire an arson attack on the parliament building and relying on a hastily drafted emergency decree for the protection of people and state, Hitler ordered the arrest and protective custody of numerous perceived political enemies, including Litten. Over the next five years, as he was shuttled from concentration camp to concentration camp, Litten was repeatedly beaten and tortured."
In 1931 Hans Litten summoned Adolf Hitler to testify after SA members brutally assaulted a dance hall, leaving three dead. Litten represented the victims and used a three-hour cross-examination to expose Hitler's contradictions, lies, and the Nazi objective of destroying the Weimar Republic, reducing Hitler to a rattled, humiliated witness. After Hitler gained power, the Reichstag fire and an emergency decree enabled widespread arrests; Litten was taken into protective custody, shuttled through concentration camps, repeatedly beaten and tortured, and in 1938, with no prospect of release, he took his own life. The United States in 2025 is not Germany in 1933, but Litten's experience has a disturbingly familiar ring.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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