All persons
Hans Litten
1903–1938
- Nationality
- German Reich
- Occupation
- jurist
Incarceration history
Facilities
- Buchenwald concentration campDates unknown
Biography
Hans Achim Litten (19 June 1903 â 5 February 1938) was a German lawyer who represented opponents of the Nazis at important political trials between 1929 and 1932, defending the rights of workers during the Weimar Republic. During one trial in 1931, Litten subpoenaed Adolf Hitler to appear as a witness, and cross-examined him for three hours. Hitler was so rattled by the experience that, years later, he would not allow Litten's name to be mentioned in his presence. In retaliation, Litten was arrested on the night of the Reichstag fire along with other progressive lawyers and leftists. Litten spent the rest of his life in one German concentration camp or another, enduring torture and many interrogations. After five years and a move to Dachau, where his treatment worsened and he was cut off from all outside communication, he committed suicide. A number of memorials to him exist in Germany, but Litten was largely ignored for decades because his politics did not fit comfortably in either the west or the communist postwar propaganda. Not until 2011 was Litten finally portrayed in the mass media, when the BBC broadcast The Man Who Crossed Hitler, a television film set in Berlin in summer 1931.
Related people
Same nationality and era where possible; falls back to shared nationality or era.
Sally Mayer1889–1944German Reich- Dagobert Lubinski1893–1943German Reich
- Fritz Zeckendorf1886–1943German Reich
Fritz Zeckendorf (1886â1943) was a Hungarian screenwriter and novelist, active in German cinema during the Weimar era.
Arnold Zadikow1884–1943German ReichArnold Zadikow (27 March 1884, in Kolberg, Pomerania â 8 March 1943, at the Theresienstadt ghetto) was a modernist German-Jewish sculptor and medalist who worked in Germany and France.
Magda Spiegel1887–1944German ReichMagda Spiegel (1887â1944) was a German contralto who was a member of the Frankfurt Opera ensemble and was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
