Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand

Benjamin Carter Hett's 2008 excellent biography of Nazi political victim and eminent young German Lawyer Hans Litten (1903 - 1938) is obscurely named CROSSING HITLER: THE MAN WHO PUT THE NAZIS ON THE WITNESS STAND. Other than its uninformative title, the only other major defect in this well documented historical study is the book's lack of a single map of Germany. The location of key cities in Hans Litten's life, e. g. Halle, Koenigsberg, Berlin should be presented there in one or more maps, as well as the various concentration camps where the young man was held for five years, ending with Dachau, where he died, ostensibly a suicide. *** Litten's fame rises steadily in Germany and Europe. But he does not yet have the popular appeal of the young Dutch Nazi victim Anne Frank. Therefore, specialists in German legal history are the most likely readers of CROSSING HITLER. Nonetheless, the man was talented, brave and multi-faceted. Some contemporaries compared him with Francis of Assisi, others with another lawyer, Saint Thomas More. *** Author Hett lays out three main stereotypes that have emerged of the man as martyr for one or other cause: Hans Litten, (1) religious, (2) political, (3) lawyers' lawyer. To his Lutheran mother Litten died for Jesus, yet Hans himself emphasized his father-derived Judaism, while venerating the Blessed Virgin Mary. Politically, he described himself as far to the left of the Communists he defended, while revealing a strong authoritarian streak. As a lawyer, he was accused in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic of badgering witnesses, yet became a hero to law associations of both East and West Germany. He also had a photographic memory and was widely and deeply read in literature and history, in spite of his busy legal career. *** CROSSING HITLER showcases 28 year old Hans Litten's 1931 examination of criminal trial witness Adolph Hitler about Nazi dedication to violence. At the time Hitler was wooing the German middle class by asserting his complete dedication to purely legal opposition to the Weimar democracy. The book gives a good feeling for the interaction in the years just before Hitler's supreme power between political street gangs, police, courts, lawyers and politicians. The book is well researched, clearly written and has a well laid-out and evaluated bibliography. -OOO-