0:00:02 > 0:00:05On May 8th 1931, a sensational trial took place
0:00:05 > 0:00:08at the Berlin Central Criminal Court.
0:00:08 > 0:00:13The star witness was the leader of Germany's fastest-growing political movement.
0:00:14 > 0:00:16Two years before he came to power,
0:00:16 > 0:00:20Hitler was summoned to Berlin by a young Jewish lawyer called Hans Litten
0:00:20 > 0:00:24who forced him to account for the murderous violence of his followers in the city.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28What Germany requires is a revolution,
0:00:28 > 0:00:32which means a mental revolution, a spiritual rebirth.
0:00:32 > 0:00:34Who are you addressing?
0:00:36 > 0:00:38The court.
0:00:38 > 0:00:40He's taken on the task of cross-examining
0:00:40 > 0:00:45this extremely dangerous man, at this point, probably the most dangerous man in the world.
0:00:45 > 0:00:49I believe the court can hear you quite comfortably.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54Yes, it can. It is not necessary to shout.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56Or to harangue.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03An extreme anti-Semite. A brilliant young Jew.
0:01:03 > 0:01:05It was Hitler's worst nightmare.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09This guy's my uncle, or was my uncle.
0:01:09 > 0:01:11It's so close
0:01:11 > 0:01:16and yet it's so miles away.
0:01:17 > 0:01:21At stake in that Berlin courtroom was Hitler's political future.
0:01:21 > 0:01:27His brutal methods, his totalitarian ambitions were all exposed by the young lawyer.
0:01:30 > 0:01:36The acquisition of total power can make a dictator's rise to power seem irresistible.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40It never is. And it wasn't for Hitler.
0:01:40 > 0:01:45This is the story of one brave man's attempt to stop him.
0:01:55 > 0:01:58- Eden Palace. Depositions.- Mm-hm.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01- The shootings?- I know.
0:02:01 > 0:02:06- You always say, "Prepare the next case as soon as we've won the last one".- I say that?- You do.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08I must learn to relax.
0:02:08 > 0:02:13The man who challenged Hitler in the courts was just 27 years old.
0:02:13 > 0:02:18His name was Hans Litten. He was a poor man's lawyer and he was a rebel.
0:02:21 > 0:02:26Hans was born into a family whose Jewish father had converted to Christianity.
0:02:26 > 0:02:28Hans converted back again.
0:02:29 > 0:02:32He adored his mother, Irmgard,
0:02:32 > 0:02:35and took from her a life-long love of art and poetry.
0:02:35 > 0:02:42But he had no time for the bourgeois world he was born into and he abandoned that, as well.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47In Berlin, he lived with like-minded friends,
0:02:47 > 0:02:49including his oldest friend Max Furst,
0:02:49 > 0:02:53a socialist, a Jew, and a carpenter.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56Whatever Hans achieved in life, whatever dangers he faced,
0:02:56 > 0:03:00Max Furst was with him, giving him support.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04They were opposite characters somehow.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06Max was practical and sociable
0:03:06 > 0:03:09and Hans was intellectual,
0:03:09 > 0:03:12going through work very, very deep.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18The third member of the family was 19-year-old Margot Meisel
0:03:18 > 0:03:21whose uncle, the composer Edmund Meisel,
0:03:21 > 0:03:26had recently scored Berlin, Symphony of a City.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29CLASSICAL MUSIC
0:03:37 > 0:03:40Both men loved Margot.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44Max captured her heart and Hans got the consolation prize.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47Margot became his legal assistant.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51She was very spontaneous and sharp.
0:03:51 > 0:03:57She was very sharp. A real Berliner tongue to her like knives.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01And she would go to the end for everything she believed in.
0:04:03 > 0:04:04Ah.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08It's so incredible what these three people got through
0:04:08 > 0:04:11by living together in community,
0:04:11 > 0:04:14sharing the flat, sharing the life,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17sharing their political struggle.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21I had this crazy idea.
0:04:24 > 0:04:26"Did you, Hans?" Yes, I did, actually.
0:04:26 > 0:04:32Hans was kind of the third people in this matrimonial....situation.
0:04:32 > 0:04:37He was always present, sharing even the little family life.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43All our life, Hans was in our life
0:04:43 > 0:04:48and I remember him as being my second father.
0:04:50 > 0:04:54And what I remember when I was a little child,
0:04:54 > 0:04:58I used to call him, "the big man with the glasses"
0:05:00 > 0:05:03He was always with us somehow.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07He was walking side by side with my parents all their lives.
0:05:07 > 0:05:11And my parents would say, if they explained something to us about politics,
0:05:11 > 0:05:14"And Hans Litten would say this..."
0:05:17 > 0:05:24The days in Berlin are like some fantastic memory
0:05:24 > 0:05:26and memories coming back
0:05:26 > 0:05:29and the smell and everything... I know this place!
0:05:30 > 0:05:34The Berlin of Hans Litten and Max and Margot Furst
0:05:34 > 0:05:37was one of the great world cities.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40The only goose-steppers were the chorus girls.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45The only arms raised in salute were those designed to stop traffic.
0:05:47 > 0:05:50It was also home to a vast industrial workforce
0:05:50 > 0:05:53whose votes were split between the Social Democrats
0:05:53 > 0:05:56and, increasingly, the Communist Party.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59Throughout Germany, throughout Europe,
0:05:59 > 0:06:03the city enjoyed its reputation as Red Berlin.
0:06:14 > 0:06:19THEY SING IN GERMAN
0:06:30 > 0:06:33HE SINGS ALONG
0:06:52 > 0:06:55This was Weimar Berlin.
0:06:55 > 0:06:58Into this city, into these lives,
0:06:58 > 0:07:03the anti-Semites of the Nazi Party came in late 1926.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08The Nazis were a small Bavarian movement,
0:07:08 > 0:07:11provincial and insignificant.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15To make them national and a genuine force in German politics,
0:07:15 > 0:07:17Adolf Hitler needed to conquer Berlin.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23On November 9th 1926,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26he sent his lieutenant Josef Goebbels to the capital.
0:07:28 > 0:07:35Goebbels was a man who looked at clouds and convinced himself they were shaped into Swastikas.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39He was a sycophant who told Hitler,
0:07:39 > 0:07:44"I love you because you are both great and simple at the same time".
0:07:44 > 0:07:50But here, too, was a man who knew that political objectives could be achieved with guns and knives.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53Goebbels' arrival in the capital
0:07:53 > 0:07:56would change the face of Berlin.
0:08:01 > 0:08:06Goebbels was an inspired choice to be the party boss in Berlin.
0:08:06 > 0:08:11This was at a time, 1926, 1927, Nazis were trying to reach out
0:08:11 > 0:08:14to a constituency they hadn't reached before.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17They were trying to reach urban industrial workers
0:08:17 > 0:08:22and Berlin, of course, was a centre of that. It was a city dominated by the left-wing political parties.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26And Goebbels knew that the Nazis' challenge was to get attention in Berlin.
0:08:27 > 0:08:32The instrument that Goebbels used to conquer Berlin was the SA,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35the brown-shirted stormtroopers.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38THEY CHANT IN GERMAN
0:08:41 > 0:08:44These men were heavily armed
0:08:44 > 0:08:47with cast-off weapons from the First World War
0:08:47 > 0:08:51and they were led by officers who had made a cult out of violence.
0:08:52 > 0:08:57Goebbels knew they needed headlines and they would get headlines with violence and provocation,
0:08:57 > 0:09:02with moving into the neighbourhoods where the communists were strongest and stirring up trouble.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05And so the Nazis would move into a neighbourhood
0:09:05 > 0:09:09and they would set up taverns for their stormtroopers.
0:09:09 > 0:09:14His men came to this neighbourhood quite late in 1930,
0:09:14 > 0:09:17organised in a tavern, and they'd choose the tavern
0:09:17 > 0:09:21because it was quite near to this Red neighbourhood.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25That's the reason. They went to all the Red neighbourhoods
0:09:25 > 0:09:28and had their taverns there.
0:09:28 > 0:09:31This was a socialist neighbourhood.
0:09:31 > 0:09:36A lot of workers, or most of them, voted Communist or Social Democrat.
0:09:36 > 0:09:41There were about 30,000 people living here in this very small area
0:09:41 > 0:09:46and the Nazis called this, this was a Red Swamp area.
0:09:46 > 0:09:49And they wanted to clear it up.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52SHOUTING / SHOOTING
0:10:04 > 0:10:07SHOUTING / SHOOTING
0:10:20 > 0:10:24Hundreds of young Communists still said,
0:10:24 > 0:10:29"the only way to deal with a Nazi is to beat him up."
0:10:29 > 0:10:33One said "Yes, sir, we talk to Nazis for four hours
0:10:33 > 0:10:36"and the consequence were, at the end, we had to beat them up.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39"That's the only way to deal with Nazis."
0:10:39 > 0:10:43Hans Litten was pitched right into the middle of this struggle.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47Are you two lost? I don't mean philosophically. You're obviously that.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52He was the lawyer that the left turned to when they were in trouble.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56He prosecuted Nazis accused of attacking anti-fascists.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00And he defended anti-fascists accused of attacking Nazis.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15This work brought Hans into direct opposition to the Berlin stormtroopers.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19And one group in particular - Storm 33.
0:11:39 > 0:11:43And sometimes they marched along this street
0:11:43 > 0:11:49and were singing, "We are the Murder Stormtroopers 33".
0:11:49 > 0:11:52They were proud of the name given to them by the left papers.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56It was the men of Storm 33
0:11:56 > 0:12:01who were destined to give the battle for Berlin a new twist of viciousness.
0:12:02 > 0:12:04On a dark winter night in 1930,
0:12:04 > 0:12:08a group of armed and drunken men from Storm 33
0:12:08 > 0:12:11walked 200 yards from their headquarters
0:12:11 > 0:12:14to a popular left-wing social club.
0:12:14 > 0:12:20There was a dance in progress being put on by a communist hiking club called Wanderfalke.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23This was happening at the Eden Dance Palace.
0:12:23 > 0:12:26And the SA heard about this
0:12:26 > 0:12:30and they rushed to the Eden Dance Palace.
0:12:32 > 0:12:37The Eden Dance Palace in the heart of Charlottenburg.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41The events here on November 22nd 1930
0:12:41 > 0:12:46would set Adolf Hitler and Hans Litten on a collision course.
0:12:47 > 0:12:51The dancing has long gone from Eden, but the building still exists.
0:12:51 > 0:12:56Today it is part of Klaus Kaspar's hardware store.
0:12:56 > 0:12:59THEY SPEAK GERMAN
0:13:28 > 0:13:32Harald Marpe has studied the Eden Dance Palace atrocity
0:13:32 > 0:13:35but this is the first time he's been here.
0:14:02 > 0:14:04A lot of these stormtroopers were armed.
0:14:04 > 0:14:09Everybody had a knife and lots of them had guns,
0:14:09 > 0:14:12pistols, Mauser Parabellum.
0:14:13 > 0:14:18There were thousands of weapons from World War One, so it was no problem.
0:14:18 > 0:14:23If you spent 20 marks, you got a gun at this time.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27GERMAN MUSIC PLAYS
0:14:37 > 0:14:40It's a strange experience to be here.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43I read a lot about it, never been there,
0:14:43 > 0:14:46but books, and went to the archives.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49Now I'm here for the first time.
0:14:49 > 0:14:54And I try to imagine how it was on November 1930, on this very day here.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58SCREAMING / SHOOTING
0:15:06 > 0:15:10I look in his face. He was one of the stormtroopers.
0:15:11 > 0:15:16This guy is called Berlisch and he lived just round the corner.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20These are other guys who took part.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23Stormtroopers.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27His name was Hans Maikowski and the Nazis named a street after him.
0:15:27 > 0:15:29Everybody in Germany knew him.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32I have lots of photos of communists
0:15:32 > 0:15:37and I always think, "If I don't know who these people are, do I see a difference?
0:15:37 > 0:15:39It's difficult to answer.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42You can't judge by the faces, I guess.
0:15:42 > 0:15:46If you know he's a Nazi, you see his brutal face.
0:15:46 > 0:15:53But if you don't know, it would be difficult to say "Is he left-wing? Right-wing? What was this man?"
0:15:53 > 0:15:56All these guys, were... Most of them were unemployed.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00Their fathers had fought in World War I.
0:16:00 > 0:16:02A lot of them had died in the war.
0:16:02 > 0:16:07I think, in other countries, things didn't go this way,
0:16:07 > 0:16:09didn't happen this way.
0:16:09 > 0:16:14In Germany, it came to absolutely collapse of civilisation.
0:16:14 > 0:16:17And these guys were the ones who did it.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22These young men.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26Storm 33's assault on the Eden Dance Palace
0:16:26 > 0:16:30came at a critical time in the career of Adolf Hitler.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33Only two months before, in the September elections,
0:16:33 > 0:16:36the Nazi Party had made an astonishing breakthrough.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39Six and a half million votes
0:16:39 > 0:16:44had catapulted the Nazis from a lunatic fringe group to a major party,
0:16:44 > 0:16:47commanding 107 seats in the Reichstag.
0:16:47 > 0:16:52Almost literally overnight, Hitler had become a major figure in German politics.
0:16:52 > 0:16:58He was trying to turn himself from being sort of the demagogue,
0:16:58 > 0:17:01the backstreet orator that he had been known for through the 1920s,
0:17:01 > 0:17:06the man who had led a coup attempt in 1923... He was trying to reinvent himself as a statesman.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10Hitler had gone on to swear, on oath,
0:17:10 > 0:17:14that he and his party had turned their backs on violence.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17This appealed to Hitler's new friends in the middle classes
0:17:17 > 0:17:20but outraged his paramilitaries in the SA.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24Here was Hans Litten's great opportunity.
0:17:24 > 0:17:26Hans had been hired as the private prosecutor
0:17:26 > 0:17:29for the victims of the Eden Palace shooting.
0:17:29 > 0:17:35Call Hitler as a star witness and you can redefine the scope of your trial.
0:17:35 > 0:17:40Hans's audacious move was to subpoena Hitler as a witness in the trial,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44believing it would be impossible for the Nazi leader to defend the accused brownshirts
0:17:44 > 0:17:49without frightening off his millions of law-abiding, middle-class supporters.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52It would be the greatest show in Berlin.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55His stormtroopers in the dock.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59His new pals, the rich financiers, in the gallery. Both thinking they own Hitler.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02You bring them together in the same room for the first time,
0:18:02 > 0:18:07gawping at each other like cretins and wondering how they belong in the same party.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10What he wanted to do was not go after the little guys,
0:18:10 > 0:18:14he wanted to go after the big guy. What he wanted to do was illustrate,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17if possible through Hitler's own testimony,
0:18:17 > 0:18:21that what these stormtroopers were doing on occasions like the attack on the Eden Dance Palace
0:18:21 > 0:18:27was a calculated political strategy coming on orders from Hitler.
0:18:27 > 0:18:32He wanted to prove that the SA attack on the Eden Palace
0:18:32 > 0:18:39was a logical part of the systematic use of violence by the National Socialist Party
0:18:39 > 0:18:43and to call Hitler was, yeah, it was something else.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48It gave the whole scene a significance
0:18:48 > 0:18:51which it wouldn't have had before.
0:18:53 > 0:18:57The big day was 8th May 1931.
0:18:58 > 0:19:04The Central Criminal Court in Berlin stood poised to welcome Adolf Hitler.
0:19:05 > 0:19:11I think everybody was concerned about the importance of this day, of this moment.
0:19:11 > 0:19:16People used to look out of their windows for hours before
0:19:16 > 0:19:18because they knew Hitler is coming.
0:19:19 > 0:19:24This was so exciting to know that he was being summoned.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27You have to imagine there were thousands of stormtroopers
0:19:27 > 0:19:31up and down Turmstrasse here and in the side streets.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35There were several hundred police officers trying to keep control of them.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39As the morning wore on, the stormtroopers were chanting, yelling, "Sieg Heil!"
0:19:39 > 0:19:42eagerly awaiting the appearance of Hitler.
0:19:42 > 0:19:46Echoing off the buildings, echoing off the court here, it would have been deafening.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49CHAOTIC SHOUTING
0:19:57 > 0:20:01One of the things Litten wanted to do with the Eden Dance Palace trial
0:20:01 > 0:20:05was to put Hitler into a dilemma
0:20:05 > 0:20:08in which anything he said was going to hurt him.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12- The witness's name?- Adolf Hitler. - I call on witness Adolf Hitler.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15The court calls witness Hitler.
0:20:15 > 0:20:20'Either Hitler would have to go on the stand and say "our party is legal"
0:20:20 > 0:20:24'which Litten knew would raise a serious threat of a rift
0:20:24 > 0:20:28'between the stormtroopers and the political organisation of the Nazi Party.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31'Or he would have to embrace what the SA was doing and say,
0:20:31 > 0:20:36"Yes, this is what our party is about" and lose the middle-class voters he was trying so hard to get.
0:20:36 > 0:20:39Herr Hitler, let me ask you this.
0:20:40 > 0:20:45- What is the purpose of this SA? - It is the party's sports section.
0:20:46 > 0:20:48It gives classes in self defence.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51Jujitsu! LAUGHTER
0:20:51 > 0:20:54I do not know the entire curriculum. It is possible jujitsu.
0:20:54 > 0:21:00And these two men, these students of jujitsu,
0:21:00 > 0:21:06- their vicious attack on the Eden Palace dance hall, was that self defence?- Your Honour...
0:21:06 > 0:21:09'Hitler was not used to this role of being a witness
0:21:09 > 0:21:13'and being within this framework of criminal procedure,
0:21:13 > 0:21:16'whereas Litten was a very highly-skilled criminal lawyer.'
0:21:16 > 0:21:19So he was he was well-prepared
0:21:19 > 0:21:23and he worked with the rules of criminal procedures
0:21:23 > 0:21:27and this is what drove Hitler crazy.
0:21:27 > 0:21:32- Lawyer's trick.- I beg your pardon? - A typical trick.
0:21:32 > 0:21:35His kind trade in cunning and deception.
0:21:35 > 0:21:42That is a complaint about me, or perhaps my entire....profession?
0:21:42 > 0:21:46'In the anti-Semitic fantasy, lawyers are Jewish.'
0:21:46 > 0:21:51I mean, lawyer is the typical Jewish profession.
0:21:51 > 0:21:57'And so, in Hans Litten, those two anti-Semitic images converge.
0:21:57 > 0:22:04'I don't think that Hitler was able to perceive a personality behind the Jewish lawyer.'
0:22:04 > 0:22:06You do not decide the destinies of a nation...
0:22:06 > 0:22:13For three hours, Hans Litten dragged Adolf Hitler from one violent Nazi action to the next.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18But his master stroke was to turn to the life and works of Josef Goebbels,
0:22:18 > 0:22:21the man running Hitler's Berlin operation.
0:22:22 > 0:22:26Goebbels had written a pamphlet in which he essentially advocated
0:22:26 > 0:22:29a violent takeover by the Nazis of the German government.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33It had been printed by the Nazi Party's official publisher and bore the party stamp.
0:22:33 > 0:22:38In the pamphlet "Nazi-Sozi" pages 18 to 19,
0:22:38 > 0:22:41he answers the specific question of what would happen
0:22:41 > 0:22:46if the Nazis had the street-fighters on their side but not the majority of the German people.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50"We will clench our teeth and prepare ourselves", he says.
0:22:50 > 0:22:54"Then we will march against the State and become revolutionaries indeed.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57"We will chase the parliament to the devil
0:22:57 > 0:23:01"and base the State on the strength of German fists."
0:23:02 > 0:23:06I ask you, Herr Hitler, is all that a metaphor, as well?
0:23:08 > 0:23:10At the Eden Dance Palace trial,
0:23:10 > 0:23:13Hans Litten showed Germany who Hitler really was.
0:23:13 > 0:23:17Afterwards it was no longer possible for an adult German
0:23:17 > 0:23:22to pretend that the Nazi Party was either a party of the law-abiding middle classes
0:23:22 > 0:23:27or that it was a party of violent stormtroopers. It was clearly both.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34Litten believed Hitler would be crippled by this revelation.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37Hitler never forgot his ordeal.
0:23:40 > 0:23:43He was wounded profoundly this day.
0:23:44 > 0:23:50Unfortunately, it was not strong enough to make him get a heart attack right now,
0:23:50 > 0:23:53here in this place. That would be great.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59It was not strong enough so that he unfortunately could go on,
0:23:59 > 0:24:03fulfil his terrible...
0:24:05 > 0:24:07..dream of big Germany.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12It soon dawned on Hans Litten and his friends
0:24:12 > 0:24:17that Hitler's respectable supporters had not been swayed by the trial.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19They were prepared to overlook his violence,
0:24:19 > 0:24:24and in the following months, Hitler's star continued to rise.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28By 1933, he was worth 11 and a half million votes
0:24:28 > 0:24:33and Conservative politicians of the Weimar Republic began to court him.
0:24:33 > 0:24:38Believing that they could hire Hitler and that office would tame him,
0:24:38 > 0:24:40he was invited to join the cabinet,
0:24:40 > 0:24:44and with the blessing of the great and good, was sworn in as Reich Chancellor
0:24:44 > 0:24:48on January 30th 1933.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55That night, the stormtroopers gathered in the heart of Berlin.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01They gathered as if to say, "This is our city now".
0:25:09 > 0:25:12Hans Litten, Max and Margot Furst,
0:25:12 > 0:25:15any German who had raised their voice against the Nazi Party
0:25:15 > 0:25:18were now trying to guess what came next.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28But you always have to imagine, nobody could really think of
0:25:28 > 0:25:32what would go on after 33. Nobody.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35The Communists didn't know this, the Social Democrats.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10It's very easy, I think, for us to see in retrospect
0:26:10 > 0:26:13that Hans Litten should have read the signs and gotten out,
0:26:13 > 0:26:18but that is, of course, retrospect. It's virtually inconceivable to anyone who was there at the time
0:26:18 > 0:26:22that things were going to develop the way they were.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27- What's that?- Open it.
0:26:32 > 0:26:34Paris.
0:26:37 > 0:26:40Well, thank you, Rudolf. But I cannot go.
0:26:42 > 0:26:44'He couldn't. It's Hans.'
0:26:44 > 0:26:47He couldn't do it. He really couldn't do it.
0:26:47 > 0:26:53He always said, as far as I know, that he couldn't leave his clients,
0:26:53 > 0:26:56that he couldn't let them...
0:26:57 > 0:27:01..on their own, he felt guilty. Not guilty, responsible for them.
0:27:01 > 0:27:06If you are working as a lawyer, you live here, you have your job, you have your clients.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08I think for Hans Litten, it was absurd.
0:27:08 > 0:27:13The idea of leaving the country, leaving his clients was absurd. So he stayed.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22Feb 27th 1933.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25Across the city, rumours were circulating
0:27:25 > 0:27:29that the Reichstag building, housing the German parliament, was on fire.
0:27:29 > 0:27:34Why and how this had happened nobody yet knew.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37But it was clear to all that someone would have to pay.
0:27:46 > 0:27:52For most of its people, the Berlin night of February 27th was like any other Berlin night.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00DANCE MUSIC
0:28:01 > 0:28:04But in the working-class districts, it was like no other.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08Into these areas, the stormtroopers came.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11And now they were carrying police badges.
0:28:11 > 0:28:16Hitler had decided that the Reichstag had been set alight by the Communist Party
0:28:16 > 0:28:21and so here was the chance to crush them once and for all.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29Most of the leaders living here in our neighbourhood, they were arrested.
0:28:29 > 0:28:33They were taken by the SA.
0:28:33 > 0:28:37The SA was, erm, like a police.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40Goering said, "You have the same rights as the police"
0:28:40 > 0:28:43and they worked together.
0:28:43 > 0:28:45It was just revenge.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19Where should all these poor workers go to?
0:29:19 > 0:29:23Most of them were unemployed, they didn't have money to buy a railway ticket
0:29:23 > 0:29:26to Switzerland or wherever. They had to stay here.
0:29:29 > 0:29:32To stay in Germany, as Hans Litten did,
0:29:32 > 0:29:36now meant trying to exist without the protection of a constitution.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39Even as the fires were burning in the Reichstag,
0:29:39 > 0:29:44the Nazis took the first significant step towards creating a totalitarian state.
0:29:44 > 0:29:49"There you see the Reichstag, the German house of parliament in Berlin,
0:29:49 > 0:29:52"which has been seriously destroyed by fire.
0:29:53 > 0:29:58"The main hall in which the deputies conducted their debates has suffered most.
0:29:58 > 0:30:02"Hitler, now chancellor, has announced that the fire was the work of communists
0:30:02 > 0:30:06"and in consequence, Germany has been placed under a system of martial law,
0:30:06 > 0:30:11"a decree having been signed which aims at the total destruction of Communism."
0:30:13 > 0:30:18The Decree for the Protection of People and State, as it was called,
0:30:18 > 0:30:23allowed the Nazis to use the police to round up their chief political opponents.
0:30:23 > 0:30:29Hans Litten was one of them. He was arrested and taken to Alexanderplatz Police Station.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36For some Communists, it was an advantage to be arrested by policemen.
0:30:36 > 0:30:40Hans Litten was arrested by police so he was quite lucky, quite lucky.
0:30:42 > 0:30:44Nobody really knew at that time what would happen now.
0:30:44 > 0:30:50I mean people, even Max Furst were not so... and Margot, were not so worried,
0:30:50 > 0:30:54cos it had happened before and the police was not as bad as the SA.
0:30:57 > 0:31:02But the regular police had Hans only for a short time.
0:31:02 > 0:31:09By March 1933, the man who put Hitler in the dock was handed over to the SA.
0:31:09 > 0:31:14He had not been charged with a crime. He never would be charged.
0:31:14 > 0:31:16Very few political prisoners were.
0:31:16 > 0:31:22He and the men around him were being held in protective custody.
0:31:24 > 0:31:27Protective custody, or the German word "Schutzhaft", was a euphemism
0:31:27 > 0:31:32that the Nazis used to describe what they were doing to their political opponents.
0:31:32 > 0:31:39The Nazis' cynical message was they were only taking these endangered people into custody to protect them
0:31:39 > 0:31:45from what might happen to them outside from the wrath of the people if they were out and free.
0:31:45 > 0:31:51When, of course, that's utter nonsense. They were arresting them to neutralise them politically.
0:31:56 > 0:32:02Before Auschwitz, before Treblinka, before Bergen-Belsen and Dachau,
0:32:02 > 0:32:07the name that summoned the horror of Nazi rule was Sonnenburg.
0:32:07 > 0:32:1230 miles east of Berlin, on the site of an old penitentiary,
0:32:12 > 0:32:17a concentration camp, a new word in Germany, had been founded.
0:32:17 > 0:32:22On 6th April 1933, Hans Litten was sent there.
0:32:23 > 0:32:28Artists, intellectuals, lawyers, trade-union leaders,
0:32:28 > 0:32:31they could all be found at Sonnenburg.
0:32:37 > 0:32:40And the place was run by Storm 33.
0:32:42 > 0:32:45Hans was put into the hands of his worst enemies.
0:32:45 > 0:32:47Not only in the hands of the SA,
0:32:47 > 0:32:53but in the hands of exactly those people that he had been fighting against in court,
0:32:53 > 0:33:00the famous SA Storm 33. So that was really private revenge that happened then.
0:33:00 > 0:33:05It's safe to say that, of anybody at all that the members of Storm 33 hated,
0:33:05 > 0:33:07Hans Litten had to be right at the top of their list.
0:33:09 > 0:33:15So unbelievable. I mean, what they did to him. And not only to him, to all these intellectuals.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18But, I think, really especially to him.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23He was beaten so that one of his eyes was damaged and he almost couldn't see out of it,
0:33:23 > 0:33:29the bones were broken. His skull, his mother reported, was somewhat misshapen.
0:33:29 > 0:33:33Terrible things had happened to him. His whole face was swollen.
0:33:33 > 0:33:35It was torturing...
0:33:37 > 0:33:40..humiliating, beating,
0:33:40 > 0:33:44not outright killing him, that would be too easy,
0:33:44 > 0:33:48he really had to go through the most horrible of torture.
0:33:55 > 0:33:59Some SA men entered my son's cell at night, saying,
0:33:59 > 0:34:05"Now you are going to be shot. You will be photographed as the shots are fired."
0:34:05 > 0:34:10A revolver was pressed against each temple. The flashlight was ignited.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14The shutter clicked, but no shots fired.
0:34:15 > 0:34:20With such jests, the SA men amused themselves for hours, even for days.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28I think the shock was very big because, being...
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Even if you despised the legal system of the bourgeois state,
0:34:31 > 0:34:33you still had a legal system.
0:34:33 > 0:34:39And people had been raised in it and had studied it and lived in it and had believed in it.
0:34:39 > 0:34:41And all this was gone within weeks.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45And even when you were beaten up by someone, there was no-one to appeal to.
0:34:48 > 0:34:54Irmgard Litten tried to appeal, but she had to find out that all this had vanished within weeks.
0:34:54 > 0:34:59So I think that was a real shock, to be unprotected suddenly.
0:34:59 > 0:35:01And she...
0:35:03 > 0:35:06..was so incredible.
0:35:06 > 0:35:12She went to I don't know how many people to help Hans out of the situation,
0:35:12 > 0:35:17or to at least make his life a little less horrible.
0:35:17 > 0:35:20But nothing, nothing worked
0:35:20 > 0:35:25because everybody told her, even people who said,
0:35:25 > 0:35:29"Yes, we would like to help", they said, "We can't."
0:35:29 > 0:35:32The moment we mention the name of Litten...
0:35:33 > 0:35:36..no, it's, "We can't do anything for you."
0:35:39 > 0:35:42Five weeks after Hans's imprisonment at Sonnenburg,
0:35:42 > 0:35:46the Nazis boasted to the world that they were book-burners.
0:35:48 > 0:35:53On May 10th 1933, in Opernplatz in the centre of Berlin,
0:35:53 > 0:35:58a highly-publicised event was staged in front of cameras by the new regime.
0:35:59 > 0:36:02A country existing without the rule of law
0:36:02 > 0:36:07now decided it had no need for the written word.
0:36:23 > 0:36:27Over 40,000 books had been collected by the Berlin SA.
0:36:27 > 0:36:32Books whose words, or whose authors, offended the Nazi mind.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35Each one was committed to the flames.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01SINGING IN GERMAN
0:38:05 > 0:38:10Now there is a monument to that and it is an extremely poignant and powerful one.
0:38:10 > 0:38:16If you walk along the square in Bebelplatz, formerly Opernplatz, where the book-burning took place
0:38:16 > 0:38:24you will come to a glass opening in the square. And you look below ground and see empty bookshelves.
0:38:25 > 0:38:30That too, in a sense, captures what the Nazis were about. Empty bookshelves.
0:38:30 > 0:38:35The books were burned, the life of the mind is gone, the life of the mind has been expunged from Germany.
0:39:17 > 0:39:21Wherever books are burned by civil or military governments,
0:39:21 > 0:39:25women gather outside the headquarters of the secret police,
0:39:25 > 0:39:28and demand to know where their missing children are.
0:39:53 > 0:39:58In 1933, Irmgard Litten became a familiar face
0:39:58 > 0:40:01outside the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin.
0:40:04 > 0:40:09Irmgard Litten, Hans's mother, was a remarkable person in her own right,
0:40:09 > 0:40:13incredibly brave, incredibly stubborn, incredibly determined.
0:40:13 > 0:40:17And she would pitch herself in a certain way, she would write, for instance,
0:40:17 > 0:40:22"I am a German mother for whom the Fatherland means more than anything else."
0:40:22 > 0:40:25She would very much downplay Litten's politics,
0:40:25 > 0:40:28in fact, she would say he was not politically motivated at all.
0:40:29 > 0:40:35To get him out, she would have done anything, anything.
0:40:35 > 0:40:39She was a person who taught her children not to lie,
0:40:39 > 0:40:42always to say the truth.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46Whatever you do, not to sell your soul.
0:40:46 > 0:40:51But she realised she had to play their game.
0:40:51 > 0:40:56So she raised up her hand and she shouted, "Heil Hitler!",
0:40:56 > 0:40:58but with a smile, with an inner smile.
0:40:58 > 0:41:04She was smiling in their face with an attitude of,
0:41:04 > 0:41:08"OK, you never will know what I'm thinking."
0:41:11 > 0:41:16"If the Nazis ever come to power," Hans Litten said during the trial,
0:41:16 > 0:41:20"they will reduce the law to the whim of one man."
0:41:20 > 0:41:22This is now what happened.
0:41:23 > 0:41:26Independent organisations were banned.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29Hitler was exalted.
0:41:41 > 0:41:46And the party anthem, written by a recently-murdered stormtrooper from Berlin,
0:41:46 > 0:41:50became a national anthem for the whole of Germany.
0:41:50 > 0:41:53THEY SING IN GERMAN
0:41:59 > 0:42:05Horst Wessel was the dead man's name. The anthem, the Horst Wessel Song.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28THEY SING IN GERMAN
0:42:35 > 0:42:38THEY SING IN GERMAN
0:42:49 > 0:42:54As the first draft of prisoners, including Litten, were being taken to the prison at Sonnenburg,
0:42:54 > 0:42:58the guards amused themselves by making these left-leaning men
0:42:58 > 0:43:01sing the Nazi anthem, the Horst Wessel Song.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04Everything about the Nazis was primitive,
0:43:04 > 0:43:09their treatment of prisoners, the symbolism of making their defeated enemies sing their songs.
0:43:09 > 0:43:11And if they refused to sing, they were beaten.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16The Nazis would continue to sing their hymns to the SA.
0:43:16 > 0:43:21But in April 1934, Hitler murdered their leaders.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25Hans Litten's old adversaries were liquidated,
0:43:25 > 0:43:30their functions handed over to the SS, a less volatile organisation.
0:43:30 > 0:43:35Their violence was rooted in law and sanctioned by the courts.
0:43:35 > 0:43:39The SS also took control of the concentration camps,
0:43:39 > 0:43:44as Hans Litten discovered when he was shifted to Lichtenburg camp.
0:45:20 > 0:45:26The principle of hope drove her on, and in front of the Gestapo,
0:45:26 > 0:45:31she said, "All the world knows what happens
0:45:31 > 0:45:36"concerning torture and your political prisoners."
0:45:36 > 0:45:41They told her, "You better didn't say this.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44"We didn't understand this, what you were saying."
0:45:44 > 0:45:51And she said, "Then I'll repeat it. I'll repeat it and I'll repeat it and I'll repeat it.
0:45:51 > 0:45:54"That this is something
0:45:54 > 0:45:59"that is against all human dignity,
0:45:59 > 0:46:02"what you are going to do.
0:46:02 > 0:46:07"And the world has to know it, and if you don't stop it, I will tell them."
0:46:07 > 0:46:12But Hans offended, offended,
0:46:12 > 0:46:16wounded Hitler in a way he never ever could forgive.
0:46:25 > 0:46:29Vast crowds now attended all Hitler's public appearances.
0:46:29 > 0:46:33They were some of the strangest crowds ever seen.
0:46:33 > 0:46:36Not a soul heckled. Everyone saluted.
0:46:38 > 0:46:40None were exempt.
0:46:40 > 0:46:43Only the brave said no.
0:47:22 > 0:47:25Heil Moscow!
0:47:44 > 0:47:48In the trial, Hans Litten had predicted that the life of the mind
0:47:48 > 0:47:51would be obliterated if Hitler ever came to power,
0:47:51 > 0:47:56and that without the rule of law, independent thought would be extinguished.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03These things are durable in human beings, however.
0:48:07 > 0:48:13At Lichtenburg, even an SS officer reported that Hans, "was a miracle of learning".
0:48:15 > 0:48:21At Lichtenburg, Hans Litten was given a job as a bookbinder and he ran a library.
0:48:21 > 0:48:25And he worked away on very erudite projects
0:48:25 > 0:48:30like a translation into modern German of medieval German poetry. He wanted to produce a book
0:48:30 > 0:48:35that was a reader for high-school students on medieval German poetry,
0:48:35 > 0:48:37but rendered into modern German
0:48:37 > 0:48:39that was more comprehensible to young people.
0:49:23 > 0:49:28He couldn't get books about politics or things like that.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31Nobody said anything about art.
0:49:31 > 0:49:37Probably modern art he couldn't get, so he got the other art. But art was art so he used it.
0:49:40 > 0:49:44He had something to hope for. Because art gives hope.
0:49:47 > 0:49:54This was Litten resisting the Nazis as best he could, even within the walls of a concentration camp.
0:49:54 > 0:49:58By living the life of the mind in this very determined way,
0:49:58 > 0:50:01that, in itself, is one of the most anti-Nazi things you can do,
0:50:01 > 0:50:06precisely because the Nazis were so anti-intellectual.
0:50:09 > 0:50:1520th April 1935 was Adolf Hitler's 46th birthday.
0:50:15 > 0:50:18And all Germany was expected to celebrate.
0:50:18 > 0:50:25At Lichtenburg, the prisoners were each ordered to produce something lovely to commemorate the great day.
0:50:25 > 0:50:28Hans Litten's choice was lovely.
0:50:30 > 0:50:36All around them there are guards. You have to imagine SS men in black and, of course, with guns.
0:50:36 > 0:50:38The prisoners are supposed to present something.
0:50:38 > 0:50:43What did Litten decide to do? He decided to read a poem called "Thoughts Are Free",
0:50:43 > 0:50:46"Die Gedanken Sind Frei."
0:52:10 > 0:52:12Die gedanken sind frei.
0:52:22 > 0:52:27By February 1936, Hans had been Hitler's prisoner for three years.
0:52:29 > 0:52:33And in that year, Irmgard Litten made a last desperate bid
0:52:33 > 0:52:36to persuade the dictator to release her son.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39She looked to Britain.
0:52:39 > 0:52:42She was able to get a very prominent group of British politicians
0:52:42 > 0:52:47to write a petition to Hitler asking that Litten be freed.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51And the reply is a very long example of Nazi propaganda,
0:52:51 > 0:52:54in which perhaps the most absurd claim
0:52:54 > 0:52:59is that the Nazi revolution would be seen in later years as a model revolution,
0:52:59 > 0:53:03such as can only be carried out by people at the very highest level of culture.
0:53:03 > 0:53:09And he went on to say that, because Litten was such a dangerous communist,
0:53:09 > 0:53:12it would be far too dangerous to let him out.
0:53:12 > 0:53:17The headline with which this was published in the German press sums it up.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20"Litten is staying where he is."
0:53:22 > 0:53:28Hitler had taken a brilliant young lawyer, a man who warned his country against fascism,
0:53:28 > 0:53:32a man deeply loved by other people, and utterly destroyed him.
0:53:33 > 0:53:38And in October 1937, Hans was moved again,
0:53:38 > 0:53:41this time to Dachau.
0:53:43 > 0:53:45Irmgard Litten was permitted to visit him there.
0:53:45 > 0:53:49She had not seen her son for three years.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53"It is like a small, fortified city.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56"A long wide street runs through the middle of it,
0:53:56 > 0:53:59"and on either side are long barracks.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02"It was like a street of the dead.
0:54:03 > 0:54:10"I saw only one prisoner. He was cleaning a window and an armed sentry was standing by him.
0:54:13 > 0:54:16"A cart came towards us.
0:54:16 > 0:54:19"It was being pushed by about a dozen prisoners.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24"One man stared at me as though I were an apparition."
0:54:27 > 0:54:32When Hans was brought before his mother, she saw for the first time
0:54:32 > 0:54:35that a yellow star had been stitched onto his prison uniform.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40She saw he had to wear the Jewish star.
0:54:40 > 0:54:43In the eyes of the SS, as having a Jewish father,
0:54:43 > 0:54:47they said, "He's also a Jew because his blood is Jewish."
0:54:47 > 0:54:51He was registered as a Jewish prisoner
0:54:51 > 0:54:54and he was treated like the other Jewish prisoners.
0:54:54 > 0:54:59And they were treated even worse than the other prisoners in Dachau concentration camp.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04He was isolated with the other Jewish prisoners.
0:55:06 > 0:55:09One prisoner wrote, "The wind blew from a different direction at Dachau."
0:55:09 > 0:55:12The guards were that much more brutal.
0:55:12 > 0:55:18In a sense, the guards had succeeded in breaking down the solidarity of some of the prisoners.
0:55:18 > 0:55:22Dachau was, at that time, significantly worse, significantly harsher for prisoners
0:55:22 > 0:55:26than any of the other concentration camps.
0:55:26 > 0:55:31They were not allowed to touch each other, to take, to embrace Hans.
0:55:31 > 0:55:34She had to be separated.
0:55:34 > 0:55:39There was a table between them and an SS guy watching everything.
0:55:39 > 0:55:43She only saw his hat.
0:55:47 > 0:55:50She felt he hardly couldn't speak anymore.
0:55:50 > 0:55:53His eyes were not shiny, shining anymore.
0:55:55 > 0:55:57And he made a remark
0:55:57 > 0:56:00that she afterwards knew,
0:56:00 > 0:56:03it was his bye-bye.
0:56:03 > 0:56:07But still there, in the big isolation,
0:56:07 > 0:56:10they had no newspapers, no books, nothing anymore.
0:56:10 > 0:56:14He was reciting,
0:56:14 > 0:56:18hours and hours and hours,
0:56:18 > 0:56:20to the other prisoners
0:56:20 > 0:56:25Rilke poetry...by heart.
0:56:25 > 0:56:29And just make them forget for a few minutes.
0:56:32 > 0:56:36He must have grown so big
0:56:36 > 0:56:39and so strong.
0:56:39 > 0:56:42That is really something that touches me
0:56:42 > 0:56:46even more than his fight against Hitler.
0:56:46 > 0:56:50Because to keep your dignity
0:56:50 > 0:56:53in such a circumstance,
0:56:53 > 0:56:59by having no teeth left because they were kicked out,
0:56:59 > 0:57:05by being almost blind because they hit you so often,
0:57:05 > 0:57:09having your legs broken several times,
0:57:09 > 0:57:12having big heart problems.
0:57:12 > 0:57:16He shared everything he had.
0:57:16 > 0:57:20Because he always said, "It's not necessary for me, I've got my poems."
0:57:25 > 0:57:30On February 5th 1938, Hans was sent for interrogation.
0:57:30 > 0:57:35He was accused of concealing important information about a fellow prisoner.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38Thoughts are free.
0:57:38 > 0:57:42But the SS now set about beating them out of him.
0:57:42 > 0:57:46That night, knowing he could stand no more,
0:57:46 > 0:57:48Hans ended his own life.
0:57:55 > 0:57:58You would find Hans Littens in Argentina in the 70s,
0:57:58 > 0:58:03when 200 lawyers were killed by the dictatorships.
0:58:03 > 0:58:08You will find them in Chile, you will find them later on, in Columbia, in Mexico.
0:58:08 > 0:58:12In Syria maybe? It comes to my mind first.
0:58:12 > 0:58:19I mean, we have so many countries with oppression and political persecution.
0:58:19 > 0:58:22I mean, you can pick many countries, I would say.
0:58:22 > 0:58:26Perhaps we would find people like this in Russia.
0:58:26 > 0:58:30There are lawyers like this who carry on human-rights advocacy in countries like Iran.
0:58:30 > 0:58:34Any country where there is a problematic government,
0:58:34 > 0:58:37we hope, at least, that perhaps there will be a brave lawyer, like Litten,
0:58:37 > 0:58:40to come forward and challenge them.
0:58:43 > 0:58:47Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:47 > 0:58:51E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk