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

by Hett, Benjamin Carter

• ISBN13: 9780195369885
• ISBN10: 0195369882
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-18
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

During a 1931 trial of four Nazi stormtroopers, known as the Eden Dance Palace trial, Hans Litten grilled Hitler in a brilliant and merciless three-hour cross-examination, forcing him into multiple contradictions and evasions and finally reducing him to helpless and humiliating rage (thetranscription of Hitler's full testimony is included.) At the time, Hitler was still trying to prove his embrace of legal methods, and distancing himself from his stormtroopers. The courageous Litten revealed his true intentions, and in the process, posed a real threat to Nazi ambition. When theNazis seized power two years after the trial, friends and family urged Litten to flee the country. He stayed and was sent to the concentration camps, where he worked on translations of medieval German poetry, shared the money and food he was sent by his wealthy family, and taught working-classinmates about art and literature. When Jewish prisoners at Dachau were locked in their barracks for weeks at a time, Litten kept them sane by reciting great works from memory. After five years of torture and hard labor-and a daring escape that failed-Litten gave up hope of survival. His story wasultimately tragic but, as Benjamin Hett writes in this gripping narrative, it is also redemptive. "It is a story of human nobility in the face of barbarism."The first full-length biography of Litten, the book also explores the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic and the terror of Nazi rule in Germany after 1933.

Author Biography

A former trial lawyer, Benjamin Carter Hett is now Associate Professor of History at Hunter College and the author of Death in the Tiergarten. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Summoning Hitler	p. 1
The Whole Person
The Litten Court	p. 13
The Black Mob	p. 22
The Grizzly, the Camel, and the Seal-Bear	p. 27
You Must Change Your Life	p. 34
Litten & Barbasch	p. 44
May Day	p. 53
Crossing Hitler
The Witness	p. 65
Political Soldiers	p. 67
The Eden Dance Palace	p. 76
"Murder Storm 33"	p. 80
Roll Commandos	p. 85
The Oath	p. 99
A Snag with Hitler	p. 100
Verdicts	p. 103
The Double Edge of the Deed	p. 108
Bulow Square	p. 115
Richard Street	p. 118
They Know What They Do	p. 121
Underground Influences	p. 127
Felseneck	p. 134
"A Dangerous Irritant in the Administration of Justice"	p. 138
Expelled	p. 143
Threats	p. 151
Toward Dachau
The Reichstag Burns	p. 155
Sonnenburg	p. 159
"Coordination"	p. 165
Spandau	p. 171
Diels's List	p. 173
"I Must Burden You with My Suicide"	p. 180
Means of Escape	p. 186
Madonna in the Rose Bower	p. 195
Long Knives	p. 197
The Fuhrer's Clemency	p. 200
Thoughts Are Free	p. 210
The Jew Block	p. 218
Isolation	p. 224
Lord Allen	p. 228
Passion	p. 236
News	p. 241
Epilogue: "Only Where There Are Graves Are There Resurrections"	p. 247
Hans Litten's Cross-Examination of Adolf Hitler, May 8, 1931	p. 263
A Note on Sources	p. 277
Acknowledgments	p. 283
Notes	p. 287
Index	p. 341
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