A lawyer during the Nazi era can be a guide in bringing terrorists to justice

Against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza, discussions are taking place under the media radar about the difficult questions surrounding the legal process to be used to bring the October terrorists to justice. The issues are difficult and very complex. There is no equal in Israel’s history for the magnitude of an event of this type – and it appears the justice system will have to reinvent itself.

In the backdrop of the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and Heroism that we celebrated on Monday, our justice system can and must draw strength and encouragement from the story of a German Jewish lawyer who tried to arrest Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazis . Party even before it came to power.

Less known to the public consciousness, Hans Litten’s story should be given more expression in light of this week’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, October 7, and everything in between.

Litten was a 27-year-old German Jewish lawyer who represented victims of the Nazi Party before it came to power.

His professional peak was in the fight against the party in 1931, when on May 8 – exactly 93 years ago today – he succeeded in summoning the party’s oppressive leader to the witness stand of the Berlin Criminal Court – even before Hitler became chancellor appointed.

Berlin, Old Reich Chancellery with Nazi flag, 1936. (credit: WIKICOMMONS)

The legal process led by Litten to have the Nazi leader testify as a key witness about the crimes of his party agents could have jeopardized the political future of the Nazi oppressor. The young lawyer exposed and presented Hitler’s brutal methods, but in those years the German legal system bowed to the government and showed no spine and did not stand up for the principles of the rule of law.

After the Nazi Party came to power

Two years later, in January 1933, the Nazi Party came to power. Hitler did not forget the humiliation he suffered during the interrogations by the young Jewish lawyer and ordered his arrest. Despite pleas from his relatives to flee, Litten refused to leave Berlin to continue representing the city’s weak working class who could not escape.

Litten was arrested and endured severe torture for five years. In 1938, when he was only 34 years old, he took his own life. In Berlin, a memorial was erected in his memory and a street was named after him.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, the moving story of lawyer Hans Litten, which I was exposed to as part of a law course I studied with Prof. Yuval Albashan at Ono Academic College. I don’t know how many people have heard of the brave Jewish lawyer who went out to fight the Nazi monster, but one can only imagine what would have happened and been prevented if the legal system in Germany at that time was independent and prosecuted the suspects. Nazi oppressor.

So what will the legal process look like for the October 7 monsters? Who represents them? Will a special court be established? Can the death penalty be applied to them? These are some of the complex legal questions facing the Israeli legal system, and are part of the greatest legal challenge it has faced in its history.

What happened then in this regard was different from what is happening now: Litten fought to bring the Nazi leader to justice, while we must bring these captured Hamas followers to justice.

But one thing is clear: victory in this legal arena requires courage, heroism and calmness like that of Hans Litten: going to the extreme for the Nazis of October 7.

The writer is a strategic consultant and law student at Ono Academic College.

After the Nazi Party came to power

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