page_title: Hans Litten
section_title: Dachau and death
hierarchical_section_title: Hans Litten / Biographical details / Dachau and death
caption_attribution_description: Hallway of the "Bunker" at the concentration camp Dachau.
context_page_description: Hans Achim Litten 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, where Litten then cross-examined Hitler 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.
context_section_description: In summer 1937, Litten was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp for a month, before finally being sent to Dachau. He arrived on 16 October  1937 and was put in the Jewish barracks. The Jewish prisoners were isolated from others because Jews in other countries were then spreading the grim news about Dachau. Litten's last letter to his family, written in November 1937, spoke of the situation, adding that the Jewish prisoners were soon to be denied mail privileges until further notice. All letters from Jewish prisoners at Dachau ceased at this time.
  In the face of their depressing situation, the Jews at Dachau made efforts to have culture and discussion in their lives, to keep their spirits up. Litten would recite Rilke for hours and he impressed the other prisoners with his knowledge on many subjects. Underneath, however, Litten was losing hope. On 5 February 1938, after five years of interrogation and torture and a failed escape attempt, Litten was found by several friends from his barracks, hanging in the lavatory, a suicide.
  The day before his suicide, one of Litten's friends, Alfred Dreifuß, found a noose under Litten's pillow. He showed it to the blockälteste, who said it wasn't the first that had been found in Litten's possession. At the time, Litten was under interrogation in the "bunker" (see photo). When he came back, he was clearly in a suicidal frame of mind, repeating several times that he "must speak with Heinz Eschen", a prisoner who had just died. He also had recently told his friends that he'd had enough of being imprisoned. Another of Litten's Dachau friends, Alfred Grünebaum, said later that Litten was in constant fear of more brutal interrogations and that Litten had given up on ever being free. On the evening of 4 February 1938, it was clear what Litten had in mind, but no one kept watch. In the middle of the night, his bed was discovered empty and his friends found him hanging in the lavatory. Litten wrote a few parting words and that he had decided to take his life.
caption: The "bunker", Dachau's prison
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