Litten, Hans (1903-1938): correspondence (microfilm)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 1556 WL 572
Held at	: Wiener Library   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/ ›
Full title	: Litten, Hans (1903-1938): correspondence (microfilm)
Date(s)	: 1933-1938
Level of description	: collection
Extent	: 356 frames
Name of creator(s)	: Litten | Irmgard

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Hans Litten, the son of a Jewish father and a protestant mother was born in 1903 in Halle an der Saale. Despite his interest in art and music, he commenced his studies in law at the beginning of the 1920s. In 1928, having qualified, he began his career as a lawyer in Berlin. He worked closely with Ludwig Barbasch, lawyer for the 'Rote Hilfe', legal support group for the German Communist Party.

Litten became renowned for his defence of workers in the infamous 1931 'Edelpalast' trial, in which he sought to demonstrate how the deaths and injuries which occurred as the result of a group of Nazi stormtroopers attacking a gathering of workers, was the result of a deliberate policy of violence. He called Hitler as a witness in this trial.

On the night of 28 February 1933 he was one of the first to be arrested in a purge of political undesirables in the aftermath of the Reichstag fire. He was imprisoned in the following prisons and concentration camps: an SA Kaserne in Moabit, Sonnenberg, Esterwege, Lichtenburg, Buchenwald and Dachau. During this period he was tortured and he made several suicide attempts, finally succeeding on 5 February 1938 whilst in Dachau.

Throughout the period of his incarceration, his mother, Irmgard Litten, made every effort to get him released, writing to the Gestapo, the commandant of various camps, Göring, Hess all to no avail.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Correspondence of Irmgard Litten, mother of the lawyer Hans Litten (1903-1938), regarding attempts to secure his release from prison, including a letter dated 11 February 1938 from Dachau, containing a list Hans Litten's personal effects.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
German

System of arrangement:

Chronological

Conditions governing access:

Open

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.

Finding aids:

Description exists to this archive on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Litten family

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

Litten, Irmgard, A Mother fights Hitler, (George Allen and Unwin, 1941)

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Entry compiled by Howard Falksohn.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
October 2007