Opponents of Hitler

VOLUMEAJR JOURNAL11 NO.11 novNOVEMBEEMBERR 2011 Opponents of Hitler n 21 August 2011, BBC Two and her second son, Heinz, realised Irmgard Litten and the Nazi machine at broadcast The Man Who Crossed they had to flee Germany. (The Nazi all levels’. It appeared in the USA under OHitler, a TV film based on the authorities feared that, once Hans Litten the title Beyond Tears and in a Spanish story of Hans Litten, a left-wing lawyer was dead, there would be nothing to hold edition in Mexico. Its author went on of half-Jewish parentage who in 1931 had his mother back from speaking out about to broadcast frequently and effectively Hitler appear under subpoena in a Berlin his treatment in detention.) They left that for the BBC’s German-language service court. At the trial of two SA men accused same month for London, where Irmgard, and played an active part in the German in connection with the violent Nazi attack now aged 58, embarked on an energetic refugee community in London. After the on a Communist gathering at the Eden- and high-profile anti-Nazi campaign. As war, she returned to Germany, but her palast Dance Hall, a particularly brutal in- Marian Malet has described in an article treatment in the West led her to settle cident in which three people were killed, in the 2011 volume of the Yearbook of in East Berlin, where she died in 1953. Litten subjected Hitler to a hostile and Heinz Litten, two years younger than humiliating cross-examination that left Hans, had embarked on a career in the the Nazi leader struggling to maintain his theatre and was working as stage director political credibility and, in effect, reduced at the Städtisches Theater in Chemnitz him to perjury. Hitler never forgot the ex- in 1933, when he was dismissed. After perience and Litten paid for his courage fleeing with his mother to Britain, he en- after January 1933, when he was arrested listed in the Pioneer Corps of the British and held for five years in several camps Army in 1940, serving until 1943. From and prisons until, after constant brutal 1943 until 1946, he directed theatrical mistreatment, he committed suicide in productions for the Freier Deutscher Dachau. He was 34 years old. Kulturbund (Free German League of The circle around Hans Litten included Culture – FDKB) at its aptly named a number of notable enemies of Nazism, Kleine Bühne (Small Stage) in Upper who have, like Litten himself, remained Park Road, Belsize Park, and elsewhere. undeservedly little known. Foremost Hans Litten, 1903-38 The FDKB, one of the most important among them was his remarkable mother, the Research Centre for German and refugee organisations founded by and Irmgard Litten, née Wüst. A non-Jew Austrian Exile Studies, ‘Beyond Dachau: for the refugees from Germany in Britain, whose family had been Protestant pastors Irmgard Litten in England’, Irmgard was a left-leaning, Communist-influenced and academics from south-western started by recording her eldest son’s body that saw its task as the preserva- Germany, she had married Fritz Litten, a experiences during the period of his tion of German culture in exile during converted Jew who had made a successful imprisonment; she also had to provide the years of Nazi ‘cultural barbarism’; it career as an academic at Königsberg for the subsistence of herself and her also encouraged its members to return University in East Prussia and was deeply second son. to Germany after the war to help build a conservative in his politics. Irmgard Litten In 1940, she had arranged for her new, democratic Germany. did not share her husband’s disapproval book Die Hölle sieht dich an: Der Fall Heinz Litten duly returned to Berlin of their eldest son’s choice of a career Litten to be published by a small left-wing with his mother in 1946, residing first as a lawyer defending Communists émigré publishing house in Paris, but the in the West but settling in East Berlin. and other left-wingers. Uninterested in German invasion of France put paid to Initially, his career in the theatre of the politics until 1933, the arrest of her son this. However, the project was rescued newly established German Democratic and his detention without trial galvanised by the British publisher Stanley Unwin, Republic flourished, and he became her, and she conducted an unremitting of the leading publishing house Allen manager of the Berlin Volksbühne. campaign for his release, or at least for & Unwin, who had the book published But the onset of the Cold War soon an improvement in the conditions under in English in August 1940, under the caused serious problems for those which he was held, heedless of the danger striking title A Mother Fights Hitler. In Dr who had returned to the GDR from to which she thus exposed herself. Malet’s words, the book ‘is a remarkable the West, as their contacts with the After Hans Litten was found hanged in account of almost exactly five years of West made them suspect to the ruling Dachau on 5 February 1938, his mother close oppositional engagement between continued overleaf 1 AJR JOURNAL NOVEMBER 2011 Opponents of Hitler cont. from p1 the Torch, refers both to Kraus’s journal Die Fackel (The Torch) and to Timms’s ANNIVERSARY group around Walter Ulbricht, who resolve to take up the torch of learning in OF KRISTALLNACHT had spent the war in Moscow. Litten's his career and to pass it on to scholars of Please join us for a service to prospects of obtaining artistic work the next generation. The book’s subtitle, commemorate the 73rd anniversary became increasingly restricted, and in English Institutions, German Dialectics of Kristallnacht August 1955 he committed suicide. and Multicultural Commitments, aptly on Wednesday 9 November 2011 Also featuring prominently in The Man describes its author’s wide-ranging at 2 pm Who Crossed Hitler was the lawyer, journal- concerns. It was published in 2011 by at Belsize Square Synagogue ist and author Rudolf Olden (family name Sussex Academic Press in Brighton. Guest speaker: Oppenheim). Born in 1885, Olden had, The book is an absorbing read, Ben Barkow, like Hans Litten, acted as defence lawyer especially for those of an academic Director, Wiener Library in trials with political overtones, most disposition. It traces Timms’s life from Rabbi Stuart Altshuler will lead the notably those involving the celebrated his birth in 1937 through his childhood memorial service and light refreshments pacifist and left-wing journalist Carl von at a vicarage in Buckfastleigh in Devon, will be served at the conclusion Ossietzky. Ossietzky, like Litten, was a his schooldays at Christ’s Hospital, For further details, please particular target of the Nazis; arrested Horsham, his studies in Modern telephone AJR Head Office on Languages at Caius College, Cambridge, 020 8385 3070 immediately after the Reichstag fire of or email [email protected] 28 February 1933, he was detained until his appointment in 1963 to the position his death in 1938, despite having been of Assistant Lecturer in German at the awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1935. gleaming new University of Sussex, his Olden, who had fled Germany for Prague years as a German don at Cambridge, 70th Anniversary on the night of the Reichstag fire, orches- and his return to Sussex, where in the Reception for the AJR trated a vigorous campaign to have Ossi- 1990s he founded the Centre for German- etzky, gravely ill with tuberculosis, freed. Jewish Studies. The Centre has been Tuesday 20 December Olden settled in Britain, where he threw generously supported by the AJR as well at 3 pm himself into anti-Nazi journalism. His as by individual members, notably the To conclude the series of events late Max and Hilde Kochmann, and its elder brother Balder, also an author and commemorating the 70th Anniversary journalist, was an anti-Nazi activist in programme of courses, public lectures of the AJR, H.E. the German France. Rudolf Olden became Hon. Sec ret - and conferences has established it as a Ambassador, Georg Boomgaarden, is ary of the German PEN Club in London leading institution in its field. hosting a reception in our honour at the German Ambassador’s Residence at and wrote one of the first studies ofHitler, Taking up the Torch is a fascinating in- 22 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PZ tellectual odyssey, showing how Timms which appeared in English in 1936 as on Tuesday 20 December at 3 pm. Hitler, the Pawn; it ranks alongside Kon- came to fall under the spell of German Dr Charlotte Knobloch, former rad Heiden’s pioneering Hitler: A Bio- literature and culture, and how as a President of the Central Council of graphy, which appeared in the same year. graduate student he decided to research Jews in Germany and President of the But in 1940 Olden was interned on the Isle the challenging figure of Karl Kraus. His Jewish Cultural Society in Munich, has of Man. He had been offered an appoint- description of the development of his kindly agreed to speak on ‘Jewish Life ment at the New School for Social Research ideas on Kraus positively crackles with in Germany Today’. in New York, and was released by the Brit- intellectual energy: I could never imagine The event will include the lighting of the ish authorities. He sailed for America on any supervisor of my doctoral disserta- candles for the first night of Chanukah. board the City of Benares, which was sunk tion finding the argument set out in my Light refreshments will be served.

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