Product Description
“This book reads similar to the authorised thriller; it will leave we meditative about the inlet of probity as well as desirous by the tellurian spirit.”
-Sister Helen Prejean
Justice Imperiled is the story of the shining counsel Max Hirschberg, the single of Germany’s many bold defenders of probity in the face of Hitler’s climb to power.
Hirschberg lived an unusual hold up during the defining impulse in German as well as European history. By the time he fled Nazi Germany in 1934, he had argued the array of cases in Munich’s courtrooms which strew light upon the story of domestic probity in pre-Nazi Germany and, by extension, the premature birth of probity in all Western democracies.
Hirschberg was the singular figure: he fought for … More >>
Justice Imperiled: The Anti-Nazi Lawyer Max Hirschberg in Weimar Germany
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2 Comments
Morris writes of a brave man fighting in the last years of Weimar, against an inexorably rising Nazi tide. Hirschberg deserves to be remembered as a conscientious individual who saw the Nazi menace and fought against it with all the legal means he had.
The book takes us into the legal structure of Weimar justice. But it deals just as much with the unrest of Germany after World War 1. From hyperinflation to the bitterness of defeat. Familiar strands to anyone who has read German history. What is distinctive about the book is how it combine these accounts with a detailed look at the legal procedures of a now defunct state.
The only problem with all of Hirschberg’s travails is that he ultimately failed. He, and others, made the mistake of trying to combat Hitler under the assumption that the Nazis would obey some laws and conventions. But they did neither.
The minute I saw this book reviewed in the New York Law Journal I had to have it. While I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the subject matter, it’s only fair to say that you are likely to get more out of it on the first read if you are a lawyer. This book was tailor made for me, I have been interested in German law, procedure and politics during the Weimar period since I was in college (long ago). I’m not an expert, but I have read extensively, including the German codes in effect at the time, and the author’s research is meticulous and accurate, including the German legal terminology. If you don’t know German, don’t worry, because he gives both the German term and its English translation in every instance. He also provides an appendix of abbreviations with the German and English terms. The book is much more than a biography of Hirschberg. Besides an analysis of the legal system in the pre-Hitler period and a detailed discussion of Hirschberg’s major political and criminal cases, the author covers the major political events of the time, including the numerous assassinations and clashes between right and left wing groups. This doesn’t read like a textbook; it puts the reader right on the scene. See Adolf Hitler in a courtroom, up close, the way he really was. I found it scary. Hirschberg himself is a fascinating figure, one of the greatest trial lawyers of the time and very astute and farsighted. Since this isn’t a novel, and it was the first thing we wanted to know at the office, I’ll say he got out of Germany and lived a long time after the war. Unlike other lawyers who opposed Hitler in court (e.g., Hans Litten) he had his eye on the ball. While I know something about the period and the subject matter, I found I learned a lot from this book. The author’s writing is well reasoned and organized, and very frankly, I couldn’t put the book down. If the author had a web site, I’d congratulate him there.