Justice Imperiled: The Anti-Nazi Lawyer Max Hirschberg in Weimar Germany

The story of one of post - World War 1 Germany’s greatest defenders of justice in the face of Hitler’s rise to power In a unique blend of biography and courtroom drama, Justice Imperiled captures the excitement of Hirschberg’s actual cases and presents legal battles that are raging, in different circumstances, to this day. Justice Imperiled portrays a figure who lived a dramatic life at a turning point in German and European history. By the time he fled Nazi Germany in 1934, Max Hirschberg had fought a series of cases in Munich’s courtrooms that illuminate both the history of political justice in pre-Nazi Germany and, more generally, the problem of miscarriages of justice in all Western democracies. Hirschberg was a rare figure: he fought for judicial procedures that would reflect the new democracy rather than the old monarchy, that would put value on equality rather than hierarchy, and that would show respect for workers as well as aristocrats. Throughout the Weimar Republic, he squared off in court against Munich’s conservatives, reactionaries, and Nazis - twice facing Hitler himself. As he litigated politically charged disputes, he also began fighting to reverse the criminal convictions of innocent defendants and then to study what mistaken verdicts teach about the criminal justice system as a whole.