Hans Litten was a young lawyer in Weimar Germany who represented opponents of the Nazis at trials between 1929 and 1932. Today, his name is barely known outside Germany, yet in the summer of 1931, with Germany on the brink of economic collapse, Hans did something extraordinary. He put Adolf Hitler on the witness stand of a Berlin court. It was a huge personal risk. But Hans wanted to expose the true character of Hitler to the German public and thereby halt the phenomenal rise of the Nazi Party. In a humiliating and hostile cross-examination, Hitler was forced to account for his violent methods, his apparent contempt for the law and his stated desire to destroy German democracy. Hitler survived the ordeal but it was a close thing and something he never forgot. On the night of the Reichstag Fire, Litten was arrested and spent the rest of his life in Nazi concentration camps. After being moved to Dachau in 1938, he committed suicide, aged just 34.