In 1931, the brilliant young German lawyer Hans Litten (1903-1938) who represented opponents of the Nazis and defended the rights of workers, subpoenaed Adolf Hitler to the witness stand and cross-examined him for three hours to expose to the public his lies and encouragement of the use of political violence in the Eden Dance Palace trial – a case of two workers stabbed by four Nazi stormtroopers. The infuriated future dictator later retaliated against Litten (raised Christian but whose paternal grandfather was a Rabbi) for the humiliation, having him arrested on the night of the Reichstag fire of 1933, when the German parliament building was the site of an arson attack, four weeks after Hitler was sworn in as Führer. The courageous Litten endured five years of being interrogated, tortured, and denied communication, as he was moved from prison to a series of concentration camps in Sonnenberg, Lichtenberg, and Dachau, until, to escape the horrors, he committed suicide in 1938.
Based on true historical events, the gripping, painful, and timely Hans Litten: The Jew Who Cross-Examined Hitler, written by Douglas Lackey and produced by Philosophy Productions, is now making its world premiere in NYC, for a limited four-week engagement at Theatre Row. Although there are no actual transcripts of the trial, the playwright recreated the examination and filled in other details of the narrative as revealed in his research into four significant source publications (Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism; Benjamin Hett’s The Man Who Crossed Hitler; My Tears by Irmgard Litten, Hans’s mother; and William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich). Under the clear and engrossing direction of Alexander Harrington, the real life-and-death story moves from 1924 to 1938, from the protagonist’s background in Königsberg and relationship with his parents to his legal career and defining courtroom drama in Berlin to the ramifications of his moral commitment to truth, justice, and human rights in the face of unchecked totalitarianism and self-sacrifice in Dachau.
Daniel Yaiullo as Hans leads a cast of nine (seven appearing in multiple roles) with empathy and compassion, embodying Litten’s heightened intellect, mastery of eight languages, unwavering integrity, and controlled expression of his suffering, focusing on his love of art history, music, and poetry, enraptured while listening to Mozart, flawlessly reciting the poems of Rilke, and ultimately choosing “to join my people – at Masada” (a 1st century Roman fortification in the Judean Desert that was the last remaining stronghold of Jewish Zealots and the scene of their mass suicide in 73 AD, in resistance to Roman rule), in a profoundly affecting and inspiring performance.
Stan Buturla and Barbara McCulloh convincingly capture the contrasting personalities and beliefs of Hans’s parents. As his domineering father Friedrich, a nationalist conservative who served in WWI and opportunistically converted to Protestantism to advance his own career as a law professor, Buturla confronts the 21-year-old Hans about his professional plans, in a contentious discussion that results in the leftist son agreeing to go into the legal field in order to “change the rules of law to make law better” or at least to “stop the Reichstag from making the law worse,” and later presciently noting that “Every nationalist, like my father, believes that his nation is better than every other nation. Logically, this is nonsense. It cannot be true that every nation is better than every other. Every nationalist believes that he is better than foreigners because his nation is better than theirs. That too is nonsense.” As Hans’s loving, supportive, and deeply concerned Christian mother Irmgard, who instilled in him a love of the arts, McCulloh delivers the heartbreak of visiting him in prison and at the death camps, witnessing the horrific results of his torture by the Nazis, her failed attempts to have him freed, and begging him not to leave her. She passionately stands up to the Guards, who won’t let her touch him or let Hans keep the picture she brings him, and to her husband, who blames Hans for his dismissal from the position of Rector at the university, for being the father of the person the newspapers call “that Commie-loving Jew Litten.”
Other featured roles include Dave Stishan as Litten’s legal partner Barbasch, another anti-Nazi leftist who recognizes that Hitler will rise in popularity as the economic depression in Germany worsens and brings the case of the Eden Dance Palace to Hans’s attention; and Zack Calhoon as Hitler, who, despite his inner rage at being questioned, maintains his false testimony, then remains determined to wreak his revenge on Litten. Rounding out the excellent supporting cast are Robert Ierardi, Whit K. Lee, Marco Torriani, and Mark Eugene Vaughn, who, along with Buturla, Stishan, and Calhoon, portray a range of characters, from the vicious guards and stormtroopers who brutalize Hans, the judges who hear his case against the Nazis, his fellow Jewish prisoners in the concentration camps, who appreciate his knowledge, strength, and sharing of songs and poems with them, and the Jewish Kurt Weill (Lee) and Bertoldt Brecht (Torriani), with whom Litten and Barbasch have a drunken encounter at a Berlin beer hall after attending a performance of The Threepenny Opera, their 1928 play with music that offers a socialist critique of capitalism, and who were forced to flee Germany in 1933, after Hitler and the Nazis came into power. All skillfully distinguish between their many characters and bring the right demeanors and attitudes to each.
An efficient period-style design effectively transports us to the era, with character-defining costumes by Anthony Paul-Cavaretta, and wigs by Kevin S. Foster II, that indicate the situations and status of the figures, from the refined dress of the wealthy Littens to the uniforms of the Nazis and those of the prisoners of the concentration camps, all with a yellow Star of David to identify them as Jews. Alex Roe’s set of antique wooden furnishings, a rotating half-wall, a gramophone, and three pendant mullioned windows of black and white glass allows for easy scene shifts on the shallow stage, from Friedrich’s office to that of Barbasch and Hans, to the courtroom and bar, and the bleak cell at Dachau, with lighting by Alexander Bartenieff that suits the moods and blacks out with the episodes of violent torture (visible on the hands and face, and in the limping movement of Hans) and suicide (all sensitively handled by Lackey and Harrington, to go unseen, but imagined, by the audience). The play is enhanced with appropriate music and songs (sound by Abirami Senthil; music direction by Jessica Crandall) by Mozart, Brecht and Weill, and traditional Jewish and German folk anthems that express the thoughts and affiliations of the characters.
The debut of Hans Litten: The Jew Who Cross-Examined Hitler is an intellectually compelling, historically informative, and emotionally impactful must-see production, which also serves as an urgent warning that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. My advice is to see it – and don’t ever let this happen again.
Running Time: Approximately one hour and 50 minutes, including an intermission.
Hans Litten: The Jew Who Cross-Examined Hitler plays through Sunday, February 22, 2026, at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $54.50, including fees), go online or find discount tickets at TodayTix.
