When those charged with defending the rule of law betray that trust, the victory of tyrants is assured.

When those charged with defending the rule of law betray that trust, the victory of tyrants is assured. This film explores how the Third Reich seized power by subverting Germany's judicial system. The documentary, directed by Emmy award-nominated filmmaker Joshua M. Greene, who had earlier published books and directed documentaries on "Justice at Dachau" and "Witness: Voices of the Holocaust," traces how the judges were forced to pledge personal loyalty to Hitler, how Hitler used the courts to persecute his political enemies and ultimately to engineer the final solution. Hitler's Courts examines the perversion of laws and the courts under Nazi rule and discusses how distinguished lawmakers became complicit in racial discrimination, beginning with systematic exclusion from society and ending in mass murder.
When Hitler came to power, he promised to restore judges' authority and shield them from criticism even as he curtailed their independence and instituted reeducation programs designed to indoctrinate jurists in the ideological goals of the party. The Nazi leadership used a series of legal mechanisms to gradually assume and consolidate Hitler's power. Then, step by step, and always under the guise of safeguarding the state, the Nazi leadership imposed legislation that fulfilled its ideological goals of rearmament, military expansion, and racial purification.
Hitler's Courts provides a vivid, accessible account of the role of law and lawyers during the Nazi era, and continues to be relevant today in American society as we wrestle with the difficult balance between civil liberties and national security. Democracy is fragile, and the experience of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s demonstrates how even a constitutionally governed nation could succumb to the rhetoric of despots. Without vigilance on the part of our lawyers and judges, the men and women who are charged with the task of safeguarding the rule of law, any nation is vulnerable to the effects of fear and propaganda.
Hitler's Courts features archival footage from the Nazi era, rarely seen photographs, and interviews with leading voices in international law. Experts examine the gradual process how the Nazi leadership, with support or acquiescence from the majority of German people, including judges, moved the nation from a democracy to a dictatorship, and the series of legal steps that left millions vulnerable to the ideology of the Nazi state, leading to the largest mass murder of men, women and children in history.

Produced and Directed by Joshua M. Greene and Shiva Kumar ; Stories To Remember Production in association with Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center