Lawyers Without Rights: Jewish Lawyers in Germany Under the Third Reich

More than 70 years after its horrors unfolded, the Holocaust still has stories to reveal and lessons to share.

This exhibit begins to provide a portrait of the fate of Jewish lawyers in Germany — stories that speak to how the Nazis purged Jewish lawyers as one of the early steps to attack the rule of law in their country.

Lawyers Without Rights is about the rule of law and how one government – the Third Reich in Germany – systematically undermined fair and just law through humiliation, degradation and legislation leading to expulsion of Jewish lawyers and jurists from the legal profession. As the rule of law comes under attack today in both developed and Third World countries, Lawyers Without Rights tragically portrays what can happen when the just rule of law disappears -- replaced by an arbitrary rule by law that sweeps aside the rights and dignity of selected populations.

The story of the fate of Jewish lawyers in Berlin and all of Germany is more than a historical footnote; it is a wake-up call that a system of justice free of improper political considerations remains fragile and should never be taken for granted.

The Lawyers Without Rights project is a joint venture of the American Bar Association and the German Federal Bar.