It was on Saturday, 11 March 1933.... I was standing in the lawyers' chamber on the first floor of the courthouse and talking to one of my colleagues. Suddenly, it was exactly at 11 A.M., shouts like wild animals were heard in the hallways, rapidly coming nearer. The doors of the room burst open. Two SA men in brown shirts and caps entered, screaming: Jews out!' At first everybody - Jews and Christians - were paralysed. Then most Jewish lawyers left the room. I saw Siegmund Cohn, over 70 years old, a member of the bar, was sitting in his chair as if he had been nailed down. He was unable to move. Several of the brown shirts attacked him. Some young lawyers, among them members of the national German Stahlhelm , advanced and stood in front of him to protect him. The attackers let him go. An SA man jumped on me...beat me twice on my head causing profuse bleeding. The blows landed close to the scar on my wounds from the First World War. At that moment I did not feel the sharp pain that was to stay with me for weeks afterwards, because of the sight I saw in the hallways of the courthouse. There were judges, lawyers, partly still in gowns, pushed into the street by groups of brown shirts. At every corner they burst into the court halls yelling Jews out'. A young judge who didn't lose his calm shouted back: get out now', and they disappeared.... I went to the chamber of the chief judge to call for help against the attackers. The director of the court house, a veteran officer, 64 years old, whom I had known for over 20 years, who was a decent and bold national German, was sitting in his chair with a pale face. I asked him what he intended to do against these outrages. He answered that he had already spoken on the phone with the President of the State Courts. I responded that in my opinion using regular channels is not sufficient in such a case, and asked to use the phone. I called the nearest police station. I was told that policemen were already on their way.... A few minutes later I saw about 20 policemen crossing the street, marching without haste. I immediately realised that the new police chief, Heines, is one of the pogrom's instigators. He saw to it that his men would not arrive on the scene too soon. While the SA men went on their attack, the door opened and the leader of the gang accompanied by two brown shirts entered...he approached the director of the court house, lifted his hand in salute and announced with a rough voice: Heil Hitler. An order from upstairs to clean the court house of Jews.' The old officer sat in his chair as if paralysed, his jaws opening and closing without sound. The SA man looked around, pointed at me and asked the judge: Is this a Jew?'. Now something I never would have believed happened. The old man believed he had no right to lie to the thug and answered: yes, this is a Jewish lawyer.' Fortunately, he did not mention my name, which was by that time well known to the Nazis. Then the thug turned to his friends: take the Jew out'.... An SA man was standing at the door, and when I passed, he kicked me in the back and made me fall over judge Goldfarb, who was also the head of the Jewish Community.... He turned to me and asked: to what authority should I apply to complain about this scandal?' I answered: Dear sir, I believe there is no such authority left.'... All through that day I heard from different sources that the rampagers were directed by some of the court-house janitors and secretaries, members of the Nazi Party, who told them who they should attacks. ...In the afternoon of that day the judges gathered in the building of the Supreme Court and decided to stop their work... in other words, the judges went on strike. If this would have been the behaviour in all the other courthouses where such events took place, who knows how the "national uplifting" that started with such a decline of civil courage would have ended....
