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Chief figure in the trial is Ernst Niekisch, a courageous anti-Nazi, who has ridiculed and opposed the policies of Adolf Hitler since the early days when the Nazis fought their political battles on the streets. A onetime schoolteacher, later an author and publisher, Niekisch took a leading part with famed Revolutionary Kurt Eisner in establishing the postWar, short-lived Bavarian Soviet State. When the Nazis came to power, his argument that both Germany and Russia were authoritarian and anticapitalistic and therefore should work together economically had numerous backers in the Nazi Party, chiefly among the followers of Hitler's lieutenant, Ernst Roehm, and Niekisch's publication was allowed to continue. When in 1934 Chancellor Hitler had Roehm shot, however, Niekisch fell into disfavor and was sent to a concentration camp. He was released in six months.
Undeterred, he joined the underground movement against the Nazis, published his pro-Soviet ideas in book form, and was so bold as to call the Führer publicly "a German misfortune." According to knowing foreign correspondents, Herr Niekisch's misfortune was being caught secretly organizing a mass assassination plot against top-rank Nazis, possibly including Hitler himself. The plotters were said to have gone so far as to draw lots to choose the killers.