Hans Koch

Who was Hans Koch?

Hans Koch was a German lawyer, a member of the Confessional Church and a member of the German resistance against Nazism.

Koch was born in Bartenstein, East Prussia, he graduated in law from the University of Königsberg. In 1923, he began working at the Prussian Ministry of Trade and later as the second state commisar of the Berlin stock exchange. In 1927, he opened his own law office. In 1937, he helped win an acquittal for pastor Martin Niemöller.

During World War II, he developed contacts with Claus von Stauffenberg and the July 20 plot conspirators, including Carl Goerdeler. In the July 20 plot, once the Nazis had been routed, Koch was slated to become the presiding judge of the Reichsgericht, the highest court in the German Reich. The plot failed, however, and Koch sheltered one of the conspirators. An informer denounced him and Koch and his family were arrested. He was murdered extrajudicially in Berlin by a Sonderkommando of the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt on April 24, 1945.