Vincent de Moro-Giafferi (6 June 1878 in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

– 15 February 1956 or 22 November 1956) was a French

criminal attorney A criminal defense lawyer is a lawyer (mostly barristers) specializing in the defense of individuals and companies charged with criminal activity. Some criminal defense lawyers are privately retained, while others are employed by the various j ...

. Moro-Giafferi was the youngest person ever appointed to the

bar at the age of 24. Also active in politics, he was made a Deputy to the

French National Assembly The National Assembly (french: link=no, italics=set, Assemblée nationale; ) is the lower house of the bicameral French Parliament under the Fifth Republic, the upper house being the Senate (). The National Assembly's legislators are kn ...

from

Corsica Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...

at the age of 31 in 1919. As a member of the Radical Socialist Party, he was a strong supporter of French Premier

Pierre Mendès France Pierre Isaac Isidore Mendès France (; 11 January 190718 October 1982) was a French politician who served as prime minister of France for eight months from 1954 to 1955. As a member of the Radical Party, he headed a government supported by a co ...

. A Radical deputy from 1919 to 1928, he then took part in the

Rally of Left Republicans The Rally of Republican Lefts (french: Rassemblement des gauches républicaines, RGR) was an electoral alliance during the French Fourth Republic composed of the Radical Party, the Independent Radicals, the Democratic and Socialist Union of th ...

from 1946 to 1956.

Life

The family comes from Corse.http://www.corsicatheque.com/Histoire/Histoire-contemporaine/Lanzalavi-Dominique-Me-Vincent-de-Moro-Giafferi.-Defendre-l-homme-toujours-! Moro-Giafferi served in the French army in World War I, and was an officer of the

Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

. He held the

Croix de Guerre The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...

. One of the most famous criminal lawyers of his era, he acquired a reputation that was global in scope. He was known as a brilliant orator, and his courtrooms were packed with other lawyers, and the general public, who would come to see his skills on display. According to his obituary in the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, his rhetorical skills were so prodigious that once in 1913, after he had won an acquittal for a highly questionable client, a debate arose among the members of the French bar as to the value of the jury system in general. Nevertheless, Moro-Giafferi is best known for a case that never actually went to trial. He was asked to defend the Polish-German assassin

Herschel Grynszpan Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Yiddish: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן; German: ''Hermann Grünspan''; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive 1945, declared dead 1960) was a Polish-Jewish expatriate born and raised in Weimar Germany ...

, who was accused of murdering minor German diplomat

Ernst vom Rath Ernst Eduard vom Rath (3 June 1909 – 9 November 1938) was a member of the German nobility, a Nazi Party member, and German Foreign Office diplomat. He is mainly remembered for his assassination in Paris in 1938 by a Polish Jewish teenager, ...

. The assassination had geo-political consequences as the Nazis used the incident to initiate an act of

state terrorism State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism which a state conducts against another state or against its own citizens.Martin, 2006: p. 111. Definition There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the proper def ...

against the Jews in Germany in the events of

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...

. Moro-Giafferi was preparing his defense when the Germans invaded France. He also defended several other highly controversial figures, including Henri Désiré Landru, a modern-day Bluebeard (this is the only case Moro-Giafferi ever lost), former Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux (who was accused of World War I dealings with the enemy), and Lucien Sampaix, former news editor of the Communist newspaper ''

L'Humanité ''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist." History and profile Pre-World Wa ...

'' (who was charged with espionage). During the preparation of Grynzspan's defense, Moro-Giafferi is said to have received many threats. The American journalist

Dorothy Thompson Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and was one of the few women news commentators on radio ...

helped arrange the defense fund for Grynszpan.

In literature

In his iconoclastic political/science fiction novel '' War with the Newts'', antifascist Czech writer

Karel Čapek Karel Čapek (; 9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel '' War with the Newts'' (1936) and play '' R.U.R.'' (''Rossum's Universal ...

depicts a revolt of sea newts: Initially a badly exploited

Lumpenproletariat In Marxist theory, the ''Lumpenproletariat'' () is the underclass devoid of class consciousness. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels coined the word in the 1840s and used it to refer to the unthinking lower strata of society exploited by reactionary a ...

, the newts, equipped by mankind with heavy weapons and underwater dredging equipment start destroying the coasts of the continents to create more

Lebensraum (, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...

for their fast expanding species. In a move not unlike to the

Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany ...

the westerns powers call a peace conference in

Vaduz Vaduz ( or , High Alemannic pronunciation: [])Hans Stricker, Toni Banzer, Herbert Hilbe: ''Liechtensteiner Namenbuch. Die Orts- und Flurnamen des Fürstentums Liechtenstein.'' Band 2: ''Die Namen der Gemeinden Triesenberg, Vaduz, Schaan.'' Hrsg. ...

and barter the destruction of China and Far East coasts in exchange with a status-quo on their own shores. The main negotiator on the Newts side is said to be a crack French lawyer named Julien Rosso Castelli, a transparent reference to Moro-Giafferi, who had acquired international fame when he and a group of intellectuals had staged a spoof trial of the

Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of ...

, directly accusing

Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...

of committing the arson. In February 1936 Giafferi hurried to Davos, Switzerland, where

David Frankfurter David Frankfurter (9 July 1909 – 19 July 1982) was a Croatian Jew known for assassinating Wilhelm Gustloff, the Swiss branch leader of the Nazi Party, in February 1936 in Davos, Switzerland. He surrendered and confessed, and was sentenced to ...

had shot and killed

Wilhelm Gustloff Wilhelm Gustloff (30 January 1895 – 4 February 1936) was the founder of the Swiss NSDAP/AO (the Nazi Party organisation for German citizens living outside Germany) at Davos. He remained its leader from 1932 until he was assassinated in 1936. ...

, the head of the Swiss branch of the German

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

References

* ''Beaux Ténèbres'' by Michel Ferracci-Porri ( Normant Editions, France 2008) {{DEFAULTSORT:Moro-Giafferi, Vincent De 1878 births 1956 deaths Politicians from Paris French people of Corsican descent Republican-Socialist Party politicians Radical Party (France) politicians Members of the 12th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the 13th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic Members of the Constituent Assembly of France (1946) Deputies of the 1st National Assembly of the French Fourth Republic Deputies of the 2nd National Assembly of the French Fourth Republic Deputies of the 3rd National Assembly of the French Fourth Republic 20th-century French lawyers French people of World War I Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France) Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery