Horace L. Hahn, 87, a longtime Idyllwild resident, died Friday, Jan. 31, 2003, in San Diego of a heart attack.

Mr. Hahn was for many years a prominent member of the California Bar and a civic leader.

Born in Colorado in 1915, he was adopted at an early age by Will and Lois Hahn. He grew up in Los Angeles where he attended John Burroughs Junior High and Los Angeles High.

He attended the University of California, Los Angeles where he was the national forensic debate champion and thereafter worked in films for C.B. DeMille before attending Stanford Law School.

Following a national speaking tour with Helen Gahagan Douglas, Mr. Hahn joined the U.S. Army in World War II. He was commissioned and became a decorated member of the Office of Strategic Services.

He also received an award from the Czechoslovakian government-in-exile for his services in capturing a Nazi gauleiter in that country.

Thereafter, he assisted Justice Robert Jackson as chief attorney in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg War Trials.

Mr. Hahn was a founding member of two prominent Los Angeles law firms where he practiced business law for five decades as well as served on various professional, corporate and civic boards. They included the Maytag Corporation of Newton, Iowa, the Chart House, the Boy Scouts of America and the San Diego Center for the Blind, where he served as chairman of the board.

He was a founding partner of Hahn & Cazier which merged in 1985 with the international law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.

At age 70, he suddenly suffered an almost complete loss of vision while hiking in the Himalayas. He never lost his sense of adventure, however, and continued to visit distant and exotic foreign locales with his longtime traveling companion, Ward Bramhall.

Mr. Hahn was a 50-year member of the California Club.

He is survived by no immediate family members.

Donations in his memory may be made to the San Diego Center for the Blind, 5922 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego, CA 92115.