Louis Rudolph Franz Schlegelberger (23 October 187614 December 1970) was State Secretary in the German

Reich Ministry of Justice ''Reich'' (; ) is a German noun whose meaning is analogous to the meaning of the English word " realm"; this is not to be confused with the German adjective "reich" which means "rich". The terms ' (literally the "realm of an emperor") and ' (l ...

(RMJ) who served as Justice Minister during the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. He was the highest-ranking defendant at the

Judges' Trial The Judges' Trial (; or, the Justice Trial, or, officially, ''The United States of America vs. Josef Altstötter, et al.'') was the third of the 12 trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nurem ...

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

Early life

Schlegelberger was born into a Protestant salesman's family in

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was name ...

. He graduated from the University of Königsberg – or according to documents from his trial the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

— in 1899 attaining the degree of Doctor of Law. In 1901 Schlegelberger passed the state law examination and became a court ''Assessor'' at the Königsberg local court. In 1904 he became a judge at the State Court in Lyck (now

Ełk Ełk (; former pl, Łek; german: Lyck; Old Prussian: ''Luks''; lt, Lukas), also spelled Elk in English, is a small city in northeastern Poland with 61,677 inhabitants as of December 2021. It was assigned to Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in 1999, ...

). In early May 1908, he went to the Berlin State Court and in the same year was appointed assistant judge at the Berlin Court of Appeals (''Kammergericht''). In 1914 he was appointed to the ''Kammergericht'' Council (''Kammergerichtsrat'') in Berlin, where he stayed until 1918. On 1 April 1918 Schlegelberger became an associate at the Reich Justice Office. On 1 October of that year, he was appointed to the Secret Government Court and Executive Council. In 1927, he was appointed as Ministerial Director in the RMJ. Schlegelberger had been teaching in the Faculty of Law at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

as an honorary professor since 1922. On 10 October 1931 Schlegelberger was appointed State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Justice under Justice Minister

Franz Gürtner Franz Gürtner (26 August 1881 – 29 January 1941) was a German Minister of Justice in the governments of Franz von Papen, Kurt von Schleicher and Adolf Hitler. Gürtner was responsible for coordinating jurisprudence in Nazi Germany and provided ...

and kept this job until Gürtner's death in 1941. He was also made a member of the

Academy for German Law The Academy for German Law (german: Akademie für deutsches Recht) was an institute for legal research and reform founded on 26 June 1933 in Nazi Germany. After suspending its operations during the Second World War in August 1944, it was abolished ...

and was the chairman of its Committee for Water Rights. On 30 January 1938 Schlegelberger joined the

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 ...

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

's orders.

In the Nazi Party

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J03166, Berlin, Amtsübernahme Dr

Among Schlegelberger's many works in this time was a bill for the introduction of a new national currency which was supposed to end the

hyperinflation In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimize their holdings in that currency as t ...

to which the

Reichsmark The (; sign: ℛℳ; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until 20 June 1948 in West Germany, where it was replaced with the , and until 23 June 1948 in East Germany, where it was replaced by the East German mark. The Reich ...

was prone. After Franz Gürtner's death in 1941, Schlegelberger became provisional Reich Minister of Justice for the years 1941 and 1942, followed then by Otto Thierack. During his time in office the number of

death sentence Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

s rose sharply. He authored the bills such as the so-called Poland Penal Law Provision (''Polenstrafrechtsverordnung'') under which

Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in C ...

were executed for tearing down German posters. Schlegelberger's attitude towards his job may be best encapsulated in a letter to Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery

Hans Lammers Hans Heinrich Lammers (27 May 1879 – 4 January 1962) was a German jurist and prominent Nazi politician. From 1933 until 1945 he served as Chief of the Reich Chancellery under Adolf Hitler. During the 1948–1949 Ministries Trial, Lammers was ...

: However, in a letter to Lammers dated 5 April 1942, Schlegelberger suggested some half-Jews be "spared" and given the choice between "evacuation" or sterilization: Upon his retirement from the position on 20 August 1942, Hitler gave Schlegelberger an endowment of RM 100,000; in 1944, Hitler allowed him to buy an estate with the money, something that only agricultural experts were entitled to under the rules in force at the time. This would later weigh against him at Nuremberg, for it showed that Hitler thought highly of Schlegelberger.

After the war

At the Nuremberg Judges' Trial Schlegelberger was one of the main accused.http://www.christsbondservants.org/Home_Files/wys-Tom.The%20Conviction%20of%20Franz%20Schelgelberger%20(2).pdf He was sentenced to

life in prison Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

for conspiracy to perpetrate war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the reasons given for the

judgment Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle s ...

, it says: At the end of the 1945–1947 trials Schlegelberger was sentenced to life in 1947, although in 1950 the 74-year-old Schlegelberger was released owing to incapacity. For years afterward, he drew a monthly pension of DM 2,894 (for comparison, the average monthly income in Germany at that time was DM 535). Schlegelberger then lived in Flensburg until his death on 14 December 1970.

Bibliography

* ''Das Landarbeiterrecht. Darstellung des privaten und öffentlichen Rechts der Landarbeiter in Preußen'', Berlin., C. Heymann 1907. * ''Kriegsbuch. Die Kriegsgesetze mit der amtlichen Begründung und der gesamten Rechtsprechung und Rechtslehre'' -Berlin, Vahlen 1918 (with Georg Güthe) * ''Freiwillige Gerichtsbarkeit'', Heft 43, Berlin 1935 Industrieverlag Spaeth & Linde * ''Gesetz über die Aufwertung von Hypotheken und anderen Ansprüchen vom 16. Juli 1925'', Berlin, Dahlen, 1925. (co-author: Rudolf Harmening) * ''Zur Rationalisierung der Gesetzgebung.'', Berlin, Vlg. Franz Vahlen, 1928 * ''Jahrbuch des Deutschen Rechtes.'', with Leo Sternberg, 26th volume, report about the year 1927, Vahlen, Berlin, 1928 * ''Das Recht der Neuzeit. Ein Führer durch das geltende Recht des Reichs und Preußens seit 1914'' with Werner Hoche, Berlin: Franz Vahlen 1932. * ''Rechtsvergleichendes Handwörterbuch für das Zivil- und Handelsrecht des In- und Auslandes – 4. Bd.: Gütergemeinschaft auf Todesfall – Kindschaftsrecht'', Berlin Franz Vahlen, 1933 * ''Die Zinssenkung nach der Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten vom 8. Dezember 1931'', with an introduction and brief comments by Dr. Dr. F. Schlegelberger, State Secretary in the Reich Justice Ministry, Franz von Dahlen, Berlin 1932 * ''Das Recht der Neuzeit. Vom Weltkrieg zum nationalsozialistischen Staat. Ein Führer durch das geltende Recht des Reichs und Preußens von 1914 bis 1934.'', Berlin: Franz Vahlen 1934. * ''Die Erneuerung des deutschen Aktienrechts, Vortrag gehalten am 15. August 1935 vor der Industrie- und Handelskammer in Hamburg, Verlag Franz Vahlen'', 1935 * ''Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der freiwilligen Gerichtsbarkeit'', Köln, Heymanns 1952. * ''Das Recht der Gegenwart. Ein Führer durch das in Deutschland geltende Recht'' as publisher, Berlin and Frankfurt a. M., Franz Vahlen Verlag 1955 ** ''Das Recht der Gegenwart : ein Führer durch das in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland geltende Recht'' – 29. Aufl., Stand: 1 January 1998. – München : Vahlen, 1998 * ''Seehandelsrecht. Zugleich Ergänzungsband zu Schlegelberger, Kommentar zum Handelsgesetzbuch'', Berlin, Vahlen, 1959.(with Rudolf Liesecke) * ''Kommentar zum Handelsgesetzbuch in der seit dem 1. Oktober 1937 geltenden Fassung (ohne Seerecht). Annotated by Ernst Geßler, Wolfgang Hefermehl, Wolfgang Hildebrandt, Georg Schröder'', Berlin, Vahlen, 1960; 1965; 1966.

References

External links