Otto Georg Thierack (19 April 188926 October 1946) was a German
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
and politician.
Early life and career
Thierack was born in
Wurzen
Wurzen () is a town in the Leipzig district, in Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Mulde, here crossed by two bridges, 25 km east of Leipzig, by rail N.E. of Leipzig on the main line via Riesa to Dresden. It has a cathedral dating ...
in
Saxony
Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
. He took part in the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
from 1914 to 1918 as a volunteer, reaching the rank of lieutenant. He suffered a facial injury and was decorated with the
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia est ...
, second class. After the war ended, he resumed his interrupted law studies and ended them in 1920 with his ''Assessor'' (junior lawyer) examination. In the same year, he was hired as a court ''Assessor'' in Saxony.
Joining the Nazi Party
On 1 August 1932, Thierack joined the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
. After the
Nazis seized power in 1933, he managed within a very short time to rise high in the ranks from a prosecutor to President of the People's Court (''
Volksgerichtshof''). The groundwork on which this rise was built was not merely that Thierack had been a Nazi Party member, but rather also that he had been leader of the
National Socialist jurists' organization, the so-called ''Rechtswahrerbund''.
Justice Minister of Saxony
On 12 May 1933, having been appointed Saxony's justice minister, it was Thierack's job to "nazify" justice, which was a part of the Nazis'
Gleichschaltung
The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...
(Coordination) that he had to put into practice in Saxony. After going through several mid-level professional posts, he became Vice President of the Reich Court in 1935 and in May 1936 President of the ''Volksgerichtshof'', which had been newly founded in 1934. He held this job, interrupted as it was by two stints in the armed forces, until August 1942, when he was succeeded in the position by
Roland Freisler
Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945), a German Nazi jurist, judge, and politician, served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1934 to 1942 and as President of the People's Court from 1942 to 1945.
As ...
. On 20 August 1942, he succeeded
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank (23 May 1900 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and lawyer who served as head of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War.
Frank was an early member of the German Workers' Party ...
as President 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 ...
.
Reich Minister of Justice
On 24 August 1942, Thierack assumed the office of Reich Minister of Justice. He introduced the monthly ''Richterbriefe'' in October 1942, in which were presented model – from the Nazi leaders' standpoint – decisions, with names left out, upon which German jurisprudence was to be based. He also introduced the so-called ''Vorschauen'' and ''Nachschauen'' ("previews" and "inspections"). After this, the higher state court presidents, in proceedings of public interest, had at least every two weeks to discuss with the public prosecutor's office and the State Court president – who had to pass this on the responsible criminal courts – how a case was to be judged ''before'' the court's decision.
When he became Reich Minister of Justice in August 1942, Thierack saw to it that the lengthy paperwork involved in clemency proceedings for those sentenced to death was greatly shortened. In September of that year, he caused all those in custody who were "Jews, Gypsies, Ukrainians, Poles sentenced to over three years, Czechs, or Germans serving a sentence of over eight years" to be classified as "asocial elements" and transferred to ''Reichsführer-SS''
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
to be
exterminated through work.
At Thierack's instigation, the execution shed at
Plötzensee Prison
Plötzensee Prison (german: Justizvollzugsanstalt Plötzensee, JVA Plötzensee) is a juvenile prison in the Charlottenburg-Nord locality of Berlin with a capacity for 577 prisoners, operated by the State of Berlin judicial administration. The d ...
in Berlin was outfitted with eight iron hooks in December 1942 so that several people could be put to death at once, by
hanging
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...
(there had already been a
guillotine
A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at th ...
there for quite a while). The mass executions began on 7 September 1943 but due to their rapidity some prisoners were hanged "by mistake". Thierack dismissed these as errors and demanded that the hangings continue. Thierack was named to continue as Minister of Justice in
Hitler's political testament. He served in the brief
Goebbels cabinet
The Joseph Goebbels Cabinet was named by Adolf Hitler in his political testament of 30 April 1945. To replace himself, Hitler named Admiral Karl Dönitz as '' Reichspräsident'' and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels as ''Reichskanzler
The c ...
but was dismissed on 5 May 1945 by Hitler's successor,
Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz (sometimes spelled Doenitz; ; 16 September 1891 24 December 1980) was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as head of state in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government follo ...
.
Arrest and suicide
The
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
arrested Thierack after the end of World War II. Before he was brought to trial before the court at the
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 ...
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 ...
, Thierack committed
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
in
Sennelager
Sennelager is a village in Germany that forms part of the City of Paderborn. It is notable for its association with the military since the 19th century.
Location
Sennelager lies around 5 km north of Paderborn city centre in the west of the ...
,
Paderborn
Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for t ...
, by
poisoning
A poison can be any substance that is harmful to the body. It can be swallowed, inhaled, injected or absorbed through the skin. Poisoning is the harmful effect that occurs when too much of that substance has been taken. Poisoning is not to ...
himself.
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
External links
Biographical overview at the German Historical Museum
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thierack, Otto Georg
1889 births
1946 deaths
German Army personnel of World War I
Holocaust perpetrators in Germany
Judges in the Nazi Party
Jurists from Saxony
Members of the Academy for German Law
Nazi Germany ministers
Nazi Party politicians
Nazis who committed suicide in Germany
Nazis who committed suicide in prison custody
People from the Kingdom of Saxony
People from Wurzen
Suicides by cyanide poisoning
1946 suicides