Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945), 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 U ...
,
judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
, and politician, served as the State Secretary of the
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 ...
from 1934 to 1942 and as President of the
People's Court from 1942 to 1945.
As a prominent
ideologist
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...
of
Nazism
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) i ...
, he influenced the
Nazification of Germany's
legal system
The contemporary national legal systems are generally based on one of four basic systems: civil law, common law, statutory law, religious law or combinations of these. However, the legal system of each country is shaped by its unique history an ...
as a jurist. He attended the
Wannsee Conference, the 1942 event which set the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
in motion. He was appointed President of the People's Court in 1942, overseeing the prosecution of
political crime
In criminology, a political crime or political offence is an offence involving overt acts or omissions (where there is a duty to act), which prejudice the interests of the state, its government, or the political system. It is to be distingui ...
s as a judge, and became known for his aggressive personality, his humiliation of defendants, and frequent use of the
death penalty
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 ...
in sentencing.
Although the death penalty was abolished with the creation of the
Federal Republic in 1949, Freisler's 1941 definition of
murder in German law, as opposed to the less severe crime of ''killing'', survives in the
Strafgesetzbuch
''Strafgesetzbuch'' (), abbreviated to ''StGB'', is the German penal code.
History
In Germany the ''Strafgesetzbuch'' goes back to the Penal Code of the German Empire passed in the year 1871 on May 15 in Reichstag which was largely identica ...
§ 211.
Early life
Roland Freisler was born on 30 October 1893 in
Celle
Celle () is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the river Aller, a tributary of the Weser, and has a population of about 71,000. Celle is the southern gateway to the Lü ...
,
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...
, the son of Julius Freisler (born 20 August 1862 in
Klantendorf,
Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The ...
), an engineer and teacher, and Charlotte Auguste Florentine Schwerdtfeger (30 April 1863 in Celle – 20 March 1932 in Kassel).
He was baptized as a
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
on 13 December 1893. He had a younger brother,
Oswald Oswald may refer to:
People
*Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name
*Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name
Fictional characters
*Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbur ...
, and another brother who was a doctor.
World War I
Freisler was attending
law school
A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction.
Law degrees Argentina
In Argentina, ...
at
Kiel University upon the outbreak of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
in 1914, which interrupted his studies.
[''Hitlers Helfer - Ronald Freisler der Hinrichter'' (Hitler's Henchmen - Roland Freisler, the Executioner), ZDF Enterprizes (1998), television documentary series, by Guido Knopp.] He saw active service in the
German Imperial Army
The Imperial German Army (1871–1919), officially referred to as the German Army (german: Deutsches Heer), was the unified ground and air force of the German Empire. It was established in 1871 with the political unification of Germany under the l ...
during the war after enlisting as an
officer cadet in 1914 with the ''Ober-Elsässisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr.167'' in
Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
,
[''Hitler's Helfer'' by Guido Knopp (Pub. Goldmann, 1998).] and by 1915 he was a
lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations.
The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...
.
Whilst in the front-line with the
22nd Division, he was awarded 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 ...
both 2nd and 1st Class for heroism in action.
In October 1915, he was wounded in action on the
Eastern Front and taken
prisoner of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...
by
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
forces.
While a prisoner, Freisler learned to speak
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
and developed an interest in
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
after the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
had commenced. The
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
provisional authority which took over responsibility for Freisler's prisoner of war camp made use of him as a "
Commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means 'commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and Eas ...
" (as he was described by them in his repatriated prisoner of war paperwork in 1918) administratively organizing the camp's food supplies from 1917 to 1918.
[Knopp, Guido, ''Hitler's Hitmen'', Sutton Publishing, 2000, pp. 216, 220-22, 228, 250.] It is possible that, after the Russian prisoner of war camps were emptying in 1918, with their internees being repatriated to Germany after the
Armistice between Russia and the Central Powers
On , an armistice was signed between the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on the one side and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire—the Central Powers—on the other. The armi ...
had been signed, Freisler for a brief period became attached in some way to the
Red Guards
Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...
, though this is not supported by any known documentary evidence.
[Wesel, Uwe. "Drei Todesurteile pro Tag" (Three death sentences per day), ''Die Zeit'', 3 February 2005]
Text in German
Uwe Wesel is professor emeritus of Legal History in Berlin's Free University.
Another possibility is that after the Russian Revolution the description "Commissar" was merely an administrative title given by the Bolshevik authority for anyone employed in an administrative post in the prison camps without the political connotations that the title later acquired. However, in the early days of his
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 ...
career in the 1920s, Freisler was a part of the movement's left wing.
In the late 1930s, during
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
's
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, Freisler attended the
Moscow Trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of th ...
to watch the proceedings against the condemned. Freisler later rejected any insinuation that he had ever co-operated with the Soviets, the ideological nemesis of Nazi Germany, but his subsequent career as a political official in Germany was overshadowed by rumours about his time as a "Commissar" with the "Reds".
Post-war legal career
He returned to Germany in 1919 to complete his law studies at the
University of Jena
The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The un ...
, and qualified as a
Doctor of Law
A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor (LL ...
in 1922. From 1924, he worked as a
solicitor
A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...
in
Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
, and was also elected as a city councillor as a member of the ''
Völkisch-Sozialer Block'' ("People's Social Block"), an
ultranationalist
Ultranationalism or extreme nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its sp ...
splinter party. He joined the Nazi Party in July 1925 as Member #9679,
and gained authority immediately within the organisation by using his legal training to defend members of it who were regularly facing prosecutions for acts of
political violence
Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a state against other states (war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-state actors (forced ...
. As the Party transitioned from a fringe political beer-hall and street fighting movement into a political party, Freisler was elected to the
Prussian Landtag
The Landtag of Prussia (german: Preußischer Landtag) was the representative assembly of the Kingdom of Prussia implemented in 1849, a bicameral legislature consisting of the upper House of Lords (''Herrenhaus'') and the lower House of Represent ...
, and later he became a Member of the
Reichstag.
In 1927,
Karl Weinrich, a Nazi member of the Prussian Landtag along with Freisler, characterised his then reputation in the rapidly expanding Nazi movement in the late 1920s: "Rhetorically Freisler is equal to our best speakers, if not superior; particularly on the broad masses he has influence, but thinking people mostly reject him. Party Comrade Freisler is usable as only a speaker though and is unsuitable for any position of authority because of his unreliablity and moodiness."
Career in Nazi Germany
In February 1933, after Hitler had seized power over the German state, Freisler was appointed Ministerial Director in the Prussian Ministry of Justice. He was
Secretary of State in the Prussian Ministry of Justice in 1933–1934, and in the
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 ...
from 1934 to 1942. On the founding 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 ...
by
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 ...
, Freisler was made a member and the chairman of its Criminal Law Committee.
Freisler's mastery of legal texts, mental agility, dramatic courtroom verbal dexterity and verbal force, in combination with his zealous conversion to
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 ...
ideology, made him the most feared judge in
Nazi Germany
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 ...
, and the personification of Nazism in domestic law. However, despite his talents and loyalty, Adolf Hitler never appointed him to any post beyond the legal system. That might have been because he was a lone figure, lacking support within the senior echelons of the Nazi hierarchy, but he had also been politically compromised by his brother,
Oswald Freisler, also a lawyer. Oswald had acted as a defence counsel against the regime's authority several times during the increasingly politically driven trials by which the Nazis sought to enforce their tyrannical control of German society, and he had the habit of wearing his Nazi Party membership badge in court whilst doing so. Propaganda minister
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
reproached Oswald Freisler and reported his actions to Adolf Hitler who, in response, ordered Freisler's expulsion from the Party. (Oswald Freisler died, allegedly by committing suicide, in 1939.)
In 1941, in a discussion at the "Führer Headquarters" about whom to appoint to replace
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 ...
, the Reich Justice Minister, who had died, Goebbels suggested Roland Freisler as an option; Hitler's reply, referring to Freisler's alleged "Red" past, was: "That old Bolshevik? No!"
Contribution to the Nazification of the law
Freisler was a committed
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 ...
ideologist, and used his legal skills to adapt its theories into practical law-making and judicature. He published a paper entitled ''Die rassebiologische Aufgabe bei der Neugestaltung des Jugendstrafrechts'' ("The racial-biological task involved in the reform of juvenile criminal law"). In this document he argued that "racially foreign, racially degenerate, racially incurable or seriously defective juveniles" should be sent to juvenile centres or correctional education centres and segregated from those who are "German and racially valuable".
He strongly advocated the creation of laws to punish ''
Rassenschande
''Rassenschande'' (, "racial shame") or ''Blutschande'' ( "blood disgrace") was an anti-miscegenation concept in Nazi German racial policy, pertaining to sexual relations between Aryans and non-Aryans. It was put into practice by policies like ...
'' ("race defilement", the Nazi term for sexual relations between "Aryans" and "inferior races"), to be classed as "racial treason". Freisler looked to racist laws in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
as a model for Nazi legislation to target Jews in Germany. Freisler considered American
Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
racist legislation "primitive" for failing to provide a legal definition of the term black or negro person. Nevertheless, while some more conservative Nazi lawyers objected to the lack of precision with which a person could be defined as a "Jew," he argued that American judges were able to identify black people for purposes of laws in American states that prohibited "
miscegenation
Miscegenation ( ) is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races. The word, now usually considered pejorative, is derived from a combination of the Latin terms ''miscere'' ("to mix") and ''genus'' ("race") ...
" between black and white people, and laws that otherwise codified
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
, and, therefore, German laws could similarly target Jews even if the term "Jew" could not be given a precise legal definition.
In 1933, he published a pamphlet calling for the legal prohibition of "mixed-blood" sexual intercourse, which met with expressions of public unease in the dying elements of the German free press and non-Nazi political classes and, at the time, lacked public authorization from the policy of the Nazi Party, which had only just obtained dictatorial control of the state. It also led to a clash with his superior
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 ...
,
[ Koonz, Claudia, ''The Nazi Conscience'', pp 173-174 ] but Freisler's ideological views reflected things to come, as was shown by the enactment of the
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...
within two years.
In October 1939, he introduced the concept of 'precocious juvenile criminal' in the "Juvenile Felons Decree". This "provided the legal basis for imposing the death penalty and penitentiary terms on juveniles for the first time in German legal history."
[Wayne Geerling, Id.] Between 1933 and 1945, the Reich's Courts sentenced at least 72 German juveniles to death, among them 17-year-old
Helmuth Hübener
Helmuth Günther Guddat Hübener (8 January 1925 – 27 October 1942) was a German youth who was executed at age 17 by beheading for his opposition to the Nazi regime. He was the youngest person of the German resistance to Nazism to be sent ...
, found guilty of high treason for distributing anti-war leaflets in 1942.
On the outbreak of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Freisler issued a legal "Decree against National Parasites" (September 1939) introducing the term ''perpetrator type'', which was used in combination with another Nazi ideological term, ''parasite.'' The adoption of racial biological terminology into law portrayed juvenile criminality as 'parasitical', implying the need for harsher sentences to remedy it. He justified the new concept with: "in times of war, breaches of loyalty and baseness cannot find any leniency and must be met with the full force of the law."
Wannsee Conference
On 20 January 1942, Freisler, representing the Reich Minister
Franz Schlegelberger, attended the
Wannsee Conference of senior governmental officials in a villa on the southwestern outskirts of Berlin to provide expert legal advice for the planning of
the destruction of European Jewry.
Presidency of the People's Court
On 20 August 1942, Hitler promoted
Otto Georg Thierack
Otto Georg Thierack (19 April 188926 October 1946) was a German Nazi jurist and politician.
Early life and career
Thierack was born in Wurzen in Saxony. He took part in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 as a volunteer, reaching the rank of ...
to Reich Justice Minister, replacing the retiring Schlegelberger, and named Freisler to succeed Thierack as president of the
People's Court (''Volksgerichtshof''). This court had jurisdiction over a broad array of political offences, including
black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
eering, work slowdowns and defeatism. These actions were viewed by Freisler as ''
Wehrkraftzersetzung
''Wehrkraftzersetzung'' or ''Zersetzung der Wehrkraft'' (German for "undermining defence force") was a sedition offence in German military law during the Nazi Germany era from 1938 to 1945.
''Wehrkraftzersetzung'' was enacted in 1938 by decree ...
'' (undermining defensive capability) and were punished severely, with many death sentences. The People's Court under Freisler's domination almost always sided with the prosecuting authority, to the point that being brought before it was tantamount to a
capital
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
charge. Its separate administrative existence beyond the ordinary judicial system, despite its trappings, rapidly turned it into an executive execution arm and psychological domestic terror weapon of Nazi Germany's
totalitarian
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regul ...
regime, in the tradition of a
revolutionary tribunal
The Revolutionary Tribunal (french: Tribunal révolutionnaire; unofficially Popular Tribunal) was a court instituted by the National Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders. It eventually became one of the ...
rather than a court of law.
He chaired the First Senate of the People's Court wearing a blood
scarlet judicial robe, in a hearing chamber bedecked with scarlet
swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
-draped banners and a large black sculpted
bust
Bust commonly refers to:
* A woman's breasts
* Bust (sculpture), of head and shoulders
* An arrest
Bust may also refer to:
Places
* Bust, Bas-Rhin, a city in France
*Lashkargah, Afghanistan, known as Bust historically
Media
* ''Bust'' (magazin ...
of Adolf Hitler's head upon a high pedestal behind his chair, opening each hearing session with the
Nazi salute
The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute (german: link=no, Hitlergruß, , Hitler greeting, ; also called by the Nazi Party , 'German greeting', ), or the ''Sieg Heil'' salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. Th ...
from the
bench.
He acted as prosecutor, judge and jury combined, and also as his own recorder, thereby controlling the record of the written grounds for the sentences that he passed.
The frequency of death sentences rose sharply under Freisler's rule. Approximately 90% of all cases that came before him ended in guilty verdicts. Between 1942 and 1945, more than 5,000 death sentences were decreed by him, 2,600 of these through the court's First Senate, which Freisler controlled. He was responsible in his three years on the court for as many death sentences as all other senate sessions of the court combined in the court's existence between 1934 and 1945.
Freisler became known during this period for berating each member of the steady stream of defendants passing before him. He was known to be interested in
Andrei Vyshinsky
Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (russian: Андре́й Януа́рьевич Выши́нский; pl, Andrzej Wyszyński) ( – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat.
He is known as a state prosecutor of Joseph S ...
, the Chief Prosecutor of the
Soviet purge trials, and had attended those show-trials to watch Vyshinsky's courtroom performances in a similar capacity in Moscow in 1938.
[Shirer, William, ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'' (Touchstone Edition) (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990)]
White Rose show-trials
On February 18, 1943,
Sophie Scholl
Sophia Magdalena Scholl (9 May 1921 – 22 February 1943) was a German student and anti-Nazi political activist, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany.
She was convicted of high treason after having been f ...
and
Hans Scholl
Hans Fritz Scholl (; 22 September 1918 – 22 February 1943) was, along with Alexander Schmorell, one of the two founding members of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. The principal author of the resistance movement's ...
were captured by the Gestapo. Through questioning, it became clear that the two siblings were part of a resistance group called the
White Rose
The White Rose (german: Weiße Rose, ) was a Nonviolence, non-violent, intellectual German resistance to Nazism, resistance group in Nazi Germany which was led by five students (and one professor) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, ...
that was attempting to sow discord in Germany by the use of mailing pamphlets urging passive resistance.
On February 22, 1943, Freisler was flown into Munich for the sole purpose of presiding over their “trial”.
The verdict was as expected: Guilty. Freisler had sentenced them to death by hanging, but fearful of them being raised to martyrdom status if they were publicly killed, it was decided to kill them by Guillotine.
On April 19, 1943, Freisler was flown back again to stand as judge over the second trial of the White Rose members. Out of the thirteen defendants, three were sentenced to death, nine were given prison sentences, and one was acquitted.
20 July Plot show-trials
In August 1944, some of the arrested perpetrators of the
failed assassination of Adolf Hitler were brought before Freisler for punishment. The proceedings were filmed in order to be shown to the German public in cinema newsreels, and portray how Freisler ran his court; he would often alternate between questioning the defendants in an analytical manner, then suddenly launch into a furious verbal tirade, even going so far as to shout insults at the accused from the bench. The shift from cold, clinical interrogation to fits of screaming rage was designed to psychologically disarm, torment and humiliate those on trial, while discouraging any attempt on their part to defend or justify their actions. At one point, Freisler yelled at
Field Marshal
Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...
Erwin von Witzleben
Job Wilhelm Georg Erdmann Erwin von Witzleben (4 December 1881 – 8 August 1944) was a German field marshal in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. A leading conspirator in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was designated to ...
, who was trying to hold up his trousers after having purposely been given old, oversized and beltless clothing: "You dirty old man, why do you keep fiddling with your trousers?"
Another instance is from Freisler's public appearance during the trial of defendant
Ulrich-Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld. The footage taken shows Freisler drowning out Schwerin's weak and muted testimony, prompted by his concern over the Wehrmacht's "numerous murders in Poland", by roaring at him in an exaggerated and theatrical manner, declaring "''Sie sind ja ein schäbiger Lump!''" (roughly, "You really are a lousy piece of trash!").
Nearly all of the accused were sentenced to death by hanging, with some of the sentences being carried out within two hours of the verdict being delivered.
Death
On the morning of 3 February 1945, Freisler was conducting a Saturday session of the People's Court when
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
bombers
attacked Berlin, led by the
B-17
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
of
Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...
Robert Rosenthal. Government and Nazi Party buildings were hit, including the
Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery (german: Reichskanzlei) was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared s ...
, the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
headquarters, the Party Chancellery and the People's Court. Hearing the air raid sirens, Freisler hastily adjourned the court and ordered that the prisoners before him be taken to an air raid shelter, but stayed behind to gather files before leaving. A bomb struck the court-building at 11:08,
causing a partial internal collapse, and a masonry column came loose whilst Freisler was distracted by his documents. The column came crashing down on Freisler, causing him to be crushed and killed instantly. Due to the column collapsing, a large portion of the courtroom also landed on Freisler's corpse.
[Granberg, Jerje. AP dispatch from Stockholm, reprinted as "Berlin, Nerves Racked By Air Raids, Fears Russian Army Most," ''Oakland Tribune'', 23 February 1945, pg. 1.]
Among the files was that of
Fabian von Schlabrendorff
Fabian Ludwig Georg Adolf Kurt von Schlabrendorff (; 1 July 1907 – 3 September 1980) was a German jurist, soldier, and member of the German resistance against Adolf Hitler. From 1967 to 1975 he was a judge of the German Fede ...
, a
20 July Plot
On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. The ...
member who was on trial that day and facing execution. The flattened remains of Freisler were found beneath the rubble still clutching the files he had stopped to retrieve.
A differing account stated that Freisler "was killed by a bomb fragment while trying to escape from his law court to the air-raid shelter," and "bled to death on the pavement outside the People's Court at Bellevuestrasse 15 in Berlin". Von Schlabrendorff was "standing near Freisler when the latter met his end".
Von Schlabrendorff was re-tried, acquitted, and survived the war, and ultimately followed Freisler as a judge, on the
West German Constitutional Court.
A foreign correspondent reported, "Apparently nobody regretted his death".
Luise Jodl, wife of General
Alfred Jodl
Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl (; 10 May 1890 – 16 October 1946) was a German ''Generaloberst'' who served as the chief of the Operations Staff of the '' Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' – the German Armed Forces High Command – throughout World ...
, recounted more than 25 years later that she had been working at the Lützow Hospital when Freisler's body was brought in, and that a worker commented, "It is God's verdict." According to Mrs. Jodl: "Not one person said a word in reply." His body was buried in the grave of his wife's family at the
Waldfriedhof Dahlem
The Waldfriedhof Dahlem ( Dahlem forest cemetery) is a cemetery in Berlin, in the district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf on the edge of the Grunewald forest at Hüttenweg 47. Densely planted with conifers and designed between 1931 and 1933 after the ...
Cemetery in Berlin. His name is not recorded on the gravestone.
Personal life
He married
Marion Russegger on 24 March 1928; the couple had two sons, Harald and Roland.
[Jonas Hubner, ''Unrechtspflege: Roland Freisler und die hessische Justiz''.]
Freisler in film and fiction
Freisler appears in a fictionalized form in the
Hans Fallada
Hans Fallada (; born Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen; 21 July 18935 February 1947) was a German writer of the first half of the 20th century. Some of his better known novels include '' Little Man, What Now?'' (1932) and ''Every Man Dies Alone'' ...
novel ''
Every Man Dies Alone
''Every Man Dies Alone'' or ''Alone in Berlin'' (german: Jeder stirbt für sich allein) is a 1947 novel by German author Hans Fallada. It is based on the true story of working-class husband and wife Otto and Elise Hampel who, acting alone, beca ...
'' (1947). In 1943 he tried and handed down death penalties to
Otto and Elise Hampel
Otto and Elise Hampel were a working class German couple who created a simple method of protest against Nazism in Berlin during the middle years of World War II. They wrote postcards denouncing Hitler's government and left them in public pla ...
, who were both guillotined for distributing anti-Nazi postcards, and whose true story inspired Fallada's novel.
In the novel ''
Fatherland
A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethn ...
'' (1992) by
Robert Harris, which takes place in an alternate 1964 in which Nazi Germany won World War II, Freisler is mentioned as having survived until winter 1954, when he is killed by a maniac with a knife on the steps of the Berlin People's Court. It is implied that his death was actually caused by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
, to ensure that the Wannsee Conference and the Holocaust remained a secret.
Freisler has been portrayed by screen actors at least seven times: by Rainer Steffen in the German television film ''
Wannseekonferenz'' (1984), by in the Anglo-French-German film
''Reunion'' (1989), by
Brian Cox in the British television film ''Witness Against Hitler'' (1996), by
Owen Teale
Owen Teale (born 20 May 1961) is a Welsh character actor known for his role as Ser Alliser Thorne in the HBO fantasy TV series ''Game of Thrones''.
Early life
Owen Teale was born on 20 May 1961, in North Cornelly, south Wales, son of Roy and ...
in the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'' (2012, uncredited).
* Lt. Col.
*Breuning, Stephan. ''Roland Freisler: Rechtsideologien im III. Reich. Neuhegelianismus kontra Hegel'' ("Legal ideologies in the Third Reich. Neo-Hegelianism ''contra'' Hegel") Hamburg, Kovac 2002, .
*Buchheit, Gert. ''Richter in roter Robe. Freisler, Präsident des Volksgerichtshofes'' ("Judges in Red Robes. Freisler, President of the People's Court") München, 1968.
*Geerling, Wayne. "Protecting the National Community From Juvenile Delinquency: Nazification of Juvenile Criminal Law in the Third Reich", a chapter from the author's dissertation ''Resistance as High Treason: Juvenile Resistance in the Third Reich'', Melbourne University, 2001.
*
*Knopp, Guido. ''Hitler's Hitmen'' (Ch. 4, "The Hanging Judge"). Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2002.
*Koch, H. W. ''In the Name of the Volk: Political Justice in Hitler's Germany'' London, 1989.
*Ortner, Helmut. ''Der Hinrichter. Roland Freisler, Mörder im Dienste Hitlers'' ("The Executioner. Roland Freisler, Murderer in Hitler's Service") Wien, Zsolnay 1993, .
* 20 July 1944 plot—Trials before the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof) -- YouTube video in German—Shows Roland Freisler in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQfW6hHWWuM
*
* - actual footage of Freisler trying a resistance group
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freisler, Roland