Roland Freisler - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Roland Freisler

Birth	30 October 1893 Celle 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... , Lower Saxony Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany... , Germany Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Death	Berlin Berlin Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
Party	National Socialist German Workers Party National Socialist German Workers Party The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920... (NSDAP)
Party and Political Positions	Member of the Reichstag Secretary of State of the Reich Ministry of Justice President of the Volksgerichtshof Representative of the Reich Ministry of Justice to the Wannsee Conference Wannsee Conference The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich... , January 20 and March 6, 1942

Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945) was a prominent and notorious Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

lawyer and judge

Judge

A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...

. He was State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof), which was set up outside constitutional authority. This court handled political by conducting a series of show trial

Show trial

The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...

Early life

In contrast to most of the Nazi leadership, not much beyond basic detail is known about Freisler. He was born in Celle

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...

, the son of an engineer, and saw active service during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. He was an officer cadet in 1914, and by 1915 he was a Lieutenant

Lieutenant

A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

. He won a decoration.
In October 1915, he was captured by Russian

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

troops.

While a prisoner of war

Prisoner of war

A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...

in Russia, Freisler learned Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

. He is said to have developed an interest in Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

after the Russian Revolution

Russian Revolution

Russian Revolution can refer to:* Russian Revolution , a series of strikes and uprisings against Nicholas II, resulting in the creation of State Duma.* Russian Revolution...

, The Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

s made use of him as a commissar for the camp's food supplies. It is also said that after the prisoner camps were dissolved in 1918, Freisler became a convinced Communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

, though this is not supported by any contemporaneous documents. However, historian H. W. Koch states that after the Bolshevik Revolution, the POW camps in Russia were handed over to German administration, and the title of commissar was merely functional, not political, and that "Freisler was never a Communist, though in the early days of his NS career [...] he belonged to the NSDAP's left wing."

Freisler himself rejected all accusations that he had even tentatively approached the hated enemy, but he could never fully escape the stigma of being a bolshie.

He returned to Germany in 1920 to study law at the University of Jena, becoming a Doctor of Law

Doctor of law

Doctor of Law or Doctor of Laws is a doctoral degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country, and includes degrees such as the LL.D., Ph.D., J.D., J.S.D., and Dr. iur.-Argentina:...

in 1922. From 1924, he worked as a lawyer in Kassel

Kassel

Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

. He was also elected a city councillor, as a member of the Völkisch
Völkisch movement
The volkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic"...

-Sozialer Block (German, roughly "People's Social Block"), an extreme nationalist splinter party.

In 1928, he married Marion Russegger. Together, they had two sons, Harald and Roland.

Involvement with the Nazi Party

Even though the Nazis declared themselves arch-enemies of Marxism, Freisler joined the Nazi Party in July 1925. He registered with the NSDAP as member number 9679. During this period, he served as defense counsel for members of the nascent Party who got into trouble with the law. He was also a delegate to the Prussian Landtag, or state legislature, and later he became a member of the Reichstag

Reichstag (Weimar Republic)

The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...

.

In 1927, the Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...

of Kurhessen, Karl Weinrich

Karl Weinrich

Karl Weinrich Karl Weinrich Karl Weinrich (2 December 1887 in Molmeck – 22 July 1973 in Hausen was NSDAP Gauleiter of Kurhessen.Karl Weinrich was a member of the Nazi Party from August 1922. From 1925 to 1927 he was the NSDAP's Gau Treasurer. From 1930 to 1933 he was a member of the Prussian...

, characterized Freisler in the following manner: "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 only usable as a speaker. He is unsuitable for any leadership post, since he is an unreliable and moody person."

Career under Hitler

In February 1933, Freisler was appointed department head 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 from 1934–1942. He represented the latter at the Wannsee Conference

Wannsee Conference

The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich...

(20 January 1942), where he stood in for Minister Franz Schlegelberger

Franz Schlegelberger

Louis Rudolph Franz Schlegelberger was State Secretary in the German Reich Ministry of Justice and served awhile as Justice Minister during the Third Reich. He was the highest-ranking defendant at the Judges' Trial in Nuremberg.- Early life :Schlegelberger was born into a Protestant salesman's...

, as regarding the detailed plans of the Final Solution

Final Solution

The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...

, the murder of all European Jews.

Freisler's mastery of legal texts, mental agility and overwhelming verbal force combined well with strict adherence to the party line and the corresponding ideology, so that he became the most feared judge and the personification of the Nazis' "blood justice". Despite his undisputed legal competence, he was never appointed to cabinet. According to Uwe Wesel, this can be attributed to two factors. Firstly, Roland Freisler was regarded as a lone fighter and had no influential patron.

Secondly, he was compromised by his brother Oswald's rise actions. Oswald Freisler, though also a Nazi, appeared as the defense counsel in politically significant trials which the Nazis sought to use for propaganda purposes. Oswald even wore his Nazi Party badge in court, which confused the Party's role in these trials. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels

Joseph Goebbels

Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...

accordingly reproved Roland Freisler and reported the incident to Hitler, who, for his part, decreed the immediate exclusion of Oswald Freisler from the party.

According to Guido Knopp

Guido Knopp

Guido Knopp is a German journalist and author. He is well known in Germany, mainly because he has produced a great number of TV documentaries, predominantly about the "Third Reich" and National Socialism, but also about other topics, such as Stalinism.- Life and work :After gaining his doctorate...

, however, Goebbels was the only Nazi leader well disposed towards Freisler. In 1941, at a round-table discussion in the Führers headquarters, Goebbels proposed Freisler to replace Reich Justice Minister Franz Gürtner

Franz Gürtner

Franz Gürtner was a German Minister of Justice in Adolf Hitler's cabinet, responsible for coordinating jurisprudence in the Third Reich. Detesting the cruel ways of the Gestapo and SA in dealing with prisoners of war, he protested unsuccessfully to Hitler, nevertheless staying on in the cabinet,...

, who had died. Allegedly, Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's dismissive retort was: "That old Bolshevik? No!" Uwe Wesel reports a similar remark by Hitler.

Contribution to the Nazification of the law

Freisler published an article on "Die rassebiologische Aufgabe bei der Neugestaltung des Jugendstrafrechts ("The racial-biological task involved in the reform of Juvenile Criminal Law"). Freisler argued that "racially foreign, racially degenerate, racially incurable or seriously defective juveniles" should be sent to juvenile centres or correctional education centres and be segregated from those who are "German and racially valuable."

He strongly supported rigid laws against Rassenschande
Rassenschande
Rassenschande or Blutschande was the Nazi term for sexual relations between Aryans and non-Aryans, which was punishable by law...

("race defilement", the Nazi term for sexual relations between "Aryans" and inferior races) as racial treason. In 1933, Freisler published a pamphlet that called for banning "mixed-blood" intercourse, regardless of the kind or proportion of "foreign blood" involved, which faced strong public criticism and, at the time, no support from Hitler. This led to conflict with his superior, Franz Gürtner

Franz Gürtner

.

In October 1939, Freisler introduced the concept of 'precocious juvenile criminal' in the "Juvenile Felons Decree". This decree "provided the legal basis for imposing the death penalty and penitentiary terms on juveniles for the first time in German legal history". In the period 1933 through 1945, the courts sentenced at least 72 German juveniles to death, among them 16-year-old Helmuth Hübener

Helmuth Hübener

Helmuth Guddat Kunkel Hübener was the youngest opponent of the Third Reich to be sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof and executed.-Life:...

, found guilty of high treason for distributing anti-war leaflets in 1942.

The "Decree against National Parasites" (September 1939) introduced the term perpetrator type, which was used in combination with another Nazi term, parasite, The adoption of racial biological terminology portrayed juvenile criminality as parasitic, implying the need for harsher sentences. Freisler justified the new measures in the following manner: "In times of war, breach of loyalty and baseness cannot find any leniency and must be met with the full force of the law."

Presidency of the People's Court

On 20 August 1942, Hitler promoted Otto Georg Thierack

Otto Georg Thierack

Otto Georg Thierack was a 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 lieutenant. He suffered a face injury and was decorated with the Iron Cross, second class...

to Reich Justice Minister, replacing the retiring Schlegelberger, and named Freisler to succeed Thierack as president of the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof). This court, set up outside the frame of law, had jurisdiction over a rather broad array of "political offences", including black marketeering, work slowdowns, and defeatism. These actions were viewed by Freisler's court as Wehrkraftzersetzung
Wehrkraftzersetzung
Wehrkraftzersetzung is a term from German military law during the Third Reich. In 1938, with Adolf Hitler moving Germany closer to war, the Nazi government issued a decree for the purpose of suppressing any expression or activity opposed to the Nazi regime or the Wehrmacht...

(undermining defensive capability) and were accordingly punished severely, the death penalty being meted out in numerous cases. The People's Court almost always sided with the prosecution, to the point that being brought before it was tantamount to a death sentence. Not surprisingly, it was viewed as a kangaroo court

Kangaroo court

A kangaroo court is "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or...

.

Freisler chaired the First Senate of the People's Court, and acted as judge, jury and prosecution embodied into one man. He also acted as court recorder; that way, he was responsible for the composition of the written grounds for the sentences that he wrote up in his own unique fashion, namely in accordance with his own notions of a "National Socialist criminal court".

The number of death sentences rose sharply under Freisler's stewardship. Approximately 90% of all proceedings ended with sentences of death or life imprisonment, the sentences frequently having been determined before the trial. Between 1942 and 1945, more than 5,000 death sentences were handed out, and of these, 2,600 through the court's First Senate, which Freisler headed. Thus, Freisler alone was responsible, in his three years on the court, for as many death sentences as all other senate sessions of the court together in the entire time the court existed, between 1934 and 1945.

Freisler was known for humiliating defendants and shouting at them. He was known to be an admirer of Andrei Vyshinsky, the chief prosecutor of the Soviet purge trials

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

, and reportedly copied his demeanor. A number of the trials for defendants in the 20 July Plot before the People's Court were filmed and recorded. In the 1944 trial against Ulrich Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld

Ulrich Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld

Ulrich-Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld was a German landowner, officer, and resistance fighter against the Nazi régime.- Biography :...

, for example, Freisler shouted so loudly that the technicians who were filming the proceeding had major problems making the defendant's words audible. Schwerin von Schwanenfeld, like many other defendants in the plot, was sentenced to death by hanging. Among this and other show trials, Freisler headed the 1943 proceedings against the members of the White Rose

White Rose

The White Rose was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor...

resistance group, and ordered many of its members to be executed by guillotine

Guillotine

The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...

Death

On 3 February 1945, Freisler was conducting a Saturday session of the People's Court, when American

United States Army Air Forces

The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....

bombers attacked Berlin. Government and Nazi Party buildings were hit, including the Reich Chancellery

Reich Chancellery

The Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany in the period of the German Reich from 1871 to 1945...

, the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

headquarters, the Party Chancellery, and the People's Court.

According to one report, Freisler hastily adjourned court and had ordered that day's prisoners to be taken to a shelter, but paused to gather that day's files. Freisler was killed when an almost direct hit on the building caused him to be struck down by a beam in his own courtroom. His body was reportedly found crushed beneath a fallen masonry column, clutching the files that he had tried to retrieve. Among those files was that of Fabian von Schlabrendorff

Fabian von Schlabrendorff

Fabian Ludwig Georg Adolf Kurt von Schlabrendorff , was a German jurist, soldier and member of the resistance against Adolf Hitler....

, a 20 July Plot member who was on trial that day and was facing execution.

According to a different report, Freisler "was killed by a bomb fragment while trying to escape from his law court to the air-raid shelter", and he "bled to death on the pavement outside the People's Court at Bellevuestrasse 15 in Berlin." Fabian von Schlabrendorff was "standing near his judge when the latter met his end."

Freisler's death saved von Schlabrendorff, who after the war became a judge of the Constitutional Court of the Federal Republic of Germany

Federal Constitutional Court of Germany

The Federal Constitutional Court is a special court established by the Grundgesetz, the German basic law...

(Bundesverfassungsgericht).

Yet another version of Freisler's death states that he was killed by a British bomb that came through the ceiling of his courtroom as he was trying two women, who survived the explosion.

A foreign correspondent reported, "Apparently nobody regretted his death." Luise Jodl, the widow of General Alfred Jodl

Alfred Jodl

Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl was a German military commander, attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel...

, recounted more than 25 years later that she had been working at the Luetzow 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."

Freisler is interred in the plot of his wife's family at the Waldfriedhof Dahlem

Waldfriedhof Dahlem

The Waldfriedhof Dahlem 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 plans of Albert Brodersen, it is one of Berlin's more recent cemeteries...

cemetery in Berlin. His name is not shown on the gravestone.

Fictional portrayals

Freisler is the "fictional" character Judge Feisler in the 1947 Hans Fallada

Hans Fallada

Hans Fallada , born Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen in Greifswald, Germany, was a German writer of the first half of the 20th century. Some of his better known novels include Little Man, What Now? and Every Man Dies Alone...

novel Every Man Dies Alone
Every Man Dies Alone
Every Man Dies Alone or Alone in Berlin is a 1947 novel by German author Hans Fallada. It is based on the true story of a working class husband and wife, Otto and Elise Hampel, who committed acts of civil disobedience in Berlin during World War II before being caught, tried by infamous Nazi judge...

(Jeder stirbt für sich allein). In 1943 he tried and handed down death penalties to Otto and Elise Hampel

Otto and Elise Hampel

Otto and Elise Hampel were a working-class couple who created a simple method of protest while living in Berlin during the early years of World War II. They composed postcards denouncing Hitler's government and left them in public places around the city. They were eventually caught, tried, and...

, whose true story inspired Fallada's novel.

Freisler has been portrayed by screen actors at least five times: by Rainer Steffen in the 1984 German television movie Wannseekonferenz, by Brian Cox in the British 1996 television movie Witness Against Hitler, by Owen Teale

Owen Teale

Owen Teale is a Welsh actor.Trained at the Guildford School of Acting, Teale made his television debut in The Mimosa Boys in 1984. He later appeared in Knights of God , Great Expectations , Waterfront Beat and Boon before being cast as Will Scarlet in the 1991 TV movie Robin Hood...

in the 2001 BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

/HBO film Conspiracy, by André Hennicke

André Hennicke

André Hennicke is a German actor.Hennicke was born in Johanngeorgenstadt in Saxony. He was awarded a German television award for his work in Toter Mann in 2002...

in the 2005 film Sophie Scholl – The Final Days
Sophie Scholl – The Final Days
Sophie Scholl – The Final Days is a 2005 German film by director Marc Rothemund and writer Fred Breinersdorfer. It is about the last days in the life of Sophie Scholl, a 21-year-old member of the anti-Nazi non-violent student resistance group the White Rose, part of the German Resistance movement...

, and by Helmut Stauss in the 2008 film Valkyrie
Valkyrie (film)
Valkyrie is a 2008 American historical thriller film set in Nazi Germany during World War II. The film depicts the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country...

.

External links

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