Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945) was State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the Volksgerichtshof "People's Court" of Nazi Germany. He was responsible for conducting a series of infamous trials under Adolf Hitler.
Biography[]
Freisler in 1944
Roland Freisler was born on 30 October 1893 in Celle, Lower Saxony, German Empire. Freisler fought in World War I and earned two Iron Crosses in combat, and in October 1915 he was captured by the Imperial Russian Army. Freisler learned Russian while imprisoned and became interested in Marxism after the 1917 Russian Revolution, being made commissar for the camp's food supplies and becoming a convinced communist after the POW camps were dissolved in 1918. In 1920 he returned to Germany to study law at the University of Jena, and he became a lawyer. In July 1925, Freisler joined the Nazi Party and became a defense counsel for Nazis who were charged with treason, and he was in the left-wing faction of the party. However, he was an unreliable and moody person, and he was little better than a great speaker. From 1934 to 1942 he was State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice, representing it at the Wannsee Conference of 20 January 1942 that decided to implement the Holocaust as the "final solution" to Germany's "problem" with Jews. In 1942, Otto Georg Thierack was made Minister of Justice, and Freisler took his place at the head of the People's Court. On 3 February 1945, he was conducting a trial when the USAF bombed Berlin, and he adjourned the court while he stayed behind to collect files. However, a near-direct hit led to a masonry pillar crushing Freisler to death as he held Fabian von Schlabrendorff's trial papers.