Lothar Kreyssig

Lothar Kreyssig
Nationality	German
Occupation	Judge
Known for	Opposing the Nazis, postwar reconciliation efforts

Lothar Kreyssig (October 30, 1898 – July 6, 1986) was a German judge during the Weimar and Nazi era. He was the only German judge who attempted to stop the Action T4 euthanasia program, an intervention that cost him his job. After the Second World War, he was again offered a judgeship, but declined. Later, he became an advocate of German reconciliation and founded the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace and the German development aid non-government organization, Action for World Solidarity.

Lothar Ernst Paul Kreyssig was born in Flöha, Saxony, the son of a businessman and grain merchant. After elementary school, he attended a gymnasium in Chemnitz. He set aside his education and enlisted in the army in 1916, during the First World War. Two years of service in the war took him to France, the Baltics and Serbia. After the war, between 1919 and 1922, he studied law in Leipzig, receiving his doctorate in 1923. In 1926, he went to work at the district court in Chemnitz and two years later, became a judge there.

In 1933, Kreyssig was pressured to join the Nazi party, but refused, citing his need for judicial independence. However, in 1934, he joined the Confessing Church and in 1935, was elected Praeses at the synod of the Confessing Church in Saxony.

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