Roland Freisler
| Roland Freisler | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Judge President of the People's Court | |
|
In office 20 August 1942 – 3 February 1945 |
|
| Nominated by | Adolf Hitler |
| Appointed by | Heinrich Himmler |
| Preceded by | Otto Thierack |
| Succeeded by | Harry Haffner |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
30 October 1893 Celle, Lower Saxony, German Empire |
| Died | 3 February 1945 (aged 51) Berlin, Nazi Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party | National Socialist Workers' Party |
| Other political affiliations |
Völkisch-Sozialer Block |
| Spouse(s) | Marion Russegger (m. 1928) |
| Relations | Oswald Freisler (brother) |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | University of Jena |
| Occupation | Judge |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Awards | Iron Cross 1st Class & 2nd Class |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |
 German Empire
|
| Service/branch | Prussian Army |
| Years of service | 1914–1918 |
| Battles/wars | World War I |
Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945) was a jurist and judge of Nazi Germany. He was State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice, and President of the People's Court. He was also an attendee at the Conference at Wannsee in 1942 which set in motion the administrative planning for the destruction of European Jewry.
Roland Freisler was born in Celle, Lower Saxony, on 30 October 1893. He was the son of Julius Freisler (born 20 August 1862 in Klantendorf, Moravia), an engineer and teacher, and Charlotte Auguste Florentine Schwerdtfeger (born 30 April 1863 in Celle – died 20 March 1932 in Kassel). He was baptised as a Protestant on 13 December 1893. He had a younger brother, Oswald. In 1914 he was at law school when the outbreak of war interrupted his studies.
Freisler saw active service during World War I. He enlisted as an officer cadet in 1914 with the Ober-Elsassiches Infanterie Regiment Nr.167 in Kassel, and by 1915 he was a lieutenant. Whilst in the front-line with the German Imperial Army's 22nd Division he was awarded the Iron Cross 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 by Russian forces.
Whilst a prisoner Freisler learned to speak Russian, and developed an interest in Marxism after the Russian Revolution had commenced. The Bolshevik provisional authority which took over responsibility for Freisler's prisoner of war camp made use of him as a 'Commissar' (as he was described by them in his repatriated prisoner of war paperwork in 1918) administratively organising the camp's food supplies in 1917-1918. 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 had been signed, Freisler for a brief period became attached in some way to the Red Guards, though this is not supported by any known documentary evidence. 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, though in the early days of his National Socialist German Workers' Party career in the 1920s Freisler was a part of the movement's left wing, and in the late 1930s he attended the Soviet Moscow Trials to watch the proceedings. Freisler later rejected any insinuation that he had ever co-operated with the Nazi Regime's ideological enemy, but his subsequent career as a political official in Germany was overshadowed by rumours about his time as a "Commissar" with the "Reds".
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