Roland Freisler Roland Freisler ( 30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945 ) was a prominent and notorious Nazi lawyer and judge . 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 actions against Hitler ' s dictatorial regime by conducting a series of show trials . Early life . In contrast to most of the Nazi leadership , not much beyond basic detail is known about Freisler . He was born in Celle , the son of an engineer , and saw active service during World War I . He was an officer cadet in 1914 , and by 1915 he was a Lieutenant . He won the Iron Cross of both classes . In October 1915 , after fighting and being wounded at the western front , he was captured by Russian troops . While a prisoner of war in Russia , Freisler learned Russian . He is said to have developed an interest in Marxism after the Russian Revolution ; the Bolsheviks 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 , 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 in 1922 . From 1924 , he worked as a lawyer in Kassel . He was also elected a city councillor , as a member of the " Völkisch - 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 . 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 . In 1927 , the " Gauleiter " of Kurhessen , Karl Weinrich , 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 ( 20 January 1942 ) , where he stood in for Minister Franz Schlegelberger , as regarding the detailed plans of the Final Solution , 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 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 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 , however , Goebbels was the only Nazi leader well disposed towards Freisler . In 1941 , at a round - table discussion in the " Führer " s headquarters , Goebbels proposed Freisler to replace Reich Justice Minister Franz Gürtner , who had died . Allegedly , Hitler ' 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 " ( " 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 . 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 , 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 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 " ( 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 . 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 , 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 , 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 resistance group , and ordered many of its members to be executed by guillotine . Death . On 3 February 1945 , Freisler was conducting a Saturday session of the People ' s Court , when American bombers attacked Berlin . Government and Nazi Party buildings were hit , including the Reich Chancellery , the Gestapo 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 , 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 ( " 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 , then the wife of General Alfred Jodl , 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 . " Freisler is interred in the plot of his wife ' s family at the Waldfriedhof Dahlem cemetery in Berlin . His name is not shown on the gravestone . Fictional portrayals . Freisler appears in fictionalised form in the 1947 Hans Fallada novel " Every Man Dies Alone " ( " Jeder stirbt für sich allein " ) . In 1943 he tried and handed down death penalties to Otto and Elise Hampel , 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 Roland Schäfer in the 1989 British - French - German film " Reunion " , by Brian Cox in the British 1996 television movie " Witness Against Hitler " , by Owen Teale in the 2001 BBC / HBO film " Conspiracy " , by André Hennicke in the 2005 film " Sophie Scholl – The Final Days " , and by Helmut Stauss in the 2008 film " Valkyrie " .