Roland Freisler

Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945) was a German Nazi jurist, judge, and politician who served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1934 to 1942 and President of the People's Court from 1942 to 1945.

He was a prominent ideologist of Nazism who influenced the Nazification of Germany's legal system as a jurist, and he attended the Wannsee Conference, the event which set the Holocaust in motion. He was appointed President of the People's Court in 1942, overseeing the prosecution of political crimes as a judge, becoming known for his aggressive personality, humiliation of defendants, and frequent sentencing with the death penalty.

Although the death penalty was abolished with the creation of the Federal Republic, he defined murder in German law in 1941, which survives to date in the Strafgesetzbuch § 211.

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Category:1893 births
Category:1945 deaths