Death of Roland Freisler - Hitler's Fanatical Screaming Nazi Judge - Plot to Assassinate Hitler
...The Nazis believed that such relationships were dangerous because they led to “mixed race” children. According to the Nazis, these children and their descendants undermined the purity of the German race.
World War 2 started on the 1st of September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.
On the 20th of January 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." The "Final Solution" was the code name for the systematic, deliberate and physical annihilation of the European Jews. Adolf Hitler had authorized this European-wide scheme for mass murder at some still undetermined time in 1941.
At the time of this Wannsee Conference, most participants were already aware that the Nazi regime had engaged in mass murder of Jews and other civilians in the German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union and in Serbia.
On the 20th of August 1942, Hitler named Freisler president of the People's Court.
Under Freisler's rule, the frequency of death sentences rose sharply. Approximately 90% of all cases that came before him ended in guilty verdicts. Between 1942 and 1945, more than 5,000 death sentences were decreed by him, 2,600 of these through the court's First Senate, which Freisler controlled. He was responsible in his three years on the court for as many death sentences as all other senate sessions of the court combined in the court's existence between 1934 and 1945.
When on the 18th of February 1943, Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl were distributing leaflets at the Ludwig Maximilian University, they were reported to the official secret police of Nazi Germany - the Gestapo and then arrested.
Roland Freisler sentenced them to death.
Another of Freisler’s victims was Elfriede Scholz, a sister of German-born novelist Erich Maria Remarque. After a failed bomb attempt to assassinate Hitler on his airplane, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters.
In the days that followed, Hitler ordered a massive hunt for conspirators which continued for months. In August 1944, some of the arrested perpetrators of the failed assassination were brought before Freisler for punishment. Hitler had ordered that those found guilty should be "hanged like cattle".
In the end more than 7,000 people were arrested. 4,980 of them were executed, often on the barest evidence.
Roland Freisler died on the 3rd of February 1945 when United States Army Air Forces bombers attacked Berlin.
World War 2 started on the 1st of September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.
On the 20th of January 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." The "Final Solution" was the code name for the systematic, deliberate and physical annihilation of the European Jews. Adolf Hitler had authorized this European-wide scheme for mass murder at some still undetermined time in 1941.
At the time of this Wannsee Conference, most participants were already aware that the Nazi regime had engaged in mass murder of Jews and other civilians in the German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union and in Serbia.
On the 20th of August 1942, Hitler named Freisler president of the People's Court.
Under Freisler's rule, the frequency of death sentences rose sharply. Approximately 90% of all cases that came before him ended in guilty verdicts. Between 1942 and 1945, more than 5,000 death sentences were decreed by him, 2,600 of these through the court's First Senate, which Freisler controlled. He was responsible in his three years on the court for as many death sentences as all other senate sessions of the court combined in the court's existence between 1934 and 1945.
When on the 18th of February 1943, Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl were distributing leaflets at the Ludwig Maximilian University, they were reported to the official secret police of Nazi Germany - the Gestapo and then arrested.
Roland Freisler sentenced them to death.
Another of Freisler’s victims was Elfriede Scholz, a sister of German-born novelist Erich Maria Remarque. After a failed bomb attempt to assassinate Hitler on his airplane, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters.
In the days that followed, Hitler ordered a massive hunt for conspirators which continued for months. In August 1944, some of the arrested perpetrators of the failed assassination were brought before Freisler for punishment. Hitler had ordered that those found guilty should be "hanged like cattle".
In the end more than 7,000 people were arrested. 4,980 of them were executed, often on the barest evidence.
Roland Freisler died on the 3rd of February 1945 when United States Army Air Forces bombers attacked Berlin.
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LearningTranscript
00:00The 20th of July, 1944.
00:09Just a few hours after German military officers attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the
00:14Wolfsler, his East Prussian headquarters at Rustenburg, the Führer keeps his appointments
00:19including a meeting with Italy's fascist leader, Benito Mussolini.
00:23The plot was the culmination of efforts by several groups in the German resistance, which
00:28hoped that Hitler's violent death would signal an anti-Nazi revolt and overthrow the Nazi
00:33German government.
00:34The Führer, however, survived the blast and the coup attempt failed.
00:39In the days that followed, Adolf Hitler ordered a massive hunt for conspirators, which continued
00:43for months.
00:45In the end, more than 7,000 people were arrested and many of the conspirators appeared before
00:50the notorious People's Court for show trials, which condemned thousands of Germans to death,
00:55often on the barest evidence.
00:57Its president was a fanatical Nazi judge, Roland Freisler.
01:02Roland Freisler was born on the 30th of October, 1893, in Celle, then part of the German Empire,
01:09as a son of an engineer and teacher, Julius Freisler, and his wife Charlotte.
01:14Roland and his two brothers were baptised as Protestants.
01:18When the First World War began, on the 28th of July, 1914, Freisler was studying law at
01:23the University of Jena.
01:25He interrupted his studies and enlisted as an officer cadet in the German army.
01:30By 1915, he was a lieutenant and for gallantry and action, he was awarded the Iron Cross
01:35Second Class.
01:36In October the same year, Freisler was taken prisoner of war by the Russians on the Eastern
01:41Front and was interned in the officer's camp near Moscow.
01:45Although the prisoners were released home in 1918, Freisler stayed in Soviet Russia
01:49until 1919.
01:51He learned to speak fluent Russian and it is believed that he was a staunch supporter
01:54of Bolshevism at the time.
01:57In 1919, Freisler returned to Germany to complete his law studies at the University of Jena
02:02and in 1922 he qualified as a Doctor of Law.
02:06In July 1925, Freisler joined the Nazi Party.
02:10He immediately gained authority within the organisation by using his legal training to
02:14defend its members, who were regularly facing prosecutions for acts of political violence.
02:20From 1924 to 1935, he often travelled to Leipzig and stood as a lawyer before the Leipzig
02:26Court of Honour.
02:27Even though, in almost all of the trials, he insulted and threatened colleagues, victims
02:31or judges, his license to practice law was never revoked.
02:36In 1927, Karl Weinrich, a Nazi member of the Prussian Parliament along with Freisler, characterised
02:41his then reputation in the rapidly expanding Nazi movement in the late 1920s.
02:46Rhetorically, Freisler is equal to our best speakers, if not superior, particularly on
02:52the broad masses he has influence, but thinking people mostly reject him.
02:57Party comrade Freisler is usable only as a speaker though and is unsuitable for any position
03:02of authority because of his unreliability and moodiness.
03:06On the 24th of March 1928, Freisler married Marianne Rössiger, the marriage produced
03:12two sons.
03:13After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came into power in January 1933, Freisler became
03:18a member of the Reichstag, the German Parliament.
03:21He was also appointed Ministerial Director in the Prussian Ministry of Justice, as well
03:25as Secretary of State in the Prussian and Reich Ministry of Justice.
03:29On the founding of the Academy for German Law by Hans Frank, who later became head of
03:33the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War, Freisler was
03:38made a member and the chairman of its Criminal Law Committee.
03:41The Academy was charged with promoting reform of German legal life by working in liaison
03:47with legislative bodies to implement the National Socialist Program in the fields of law and
03:51economics.
03:52Freisler's mastery of legal texts, mental agility, dramatic courtroom verbal dexterity
03:57and verbal force, in combination with his zealous conversion to Nazi ideology, made
04:02him the most feared judge in Nazi Germany and the personification of Nazism in domestic
04:07law.
04:08However, despite his talents and loyalty, Adolf Hitler never appointed him to any post
04:12beyond the legal system.
04:14The reason was not only that he was a lone figure, lacking support within the senior
04:18ranks of the Nazi hierarchy, but also because he had been politically compromised by his
04:23brother, Oswald Freisler, also a lawyer.
04:26Oswald had acted as a defence counsel against the regime's authority several times in
04:31politically significant trials, which the Nazis sought to use for propaganda purposes,
04:35and he had the habit of wearing his Nazi Party membership badge in court whilst doing
04:39so, which led to confusion over the party's role in the trials.
04:43Propaganda minister Josef Goebbels reproached Oswald Freisler and reported his actions to
04:48Adolf Hitler, who in response, ordered Oswald Freisler's expulsion from the party.
04:54In 1939, Oswald Freisler mysteriously committed suicide in Berlin, after he had been accused
04:59of irregularities in the conduct of a defence.
05:03Freisler was a committed Nazi ideologist and used his legal skills to adapt his theories
05:08into practical lawmaking and judicature.
05:11He published a paper entitled, The Racial Biological Task Involved in the Reform of
05:15Juvenile Criminal Law, in which he argued that racially foreign, racially degenerate,
05:20racially incurable or seriously defective juveniles should be sent to juvenile centres
05:25or correctional education centres and segregated from those who are German and racially valuable.
05:31He also strongly advocated for the creation of laws to punish so-called race defilement,
05:35which was the Nazi term for sexual relations between Aryans and those deemed as inferior
05:40races.
05:41In 1933, he even published a pamphlet calling for the legal prohibition of mixed-blood sexual
05:47intercourse.
05:48Freisler's ideological views reflected things to come, as two years later, on the 15th of
05:54September, 1935, the Nazi regime announced two new laws.
05:58The Reich Citizenship Law, which defined a citizen as a person who is of German or
06:03related blood, which meant that Jews defined as a separate race could not be full citizens
06:08of Germany and had no political rights, and the Law for the Protection of German Blood
06:12and German Honour, which banned future intermarriages and sexual relations between Jews and people
06:17of German or related blood.
06:19The Nazis believed that such relationships were dangerous because they led to mixed-race
06:24children.
06:25According to the Nazis, these children and their descendants undermined the purity of
06:30the German race.
06:32World War II started on the 1st of September, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland.
06:38In the following month, Freisler introduced the concept of precocious juvenile criminal
06:42in a juvenile felon's decree.
06:44This decree provided the legal basis for imposing the death penalty and penitentiary terms on
06:49juveniles for the first time in German legal history.
06:53At least seventy-two German juveniles were sentenced to death by the Nazi courts.
06:59Two years later, in 1941, when Goebbels suggested to appoint Roland Freisler to replace Franz
07:05Goetner, the Reich Minister of Justice who had died, Hitler's reply, referring to Freisler's
07:10alleged red past, was,
07:12That old Bolshevik, no.
07:15On the 20th of January, 1942, fifteen high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials
07:21gathered at the villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation
07:26of what they called the final solution of the Jewish question.
07:29The final solution was the codename for the systematic, deliberate, and physical annihilation
07:35of the European Jews.
07:37Adolf Hitler had authorised this European-wide scheme for mass murder at some still undetermined
07:42time in 1941.
07:45At the time of this Wannsee conference, most participants were already aware that the Nazi
07:49regime had engaged in mass murder of Jews and other civilians in the German-occupied
07:53areas of the Soviet Union and in Serbia.
07:57None of the officials present at the meeting, including Roland Freisler, who was to provide
08:01expert legal advice for the plan, objected to the final solution policy that Heydrich
08:06announced.
08:07Heydrich indicated that the approximately eleven million Jews in Europe would fall under
08:11the provisions of the final solution.
08:14In this figure, he included not only Jews residing in Axis-controlled Europe, but also
08:18the Jewish populations of the United Kingdom, and the neutral nations such as Switzerland,
08:23Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and European Turkey.
08:28On the 20th of August, 1942, Hitler named Freisler President of the People's Court.
08:34He chaired the First Senate of the People's Court, wearing a blood-scarlet judicial robe,
08:39in a hearing chamber bedecked with scarlet swastika-draped banners, and a large black-sculpted
08:43bust of Adolf Hitler's head upon a high pedestal behind his chair, opening each hearing
08:48session with a Nazi salute from the bench.
08:50He acted as prosecutor, judge, and jury combined.
08:54Under Freisler's rule, the frequency of death sentences rose sharply.
09:00Approximately 90% of all cases that came before him ended in guilty verdicts.
09:05Between 1942 and 1945, more than 5,000 death sentences were decreed by him, 2,600 of these
09:12through the Court's First Senate, which Freisler controlled.
09:16He was responsible in his three years on the Court for as many death sentences as all other
09:20Senate sessions of the Court combined in the Court's existence between 1934 and 1945.
09:27Therefore, he soon acquired the reputation of a blood judge.
09:31In all processes of the People's Court, Freisler showed a pronounced bias in favor of the Nazi
09:36state and its ideology.
09:39His conduct of the case went beyond the rules of procedure and the code of conduct for judges,
09:43and accordingly represented a serious form of perverting the law.
09:47As a fanatical National Socialist, he said that he wanted a judge as the Führer himself
09:52would judge the case.
09:55Freisler's loud screaming made it difficult for sound engineers to record answers from
09:58the accused.
10:00In trials he sometimes shouted so much that the sensitivity of the microphones had to
10:04be set to a correspondingly lower level.
10:13For Freisler, the People's Court was expressly a political court.
10:27In the trials, he humiliated the accused, hardly listened to them, and kept interrupting
10:31them.
10:32He also yelled at them and conducted the process in a particularly unobjective manner.
10:37This deliberate and targeted humiliation of the accused happened both verbally by Freisler
10:41himself and in a non-verbal way, for instance, the Nazis gave defendants old, oversized and
10:46beltless clothing, and because they had to stand in front of the court, they were forced
10:50to constantly hold up their trousers.
10:53When on the 18th of February, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were distributing leaflets at
10:58the Ludwig Maximilian University, they were reported to the official secret police of
11:03Nazi Germany, the Gestapo, and then arrested.
11:06Through questioning, it became clear that the two siblings were part of a resistance
11:10group called the White Rose, which wrote the leaflets, each being more critical of
11:14Hitler and the German people than the last.
11:17They encouraged citizens to resist the Nazi regime, denounced the murder of hundreds of
11:21thousands of Poles, and demanded an end to the war.
11:25Under interrogation, Sophie was offered a reduced sentence if she would admit that her
11:29brother had led her astray, but she refused, saying, I won't betray my brother or my
11:34principles, I'll make no bargain with the Nazis.
11:38On the 22nd of February, 1943, Freisler was flown into Munich for the sole purpose of
11:44presiding over their trial.
11:46Appearing in the courtroom, Sophie Scholl shocked everyone when she remarked of Freisler,
11:51somebody after all had to make a start, what we wrote and said is also believed by many
11:56others, they just don't dare express themselves as we did.
12:01She also interrupted Freisler with a statement, you know the war is lost, why don't you
12:06have the courage to face it?
12:08After a half-day trial, the verdict was as expected, guilty.
12:14Freisler had sentenced them to death by hanging, but fearful of them being raised to martyrdom
12:18status if they were publicly killed, it was decided to kill them by guillotine.
12:23On the 19th of April, 1943, Freisler was flown back again to stand as judge over the second
12:29trial of the White Rose members.
12:32In the second trial, Freisler yelled at the accused right at the opening saying, National
12:36Socialism does not need a criminal code against such traitors as you are, I will make this
12:42process with you short.
12:44When an assessor handed him the penal code, without a word, Freisler immediately threw
12:49it in the direction of the dock, where the accused had to duck to avoid being hit in
12:54the head.
12:55Out of the thirteen defendants, three were sentenced to death, nine were given prison
12:59sentences and one was unexpectedly acquitted.
13:04Another of Freisler's victims was Elfriede Scholz, a sister of German-born novelist Erich
13:08Maria Remarque.
13:10On the 10th of May, 1933, at the initiative of the Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels,
13:16Remarque's writing was publicly declared as unpatriotic and was banned in Germany.
13:21As a result, copies were removed from all libraries and restricted from being sold or
13:26published anywhere in the country.
13:29Before Erich left Germany, his sister Elfriede did not.
13:32She stayed behind in Germany with her husband and two children and was arrested after her
13:36landlord had overheard a remark in which Elfriede stated the Nazi-driven war was lost and turned
13:42her over to the Nazi party.
13:44The charge against her was undermining Germany's war effort.
13:48During the trial, Freisler told Elfriede, your brother is beyond our reach, but you
13:54will not escape us.
13:56Elfriede Scholz was beheaded by guillotine on the 16th of December, 1943.
14:02On the 20th of July, 1944, after a failed bomb attempt to assassinate Hitler on his
14:08airplane, Klaus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf
14:12Hitler inside his Wolfsler Field headquarters.
14:15The conspirators focused on an existing contingency plan codenamed Operation Valkyrie.
14:21This operation was originally designed to militarily combat potential civil unrest in
14:25Germany and the conspirators modified the plan for their own aims, with the intention
14:29of taking control of German cities, disarming the SS and arresting key Nazi leaders in the
14:35wake of the plot.
14:37Motivations varied widely and should not be viewed solely in the context of the Holocaust,
14:42as a number of the conspirators themselves were implicated in both war crimes and the
14:46Holocaust.
14:48For many of the conspirators, the attempted assassination had a more pragmatic objective,
14:53to rescue Germany from a catastrophic defeat brought about by Hitler's increasingly irrational
14:57management of the war.
15:00In the days that followed, Hitler ordered a massive hunt for conspirators, which continued
15:04for months.
15:06In August, 1944, some of the arrested perpetrators of the failed assassination were brought before
15:12Freisler for punishment.
15:14Hitler had ordered that those found guilty should be hanged like cattle.
15:18The proceedings were filmed in order to be shown to the German public in cinema newsreels
15:23and portray how Freisler ran his court, as he would often alternate between questioning
15:27the defendants in an analytical manner and then suddenly launching into a furious verbal
15:32tirade, even going so far as to shout insults at the accused from the bench.
15:37The shift from cold, clinical interrogation to fits of screaming rage was designed to
15:42psychologically disarm, torment and humiliate those on trial while discouraging any attempt
15:47on their part to either defend or justify their actions.
15:52At one point, Freisler yelled at Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, who was trying to hold
15:57up his trousers after having purposely been given old, oversized and beltless clothing.
16:02You dirty old man, why do you keep fiddling with your trousers?
16:06However, the defendants never lost their dignity.
16:10The closing words that Erwin von Witzleben addressed to Freisler are said to have been
16:15You can hand us over to the executioner.
16:18In three months, the outraged and tormented people will hold you accountable and drag
16:23you alive through the mud of the streets.
16:27César von Hofakker, a leading figure of the resistance in France, interrupted Freisler
16:32after he had interrupted him several times, saying,
16:34You are silent now, Herr Freisler, because today is about my head.
16:38In a year, it's all about your head.
16:41When Freisler sarcastically pictured General Erich Felgebel's impending death, Felgebel
16:46told Freisler, Then hurry up, Mr. President, otherwise you'll hang up before we do.
16:53When Ulrich Wilhelm Count Schwerin von Schwanenfeld, ravaged by the conditions of his detention,
16:58was brought to court without a belt and tie, he as well tried to preserve his dignity.
17:03He stated that his opposition to Hitler was due to the many murders in Germany and abroad.
17:08He was constantly interrupted by a furious Freisler, who finally shouted him down in
17:13a rage and told him, You really are a lousy piece of trash.
17:18In the end, more than 7,000 people were arrested.
17:224,980 of them, including von Witzleben, von Hofakker, Count Schwerin von Schwanenfeld
17:29and General Felgebel were executed, often on the barest evidence.
17:33Some of the executions were carried out within two hours of the verdict being delivered.
17:38However, justice finally caught up with Freisler in February 1945.
17:44There are two contradictory accounts of the circumstances of Freisler's death.
17:49On the morning of the 3rd of February 1945, Freisler was conducting a Saturday session
17:54of the People's Court when the United States Army Air Force bombers attacked Berlin.
18:00Soviet and Nazi buildings were hit, including the Reich Chancellery, the Gestapo headquarters,
18:05the Party Chancellery and the People's Court.
18:08Hearing the air raid sirens, Freisler hastily adjourned the court and ordered that the prisoners
18:12before him be taken to an air raid shelter, but he himself then stayed behind to gather
18:17case files before leaving.
18:19A bomb struck the court building at 1108, causing a partial internal collapse, and a
18:24masonry column came loose whilst Freisler was distracted by his documents.
18:29The column came crashing down on Freisler, causing him to be crushed and instantly killed.
18:35Due to the column collapsing, a large portion of the courtroom also landed on Freisler's
18:41corpse.
18:42The crushed and flattened remains of Freisler were found beneath the rubble, still clutching
18:46the files he had stayed behind to gather.
18:49But a differing account stated that Freisler, then 51 years old, was killed by a bomb fragment
18:55while trying to escape his court to the air raid shelter.
18:58He then bled to death on the pavement outside the People's Court in Berlin.
19:03Luisa von Bender, General Alfred Jodl's wife, recounted more than 25 years later that
19:08she had been working at the Luzo Hospital when Freisler's body was brought in.
19:13Upon seeing Freisler's body, one hospital worker commented,
19:16"'It is God's verdict.'
19:19Not one person said a word in reply."
19:22Freisler's body was then buried in the grave of his wife's family in Berlin.
19:26Freisler's name is not recorded on the tombstone.
19:30There were no tears shed for Roland Freisler.