Hitler’s Henchmen TV - Roland Freisler - Inside Story: Traitors to Hitler TV -
In his eyes democracy was decadent, and he wanted a national revolution ... Freisler had long been a member of the National Socialist Party. Hitler’s Henchmen II: Freisler
He didn’t try to win over opponents. He beat them up. ibid.
Brute force brought society in line ... Teutonic cult and racial mania in one breath. ibid.
The mentally ill were vilified and later murdered by law. ibid.
He [Hitler] needed someone to do the dirty work in the people’s court. ibid.
Murder by law ... the Hanging Judge ... Anyone who didn’t confess was tortured. ibid.
July 20th 1944: 12.30 p.m. Stauffenberg with Hitler: the course of world history depended on the position of a briefcase. It was the last chance. The military putsch collapsed within hours ... For the Hanging Judge it was his finest hour. ibid.
Freisler wanted to rob the defendants of their dignity but he didn’t succeed. The Hanging Judge wanted them humiliated ... The victims’ relatives were locked out. ibid.
Freisler was zealous to the end. ibid.
They should be strung up like animals for slaughter. Roland Freisler passing execution on conspirators
We don’t need the law here. Roland Freisler
As a judge, this Nazi was a force to be reckoned with. He spoke with such ferocity, often brow-beating and shouting down those who had been brought before him. Freisler was clearly a devoted follower of Hitler and of his ideology – something that is reflected in the charges of those brought before him.
Most of these were for ‘defeatism’, or for selling items on the black market and for work slowdowns. These crimes came under the broad brush of the term ‘political offences’, and most were dealt with harshly by the raving judge.
Freisler was the judge who oversaw many high-profile cases, including that of the White Rose group, who had been captured by the Gestapo. The organisation was non-violent, but met a bloody death when the ring leaders were beheaded by guillotine in 1943.
One of his most documented moments was during the 1944 show trials of the group who had plotted to assassinate Hitler. The trial was documented so it could be used as propaganda, and the film showed Freisler clinically interrogating the defendants, before descending into hyperbolic abuse and mental degradation. War History online article 14 September 2017, Roland Freisler – Hitler’s Screaming Nazi Judge
Roland Freisler: Thwarted in his ambition to become Minister of Justice, from 1937 to 1944 he sentenced over 5,000 people to death as the red-robed president of the People’s Court. Inside Story: Traitors to Hitler, BBC 1979