People's Court (Germany)

There was no presumption of innocence nor could the defendants adequately represent themselves or consult counsel. A proceeding at the People's Court would follow an initial indictment in which a state or city prosecutor would forward the names of the accused to the Volksgerichtshof for charges of a political nature. Defendants were hardly ever allowed to speak to their attorneys beforehand and when they did the defense lawyer would usually simply answer questions about how the trial would proceed and refrain from any legal advice. In at least one documented case (the trial of the "White Rose" conspirators), the defense lawyer assigned to Sophie Scholl chastised her the day before the trial, stating that she would pay for her crimes.[3]

The People's Court proceedings began when the accused were led to a prisoner's dock under armed police escort. The presiding judge would read the charges and then call the accused forward for "examination". Although the court had a prosecutor, it was usually the judge who asked the questions. Defendants were often berated during the examination and never allowed to respond with any sort of lengthy reply. After a barrage of insults and condemnation, the accused would be ordered back to the dock with the order "examination concluded".

After examination, the defense attorney would be asked if they had any statements or questions. Defense lawyers were present simply as a formality and hardly ever rose to speak. The judge would then ask the defendants for a statement during which time more insults and berating comments would be shouted at the accused. The verdict, which was almost always "guilty", would then be announced and the sentence handed down at the same time. In all, an appearance before the People's Court could take as little as fifteen minutes.

From 1934 to 1945, the court sentenced 10,980 people to prison and imposed the death penalty on 5,179 more who were convicted of high treason.[4][5] About 1,000 were acquitted.[6] Prior to the Battle of Stalingrad, there was a higher percentage of cases in which not guilty verdicts were handed down on indictments. In some cases, this was due to defense lawyers presenting the accused as naive or the defendant adequately explaining the nature of the political charges against them. However, in nearly two-thirds of such cases, the defendants would be re-arrested by the Gestapo following the trial and sent to a concentration camp. After the defeat at Stalingrad, and with a growing fear in the German government regarding defeatism amongst the population, the People's Court became far more ruthless and hardly anyone brought before the tribunal escaped a guilty verdict.[7]

Erwin von Witzleben appears before the People's Court.

Helmuth Stieff at the court.

The best-known trials in the People's Court began on 7 August 1944, in the aftermath of the 20 July plot that year. The first eight men accused were Erwin von Witzleben, Erich Hoepner, Paul von Hase, Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, Helmuth Stieff, Robert Bernardis, Friedrich Klausing, and Albrecht von Hagen. The trials were held in the imposing Great Hall of the Berlin Chamber Court on Elßholzstrasse,[8] which was bedecked with swastikas for the occasion. There were around 300 spectators, including Ernst Kaltenbrunner and selected civil servants, party functionaries, military officers and journalists. A film camera ran behind the red-robed Roland Freisler so that Hitler could view the proceedings, and to provide footage for newsreels and a documentary entitled Traitors Before the People's Court.[9] Intended to be used in The German Weekly Review, it was not shown at the time and turned out to be the last documentary made for the newsreel.[9]

The accused were forced to wear shabby clothes, denied neckties and belts or suspenders for their trousers, and were marched into the courtroom handcuffed to policemen. The proceedings began with Freisler announcing he would rule on "...the most horrific charges ever brought in the history of the German people." Freisler was an admirer of Andrey Vyshinsky, the chief prosecutor of the Soviet purge trials, and copied Vyshinsky's practice of heaping loud and violent abuse on defendants.

The 62-year-old Field Marshal von Witzleben was the first to stand before Freisler and he was immediately castigated for giving a brief Nazi salute. He faced further humiliating insults while holding onto his trouser waistband. Next, former Colonel-General Erich Hoepner, dressed in a cardigan, faced Freisler, who addressed him as "Schweinehund". When he said that he was not a Schweinehund, Freisler asked him what zoological category he thought he fitted into.

The accused were unable to consult their lawyers, who were not seated near them. None of them was allowed to address the court at length, and Freisler interrupted any attempts to do so. However, Major General Helmuth Stieff attempted to raise the issue of his motives before being shouted down, and Witzleben managed to call out "You may hand us over to the executioner, but in three months, the disgusted and harried people will bring you to book and drag you alive through the dirt in the streets!" All were condemned to death by hanging, and the sentences were carried out shortly afterwards in Plötzensee Prison.

Another trial of plotters was held on 10 August. On that occasion the accused were Erich Fellgiebel, Alfred Kranzfelder, Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg, Georg Hansen, and Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.

On 15 August, Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf, Egbert Hayessen, Hans Bernd von Haeften, and Adam von Trott zu Solz were condemned to death by Freisler.

On 21 August, the accused were Fritz Thiele, Friedrich Gustav Jaeger, and Ulrich Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld who was able to mention the "...many murders committed at home and abroad" as a motivation for his actions.

On 30 August, Colonel-General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, who had blinded himself in a suicide attempt, was led into the court and condemned to death along with Caesar von Hofacker, Hans Otfried von Linstow, and Eberhard Finckh.

In the aftermath of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler, senior intelligence analyst Lieutenant Colonel Alexis von Roenne was arrested on account of his links with many of the conspirators. Although not directly involved in the plot, he was nonetheless tried, found guilty by the show trial, and hanged on a meat hook at Plötzensee Prison on 12 October 1944.[10]

Ruins of the People's Court, as photographed in 1951

Field Marshal von Witzleben's prediction of Roland Freisler's fate proved slightly incorrect, as he died in a bombing raid in February 1945, approximately half a year later.[11][12]

On 3 February 1945, Freisler was conducting a Saturday session of the People's Court, when USAAF Eighth Air Force bombers attacked Berlin.[13] 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.[14] His body was reportedly found crushed beneath a fallen masonry column, clutching the files that he had tried to retrieve.[15] Among those files was that of Fabian von Schlabrendorff, a 20 July Plot member who was on trial that day and was facing execution.[16] 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."[15] Freisler's death saved Schlabrendorff[17] – he was later re-tried and, in a rare instance for the court's last nine months in existence, possibly motivated by fear of later reprisals, acquitted by its new acting president, Wilhelm Crohne. After the war Schlabrendorff became a judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of West Germany.[18]

The memorial plaque outside the Sony Center at Bellvuestrasse 3 in Berlin, marking the former location of the People's Court

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.[19]

A foreign correspondent reported, "Apparently nobody regretted his death."[14] Luise Jodl, 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 Luise Jodl, "Not one person said a word in reply."[20]

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.[21]

In 1956 the German Federal High Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) granted the so-called "Judges' Privilege" to those that had been part of the People's Court. This prevented the prosecution of the former People's Court members on the basis that their actions had been legal under laws in effect at the time.

The only member of the People's Court ever to be held liable for his actions was Chief Public Prosecutor Ernst Lautz, who in 1947 was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment by a US Military Tribunal, during the Judges' Trial, one of the "subsequent Nuremberg proceedings". Lautz was released after serving less than four years of his sentence and was granted a government pension by West Germany. One People's Judge of Bremen, Heino von Heimburg died 1945 a prisoner-of-war in the Soviet Union.

Of the other approximately 570 judges and prosecutors, none were held responsible for their actions related to the People's Court. In fact, many had careers in the West-German post-war legal system:

• Paul Reimers: Regional court judge in Ravensburg
• Hans-Dietrich Arndt: Chief judge, Koblenz district court.
• Robert Bandel: Chief district judge in Kehl
• Karl-Hermann Bellwinkel: First district attorney in Bielefeld
• Erich Carmine: Court judge in Nuremberg
• Christian Dede: Director of the Hannover district court
• Johannes Frankenberg: Court judge in Münnerstadt
• Andreas Fricke: Court judge in Braunschweig
• Konrad Höher: District attorney in Cologne

• Judicial murder
• List of members of the 20 July plot
• Presumption of guilt
• Tribunale speciale per la difesa dello Stato (1926–1943) (a court with comparable tasks in Fascist Italy)