Louis Rudolph Franz Schlegelberger (born 23 October 1876 in Königsberg, East Prussia, now Kaliningrad, Russia; died 14 December 1970 in Flensburg) was State Secretary in the German Reich Ministry of Justice (RMJ) and served awhile as Justice Minister during the Third Reich. He was the highest-ranking defendant at the Nuremberg Judges' Trial. A commentary on the German Commercial Law Book (Handelsgesetzbuch) published by Schlegelberger is still in use. October 23 is the 296th day of the year (297th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 69 days remaining. ... 1876 (MDCCCLXXVI) is a leap year starting on Saturday. ... East Prussia (German: Ostpreu en; Polish: Prusy Wschodnie; Russian: Восточная Пруссия — Vostochnaya Prussiya) was a province of Kingdom of Prussia, situated on the territory of former Ducal Prussia. ... Map of Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad (Russian: Калининград, German: Königsberg, Polish: Królewiec, Lithuanian: Karaliaučius, Latin: Regiomontium) is a seaport city, capital and main city of the Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. ... December 14 is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... Flensburg (Danish: Flensborg, North Frisian: Flansborj) is an independent town in the North of the German state Schleswig-Holstein. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Hl. ... A witness testifies in the Judges Trial The Judges Trial (or the Justice Trial, or, officially, The United States of Galloway vs. ...

Life

Franz Schlegelberger was born into a protestant salesman's family in Königsberg. His father worked in cereal trade sales. His forebears (among them Balthasar Schlögelberger) came originally from Salzburg in 1731-32 to East Prussia. Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... Sales, or the activity of selling, forms an integral part of commercial activity. ... Cereal crops are mostly grasses cultivated for their edible seeds (actually a fruit called a caryopsis). ... Flag of Salzburg Salzburg (population 145,000 in 2005) is a city in western Austria and the capital of the federal state of Salzburg (population 520,000 in 2003). ...

Schlegelberger went to the old-town Gymnasium in Königsberg, where he did his school-leaving examination in 1894. A gymnasium is a type of school of secondary education in parts of Europe. ...

He studied law beginning in1894 in Königsberg and from 1895 to 1896 in Berlin. In 1897 he sat the state legal examination scoring fairly well. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

At the University of Königsberg – or according to documents from his trial the University of Leipzig – on 1 December 1899 came his graduation to Doctor of Law with the theme "May government representatives be placed at our disposal as officials because of their voting?" The University of Leipzig (Universität Leipzig), located in Leipzig in the Free State and former Kingdom of Saxony, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. ... December 1 is the 335th (in leap years the 336th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

On 9 December 1901 Schlegelberger wrote the great state law examination, passing with a mark of "good". On 21 December 1901 he became a court Assessor at the Königsberg local court, and on 17 March 1902 assistant judge at the Königsberg State Court. On 16 September 1904 he became a judge at the State Court in Lyck (now Ełk). In early May 1908, he went to the Berlin State Court and in the same year was appointed assistant judge at the Berlin Court of Appeals (Kammergericht). In 1914 he was appointed to the Kammergericht Council (Kammergerichtsrat) in Berlin, where he stayed until 1918. December 9 is the 343rd day (344th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1901 (MCMI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... December 21 is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... March 17 is the 76th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (77th in Leap years). ... 1902 (MCMII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... September 16 is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years). ... 1904 (MCMIV) is a leap year starting on a Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... A judge or justice is an official who presides over a court. ... EÅ‚k (former Polish name: Łęg, German Lyck) is a town in north-eastern Poland with 60000 inhabitants (2000). ...

During the First World War, on 1 April 1918, Schlegelberger became an associate at the Reich Justice Office. On 1 October 1918 came his appointment to the Secret Government Court and Executive Council. His appointment as Ministerial Director in the RMJ came in 1927. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... April 1 is the 91st day of the year (92nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 274 days remaining. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... October 1 is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...

Schlegelberger had been teaching in the Faculty of Law at the University of Berlin as an honorary professor since 1922. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (German Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) is Berlins oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin (Universität zu Berlin) by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt whose university model has strongly influenced...

On 10 October 1931 Schlegelberger was appointed State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Justice under Justice Minister Franz Gürtner and kept this job until Gürtner's death in 1941. On 30 January 1938, Schlegelberger joined the Nazi Party on Hitler's orders. October 10 is the 283rd day of the year (284th in Leap years). ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Franz Gürtner (August 26, 1881 - January 29, 1941) was a German Minister of Justice in Adolf Hitlers cabinet, responsible for coordinating jurisprudence in the Third Reich. ... January 30 is the 30th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Nazi swastika symbol The National Socialist German Workers Party ( German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), better known as the NSDAP or the Nazi Party was a political party that was led to power in Germany by Adolf Hitler in 1933. ...

Among Schlegelberger's many works in this time was a bill for the introduction of a new national currency which was supposed to end the hyperinflation to which the Reichsmark was prone. Representing the Justice Minister, Schlegelberger underwrote on 29 March 1939 the Fourth Provision for the carrying out of the Reich Hunting Law (Reichsgesetzblatt Teil I, Seite 643) in which it is laid down in Article 6: "In §24, paragraph 1 acquires the following text: '(1) Jews receive no hunting licence'". In economics, hyperinflation is inflation which is out of control, a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value. ... A 100 Reichsmark banknote from Germany of 1935 (http://www. ... March 29 is the 88th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (89th in Leap years). ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... A hunter on horseback shoots at deer or elk with a bow. ...

After Franz Gürtner's death in 1941, Franz Schlegelberger became provisional Reich Minister of Justice for the years 1941 and 1942, followed then by Otto Thierack. Upon his retirement from the position on 24 August 1942 Schlegelberger was given an endowment of RM 100,000 by Adolf Hitler, and in 1944, Hitler allowed him the privilege of buying an estate with the money, something that otherwise only agricultural experts were entitled to under the rules in force at the time. This would later weigh against him at Nuremberg, for it showed that Hitler thought highly of Schlegelberger and that therefore, Schlegelberger must have been a loyal Nazi. August 24 is the 236th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (237th in leap years), with 129 days remaining. ... (help· info) (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and Führer (Leader) of Germany from 1934 until his death. ...

From Schlegelberger came the bill for the so-called Poland Penal Law Provision (Polenstrafrechtsverordnung) under which Poles were punished by death for tearing down placards. During his time in office, the number of death sentences rose sharply.

Schlegelberg's attitude towards his job and his adulation of those above him may be best encapsulated in a letter to Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery Hans Heinrich Lammers, in which he blithely reported that he had handed someone over to be executed, and which ran thus:

After 1945

At the Nuremberg Judges' Trial, Schlegelberger was one of the main accused. He was sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to perpetrate war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 1950, Schlegelberger was released owing to incapacity (he was 74 by this time). Thereafter for years he drew a yearly pension of DM 2894 (for comparison, the average yearly income in Germany at that time was DM 535). Schlegelberger then lived in Flensburg. A war crime is a punishable offense, under international (criminal) law, for violations of the law of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. ... This article is in need of attention. ... A pension is a steady income paid to a person (usually after retirement). ... The Deutsche Mark (DM, DEM) was the official currency of West and, from 1990, unified Germany. ...

In the reasons given for the judgment, it says: " … that Schlegelberger supported the pretension of Hitler in his assumption of power to deal with life and death in disregard of even the pretense of judicial process. By his exhortations and directives, Schlegelberger contributed to the destruction of judicial independence. It was his signature on the decree of 7 February 1942 which imposed upon the Ministry of Justice and the courts the burden of the prosecution, trial, and disposal of the victims of Hitler’s Night and Fog. For this he must be charged with primary responsibility. Machtergreifung is a German word meaning seizure of power. ... February 7 is the 38th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... This article is about the year. ...

"He was guilty of instituting and supporting procedures for the wholesale persecution of Jews and Poles. Concerning Jews, his ideas were less brutal than those of his associates, but they can scarcely be called humane. When the “final solution of the Jewish question” was under discussion, the question arose as to the disposition of half-Jews. The deportation of full Jews to the East was then in full swing throughout Germany. Schlegelberger was unwilling to extend the system to half-Jews."[1] In a February 26, 1942 letter to Martin Luther (diplomat), Reinhard Heydrich follows up on the Wannsee Conference by asking Luther for administrative assistance in the implementation of the Endlösung der Judenfrage (Final Solution of the Jewish Question). ...

To spare the half-Jews deportation to the concentration and death camps, he suggested in a letter on 5 April 1942 to Hans Heinrich Lammers that half-Jews be given a choice between deportation or sterilization. The letter ran thus: April 5 is the 95th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (96th in leap years). ... This article is about the year. ... Sterilization can mean: Sterilization (surgical procedure) - an operation which renders an animal or human unable to procreate Sterilization (microbiology) - the elimination of microbiological organisms It can also mean the death of sperm cells due to radiation. ...

Works

• Das Landarbeiterrecht. Darstellung des privaten und öffentlichen Rechts der Landarbeiter in Preußen., Berlin., C. Heymann 1907.
• Kriegsbuch. Die Kriegsgesetze mit der amtlichen Begründung und der gesamten Rechtsprechung und Rechtslehre -Berlin, Vahlen 1918 (with Georg Güthe)
• Freiwillige Gerichtsbarkeit, Heft 43, Berlin 1935 Industrieverlag Spaeth & Linde
• Gesetz über die Aufwertung von Hypotheken und anderen Ansprüchen vom 16. Juli 1925, Berlin, Dahlen, 1925. (co-author: Rudolf Harmening)
• Zur Rationalisierung der Gesetzgebung., Berlin, Vlg. Franz Vahlen, 1928
• Jahrbuch des Deutschen Rechtes., with Leo Sternberg, 26th volume, report about the year 1927, Vahlen, Berlin, 1928
• Das Recht der Neuzeit. Ein Führer durch das geltende Recht des Reichs und Preußens seit 1914 with Werner Hoche, Berlin: Franz Vahlen 1932.
• Rechtsvergleichendes Handwörterbuch für das Zivil- und Handelsrecht des In- und Auslandes - 4. Bd.: Gütergemeinschaft auf Todesfall - Kindschaftsrecht, Berlin Franz Vahlen, 1933
• Die Zinssenkung nach der Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten vom 8. Dezember 1931, with an introduction and brief comments by Dr. Dr. F. Schlegelberger, State Secretary in the Reich Justice Ministry, Franz von Dahlen, Berlin 1932
• Das Recht der Neuzeit. Vom Weltkrieg zum nationalsozialistischen Staat. Ein Führer durch das geltende Recht des Reichs und Preußens von 1914 bis 1934., Berlin: Franz Vahlen 1934.
• Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der freiwilligen Gerichtsbarkeit, Köln, Heymanns 1952.
• Das Recht der Gegenwart. Ein Führer durch das in Deutschland geltende Recht as publisher, Berlin and Frankfurt a. M., Franz Vahlen Verlag 1955
• Seehandelsrecht. Zugleich Ergänzungsband zu Schlegelberger, Kommentar zum Handelsgesetzbuch, Berlin, Vahlen, 1959.(with Rudolf Liesecke)
• Kommentar zum Handelsgesetzbuch in der seit dem 1. Oktober 1937 geltenden Fassung (ohne Seerecht). Annotated by Ernst Geßler, Wolfgang Hefermehl, Wolfgang Hildebrandt, Georg Schröder, Berlin, Vahlen, 1960; 1965; 1966.

Literature

• Michael Förster, Jurist im Dienst des Unrechts: Leben und Werk des ehemaligen Staatssekretärs im Reichsjustizministerium, Franz Schlegelberger, 1876-1970, Baden-Baden 1995
• Eli Nathans, Franz Schlegelberger, Baden-Baden 1990
• Arne Wulff, Staatssekretär Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Franz Schlegelberger, 1876-1970, Frankfurt am Main 1991

External links

• Works of and about Franz Schlegelberger in the DDB catalogue
• Legal Order as Motive and Mask: Franz Schlegelberger and the Nazi Administration of Justice
• Schlegelberger's testimony before the Nuremberg Tribunal
• Excerpts from the Judges' Trial