Editing Roland Freisler (section)

== Contribution to the Nazification of the law ==
Freisler was a committed [[Nazism|Nazi]] ideologist and used his legal skills to adapt its theories into practical law-making and judicature. He published a paper entitled ''Die rassebiologische Aufgabe bei der Neugestaltung des Jugendstrafrechts'' ("The racial-biological task involved in the reform of juvenile criminal law").<ref>In ''Monatsschrift für Kriminalbiologie und Strafrechtsreform'', 1939, p. 209.</ref> In this document he argued that "racially foreign, racially degenerate, racially incurable or seriously defective juveniles" should be sent to juvenile centres or correctional education centres and segregated from those who are "German and racially valuable".<ref>Cited by Wayne Geerling, see below in the Bibliography.</ref>

He strongly advocated the creation of laws to punish ''[[Rassenschande]]'' ("race defilement", the Nazi term for sexual relations between "Aryans" and "inferior races"), to be classed as "racial treason". Freisler looked to racist laws in the [[United States]] states as a model for Nazi legislation to target Jews in Germany.<ref>[[James Whitman]] "[https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10925.html Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law]" ([[Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton]], [[Princeton University Press]], 2017), pp. 103-106</ref> Freisler considered [[Jim Crow]] racist legislation "primitive" for failing to provide a legal definition of the term black or negro person. Nevertheless, while some more conservative Nazi lawyers objected to the lack of precision with which a person could be defined as a "Jew," he argued that American judges were able to identify black people for purposes of laws in American states that prohibited "[[miscegenation]]" between black and white people, and laws that otherwise codified [[racial segregation in the United States|racial segregation]], and, therefore, German laws could similarly target Jews even if the term "Jew" could not be given a precise legal definition.<ref>[[James Whitman]] "[https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10925.html Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law]" ([[Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton]], [[Princeton University Press]], 2017), pp. 106-110</ref>

In 1933, he published a pamphlet calling for the legal prohibition of "mixed-blood" sexual intercourse, which met with expressions of public unease in the dying elements of the German free press and non-Nazi political classes and, at the time, lacked public authorization from the policy of the Nazi Party, which had only just obtained dictatorial control of the state. It also led to a clash with his superior [[Franz Gürtner]],<ref name="CK">[[Claudia Koonz|Koonz, Claudia]], ''The Nazi Conscience'', pp 173-174 {{ISBN|0-674-01172-4}}</ref> but Freisler's ideological views reflected things to come, as was shown by the enactment of the [[Nuremberg Laws]] within two years.

In October 1939, Freisler introduced the concept of 'precocious juvenile criminal' in the "Juvenile Felons Decree". This "provided the legal basis for imposing the death penalty and penitentiary terms on juveniles for the first time in German legal history."<ref name="Wayne Geerling, Id">Wayne Geerling, Id.</ref> Between 1933 and 1945, the Reich's courts sentenced at least 72 German juveniles to death, among them 17-year-old [[Helmuth Hübener]], found guilty of high treason for distributing anti-war leaflets in 1942.

On the outbreak of [[World War II]], Freisler issued a legal "Decree against National Parasites" (September 1939) introducing the term "perpetrator type", which was used in combination with another Nazi ideological term, "parasite". The adoption of racial biological terminology into law portrayed juvenile criminality as "parasitical", implying the need for harsher sentences to remedy it. He justified the new concept with: "in times of war, breaches of loyalty and baseness cannot find any leniency and must be met with the full force of the law."<ref name="Wayne Geerling, Id"/>

On 8 July 1940, the Justice Ministry received a written complaint from a senior local court judge protesting against the [[euthanasia#Nazi Euthanasia Program|euthanasia]] killings of physically or mentally disabled individuals that had claimed his [[ward (law)|wards]]. Freisler met with him and explained that the ministry was establishing orderly procedures for the program with "expert committees" and "grievance councils", but he did not dispute the legality of the killings, arguing that the Nazi state had brought about a new concept of law. The judge continued to protest and some months later, after a second meeting with ''Reichsminister'' Gürtner reinforced Freisler's position, the judge was forced to retire.{{sfn|Struck|2017|pp=179–180}}

On 31 October 1941, Freisler issued a directive that Jewish inmates must wear the identifying [[yellow badge]] in Reich prisons. He also worked closely with the ''[[Reichsstatthalter]]'' of [[Reichsgau Wartheland]], [[Arthur Greiser]], on standardizing penalties for Jews and Poles in the occupied eastern territories. They concluded that the death penalty or [[concentration camp]] imprisonment, imposed by special courts-martial, were the only acceptable punishments for these categories of individuals, even for minor offenses. These penal regulations came into force in December 1941, and also were applied to Jews who were transported into the eastern territories.{{sfn|Struck|2017|p=180}}