154-645: Karl Roland Freisler (30 October 1893 – 3 February 1945) was a German jurist, judge and politician who served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice from 1934 to 1942 and as President of the People's Court from 1942 to 1945. As a prominent ideologist of Nazism , he influenced as a jurist the Nazification of Germany's legal system . He attended the 1942 Wannsee Conference ,
308-576: A Fahnenjunker (officer cadet) in 1914 with the 167th Infantry Regiment (1st Upper Alsatian) in Kassel , and by 1915 he was a Leutnant . While serving on the front-line with the 22nd Division , he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class, for heroism in action. In October 1915, he was wounded in action on the Eastern Front and taken as a prisoner of war by Imperial Russian forces. While
462-534: A capital charge. Its separate administrative existence beyond the ordinary judicial system, despite its trappings, rapidly turned it into an executive execution arm and psychological domestic terror weapon of Nazi Germany's totalitarian regime, in the tradition of a revolutionary tribunal rather than a court of law. He chaired the First Senate of the People's Court wearing a blood scarlet judicial robe, in
616-430: A "Secretary", a lower position, responsible to a Minister. The official responsible for foreign policy is called Minister of Foreign Affairs (Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores) or "Chancellor" (Canciller). In Brazil , a Secretary of State ( Portuguese : secretário de Estado or secretário estadual ) – commonly referred simply as "Secretary" ( Portuguese : secretário ) is one of the government members of each of
770-607: A Secretary of State ( Secrétaire d'État ) is a junior minister, responsible to a minister or the Prime Minister. It is not to be confused with the Minister of State title given to a senior French cabinet minister of particular importance. Under the Ancien Régime , Secretaries of State were Crown officers whose responsibilities were similar to those of today's governmental ministers . The German Staatssekretär
924-461: A Secretary of State for External Affairs who acted as the country's Foreign Minister , but this position was abolished in 1993 and a new position of Minister of Foreign Affairs was created. From 1867 to 1993, there was also a Secretary of State for Canada who was a Cabinet minister whose duties varied over time but who was responsible for the Department of Secretary of State until the position
1078-412: A broad array of political offences, including black marketeering , work slowdowns and defeatism. These actions were viewed by Freisler as Wehrkraftzersetzung (undermining defensive capability) and were punished severely, with many death sentences. The People's Court under Freisler's domination almost always sided with the prosecuting authority, to the point that being brought before it was tantamount to
1232-399: A civil servant. Nevertheless, Staatssekretäre function as the administrative heads of ministries. They depend on the full confidence of their respective ministers and can at any time be posted into provisional retirement with their pension paid in full. This happens usually when the government or the minister changes. De facto such a provisional retirement is lifelong. A special case is
1386-536: A double team of interrogators. Bukharin's confession in particular became subject of much debate among Western observers, inspiring Koestler's acclaimed novel Darkness at Noon and philosophical essay by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in Humanism and Terror . His confessions were somewhat different from others in that while he pleaded guilty to "sum total of crimes", he denied knowledge when it came to specific crimes. Some astute observers noted that he would allow only what
1540-513: A fabricated confession by the interrogators. After the interrogations the files were submitted to NKVD troikas, which pronounced the verdicts in the absence of the accused. During a half-day-long session a troika went through several hundred cases, delivering either a death sentence or a sentence to the Gulag labor camps. Death sentences were immediately enforceable. The executions were carried out at night, either in prisons or in secluded areas run by
1694-477: A fictionalized form in the Hans Fallada novel Every Man Dies Alone (1947). In 1943, he tried and handed down death penalties to Otto and Elise Hampel , who were both guillotined for distributing anti-Nazi postcards, and whose true story inspired Fallada's novel. In the novel Fatherland (1992) by Robert Harris , which takes place in an alternate 1964 in which Nazi Germany won World War II , Freisler
SECTION 10
#17327764045641848-696: A hearing chamber bedecked with scarlet swastika -draped banners and a large black sculpted bust of Adolf Hitler's head upon a high pedestal behind his chair, opening each hearing session with the Nazi salute from the bench . He acted as prosecutor, judge and jury combined, and also as his own recorder, thereby controlling the record of the written grounds for the sentences that he passed. The frequency of death sentences rose sharply under Freisler's rule. 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
2002-516: A history of antisemitism and knowledge of the regime's use of extrajudicial killing in other contexts, and was certainly aware that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the extermination of the Jews. On 20 August 1942, Hitler promoted Otto Georg Thierack to Reich Justice Minister, replacing the retiring Schlegelberger, and named Freisler to succeed Thierack as president of the People's Court ( Volksgerichtshof ). This court had jurisdiction over
2156-555: A lawyer, and another brother who became a doctor. He attended the Wilhelmsgymnasium Kassel [ de ] and received his Abitur in 1912, graduating at the top of his class. Freisler was attending law school at Kiel University upon the outbreak of World War I in 1914, which interrupted his studies. He saw active service in the German Imperial Army during the war after enlisting as
2310-523: A lawyer. Oswald had acted as a defence counsel against the regime's authority several times during the increasingly politically driven trials by which the Nazis sought to enforce their tyrannical control of German society, and he had the habit of wearing his Nazi Party membership badge in court whilst doing so. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels reproached Oswald Freisler and reported his actions to Adolf Hitler who, in response, ordered Freisler's expulsion from
2464-789: A massive scale as victims of the repression. In addition to ordinary citizens, prominent members of the Communist Party were also targets for the purges. The purge of the Party was accompanied by the purge of the whole society. Soviet historians organize the Great Purge into three corresponding trials. The following events are used for the demarcation of the period: Between 1936 and 1938, three very large Moscow trials of former senior Communist Party leaders were held, in which they were accused of conspiring with fascist and capitalist powers to assassinate Stalin and other Soviet leaders, dismember
2618-583: A member of the executive bureaucracy (civil service) as a political appointment (equivalent to permanent secretary ). In the Holy See , the administrative body of the Catholic Church , the cardinal secretary of state coordinates all the departments of the Roman Curia (and is in that respect equivalent to a prime minister ). The United States secretary of state is the foreign minister of
2772-605: A number of the Soviet Union's diaspora nationalities: the Finnish , Latvian , Estonian , Bulgarian , Afghan , Iranian , Greek , and Chinese . Of the operations against national minorities, it was the largest one, second only to the "Kulak Operation" in terms of the number of victims. According to Timothy Snyder , ethnic Poles constituted the largest group of victims in the Great Terror, comprising less than 0.5% of
2926-455: A paper entitled Die rassebiologische Aufgabe bei der Neugestaltung des Jugendstrafrechts ("The racial-biological task involved in the reform of juvenile criminal law"). 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". He strongly advocated
3080-686: A prisoner, Freisler learned to speak Russian and developed an interest in Marxism after the Russian Revolution had commenced. The Bolshevik provisional authority which took over responsibility for Freisler's prisoner of war camp made use of him as a camp " Commissar " (as he was described by them in his repatriated prisoner of war paperwork in 1918) administratively organizing the camp's food supplies from 1917 to 1918. According to historian Georg Franz–Willig's Ursprung der Hitlerbewegung 3 volume set published by Schütz, Pr. Oldendorf, 1974,
3234-459: A secretary of State to be in charge of a secretariat of State ( Portuguese : secretaria de Estado ), a Government department with a status below that of a ministry. A secretariat of State could be organized as a division of a ministry or occasionally be directly subordinate to the Prime Minister. For example, from 1987 to 1995, a Secretariat of State for the Culture existed directly subordinate to
SECTION 20
#17327764045643388-476: Is a Beamter (civil servant) who ranks second only to the minister in a state or federal ministry, so the position is equivalent to that of Permanent secretary in the United Kingdom, not to that of a U.K. Secretary of State . While officially it is not a political office, often it is assigned by appointment based on political criteria such as party affiliation, rather than by career progression as
3542-583: Is also, in protocol , the first Cabinet member in the order of precedence , immediately preceding any former presidents and former first ladies, who are followed by the rest of the Cabinet. In most of the individual states of the United States , the Secretary of State is an administrative officer responsible for certain governmental functions. The specific powers and duties of this office depend on
3696-427: Is commonly used for senior or mid-level posts in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple secretaries of state in the country's system of governing the country. In many countries, a secretary of state is a senior or mid-level post. It is usually a politically appointed position, although in some countries, such as Germany and Sweden , it can be filled by
3850-426: Is debated by historians, but there is consensus that Kirov's death was the flashpoint at which Stalin decided to take action and begin the purges. Some later historians came to believe that Stalin arranged the murder, or at least that there was sufficient evidence to reach such a conclusion. Kirov was a staunch Stalin loyalist, but Stalin may have viewed him as a potential rival because of his emerging popularity among
4004-514: Is equal to our best speakers, if not superior; particularly on the broad masses he has influence, but thinking people mostly reject him. Party Comrade Freisler is usable as only a speaker though and is unsuitable for any position of authority because of his unreliability and moodiness." In February 1933, after the Nazi seizure of power , Freisler was appointed Ministerial Director in the Prussian Ministry of Justice under Hans Kerrl . He
4158-794: Is mentioned as having survived until winter 1954, when he is killed by a maniac with a knife on the steps of the Berlin People's Court. It is implied that his death was actually caused by the Gestapo , to ensure that the Wannsee Conference and the Holocaust remained a secret. Freisler has been portrayed by screen actors at least eight times: by Rainer Steffen [ de ] in the German television film Die Wannseekonferenz (1984), by Roland Schäfer [ de ] in
4312-677: Is responsible for the administration of United States embassies and their subsidiary units throughout the world. The U.S. secretary of state has the power to remove any foreign diplomat from U.S. soil for any reason. Six secretaries of state became presidents ( Thomas Jefferson , James Madison , James Monroe , John Quincy Adams , Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan ) and five won Nobel Peace Prizes ( Frank Kellogg , Cordell Hull , George Marshall , Elihu Root , and Henry Kissinger ). The now long-established terms "Department ..." and "Secretary of State" were preceded (for two months following
4466-410: Is responsible to the minister. This is a new arrangement; during the introduction of this model, a secretary was called "political state secretary" ( poliittinen valtiosihteeri ). In contrast, previously only two ministries, Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs, used to have state secretaries, who were permanently appointed. One such example is Raimo Sailas [ fi ] . In France ,
4620-599: 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
4774-666: The government of the Brussels-Capital Region , one of whom has to be Flemish. The secretary of state ( Riigisekretär ) directs the Government Office . Its mission is to support the Government of Estonia and the Prime Minister of Estonia in policy drafting and implementation. It also supports any Ministers without portfolio and helps to ensure good governance. The first Secretary of State
Roland Freisler - Misplaced Pages Continue
4928-726: The Brazilian states , subordinate to the respective State Governor . At state level, the Brazilian secretaries of State have functions similar to those of the Ministers of the Federal Government . At federal level, the officer responsible for foreign affairs, a position equivalent to that of the United States Secretary of State, is the Minister of Foreign Affairs . The Canadian Cabinet used to have
5082-611: The Golden Party Badge . From late 1925 to September 1927, Freisler was the Deputy Gauleiter in Gau Hessen-Nassau Nord under Walter Schultz . He was also a member of the Party's National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK), attaining the rank of NSKK- Brigadeführer in 1942. As the Nazis transitioned from a fringe political beer hall and street fighting movement into a political party, Freisler
5236-612: The Gulag labor camps . The NKVD targeted certain ethnic minorities such as the Volga Germans , and Soviet citizens of Polish origin, who were subjected to forced deportation and extreme repression. Throughout the purge, the NKVD sought to strengthen control over civilians through fear, and frequently used imprisonment, torture, violent interrogation, and executions during its mass operations . In 1938, Stalin reversed his stance on
5390-635: The Lützow Hospital when Freisler's body was brought in, and that a worker commented, "It is God's verdict." According to Mrs. Jodl: "Not one person said a word in reply." His body was buried in the grave of his wife's family at the Waldfriedhof Dahlem Cemetery in Berlin. His name is not recorded on the gravestone. He married Marion Russegger on 24 March 1928; the couple had two sons, Harald and Roland. Freisler appears in
5544-575: The Moscow Trials to watch the proceedings against the condemned. Freisler later rejected any insinuation that he had ever co-operated with the Soviets, the ideological nemesis of Nazi Germany, but his subsequent career as a political official in Germany was overshadowed by rumours about his time as a "Commissar" with the "Reds". Freisler returned to Germany in 1919 to complete his law studies at
5698-649: The Orange Free State (1854–1902) the Secretary of State was the original title of the main administrative officer of the State, who worked closely with both the State President as head of state and head of government, and his cabinet, and with the Volksraad , the parliament of the Orange Free State . The title of State Secretary was replaced by that of Government Secretary soon after the formation of
5852-651: The Parliamentary State Secretary ( Parlamentarischer Staatssekretär ), who is a member of parliament who is appointed to a ministry as a Staatssekretär ; in the German Foreign Office and the German Chancellery the official title is Staatsminister ( Minister of State ). Critics claim that parliamentary secretaries of state are usually given little to no influence and responsibility within their ministry, all
6006-553: The Staatsminister office an " Unding " (absurdity). In 1998, chancellor Gerhard Schröder introduced the new office of Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media ( German : Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien ) at the formal rank of a Parlamentarischer Staatssekretär , hence the office is usually called Kulturstaatsminister ("State Minister of Culture") for short – although some of
6160-667: The State Financial Officer to implement the Sultan’s executive authority. Additionally, in legal matters involving government personnel, documents signed by the State Secretary, such as those certifying employment details, were accepted as conclusive evidence in court. In Indonesia , the Minister-Secretary of State ( Menteri Sekretaris Negara ) is a Government official of Ministerial rank who heads
6314-777: The Trial of the Twenty-One , is the most famous of the Soviet show trials, because of persons involved and the scope of charges which tied together all loose threads from earlier trials. Meant to be the culmination of previous trials, it included 21 defendants alleged to belong to the "Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites", supposedly led by Nikolai Bukharin, the former chairman of the Communist International , former premier Alexei Rykov , Christian Rakovsky , Nikolai Krestinsky , and Genrikh Yagoda , recently disgraced head of
Roland Freisler - Misplaced Pages Continue
6468-504: The Tsarist regime , former members of political parties other than the communist party, etc.). They were to be executed or sent to Gulag prison camps extrajudicially, under the decisions of NKVD troikas. The following categories appear to have been on index-cards, catalogues of suspects assembled over the years by the NKVD and were systematically tracked down: "ex-kulaks" previously deported to " special settlements " in inhospitable parts of
6622-828: The University of Jena , and he qualified as a Doctor of Law in 1922. In 1924, he began working as an Assessor in Kassel , and also was elected as a city councillor for the Völkisch-Social Bloc , an ultranationalist splinter party. He joined the Nazi Party in July 1925 (membership number 9,679) and immediately gained a position of authority within the organisation by using his legal training to defend Party members and SA men who were regularly facing prosecutions for acts of political violence . As an early Party member, or Alter Kämpfer , he would later be awarded
6776-602: The Yezhovshchina ( Ежовщина [(j)ɪˈʐofɕːɪnə] , lit. ' period of Yezhov ' ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. It sought to consolidate Joseph Stalin 's power over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and aimed at removing the remaining influence of Leon Trotsky within the Soviet Union. The term great purge was popularized by
6930-468: The federal government of the United States while in most of the individual U.S. states the secretary of state is an administrative officer responsible for certain governmental functions, often including overseeing elections, tasks which would be exercised by interior ministers or secretaries in most other nations. The term secretary of state originated in early 17th century England . In
7084-552: The president of the Republic . In the United States federal government, "Secretary of State" refers to the official responsible for executing the non-military and non-homeland security aspects of foreign policy, the analogue of the foreign secretary or foreign minister of a country that has one or the other. The U.S. secretary of state is head of the United States Department of State . The secretary of state
7238-706: The "commission" authorized by the Politburo and gave assurances that death sentences would not be carried out. After the trial, Stalin not only broke his promise to spare the defendants, he had most of their relatives arrested and shot. In May 1937, the Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials , commonly known as the Dewey Commission, was set up in
7392-412: The (Raja of Perlis). The State Secretary is the head of the public service in his/her state. Following the Portuguese model , in the Government of Timor-Leste , a Secretary of State ( Sekretáriu Estadu in Tetum , Secretário de Estado in Portuguese ) is a junior minister, subordinate to a cabinet minister. Despite being members of the Government, the Secretaries of State usually do not participate in
7546-456: The 19th century, the title of "minister" started to be used, the official complete title of each of the ministers becoming "minister and secretary of State" of a given portfolio until the end of the Monarchy in 1910 . From them on, the title "minister" completely replaced that of "secretary of State" (with the exception of the brief presidential system that existed during 1918, in which the ministers were re-titled "secretaries of State"). In 1958,
7700-529: The Anglo-French-German film Reunion (1989), by Brian Cox in the British television film Witness Against Hitler (1996), by Owen Teale in the BBC / HBO film Conspiracy (2001), by André Hennicke in the film Sophie Scholl – The Final Days (2005), by Helmut Stauss in the film Valkyrie (2008) by Karl Knaup in Rommel (2012, uncredited) and by Arnd Klawitter in the German television film Die Wannseekonferenz (2022). State Secretary The title secretary of state or state's secretary
7854-421: The Chief Prosecutor of the Soviet purge trials , and had attended those show trials to watch Vyshinsky's courtroom performances in a similar capacity in Moscow in 1938. On 18 February 1943, Sophie Scholl and Hans Scholl were captured by the Gestapo. Through questioning, it became clear that the two siblings were part of a resistance group called the White Rose that was attempting to sow discord in Germany by
SECTION 50
#17327764045648008-414: The Commonwealth ", since these states as well as Kentucky are called " commonwealth " instead of "state". In Connecticut , this office is called the " Secretary of the State ". In three states ( Alaska , Hawaii and Utah ), there is no secretary of state. The State Secretary ( Setiausaha Kerajaan ) was established to support the Menteri Besar in overseeing Brunei's administrative functions. The position
8162-450: The Council of Ministers, unless they are specially summoned for and, in this case, without right to vote. As in France , a secretary of state in Belgium is a junior minister who is responsible to a minister or to the prime minister. For example, Vincent Van Quickenborne was a secretary of state charged with the simplification of the administration, and in this role he was accountable to the prime minister . The title "secretary of state"
8316-590: The German public in cinema newsreels, and portray how Freisler ran his court; he would often alternate between questioning the defendants in an analytical manner, then suddenly launching into a furious verbal tirade, even going so far as to shout insults at the accused from the bench. The shift from cold, clinical interrogation to fits of screaming rage was designed to psychologically disarm, torment and humiliate those on trial while discouraging any attempt on their part to defend or justify their actions. At one point, Freisler yelled at Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben , who
8470-401: The Government is the Malaysian secretary of state. However, every state in Malaysia have their own State Secretary, except federal territories. Secretary of State is the member of the State Executive Council, appointed by the Governor (in Malacca , Penang , Sabah and Sarawak ) or the Sultan (except in Negeri Sembilan , appointed by the Yang DiPertuan Besar ; and Perlis , appointed by
8624-399: The Justice Ministry received a written complaint from a senior local court judge protesting against the euthanasia killings of physically or mentally disabled individuals that had claimed his 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
8778-515: The Ministry of State Secretariat. The Minister-Secretary of State gives technical and administrative assistance to the President and Vice President in running State affairs. In the President's case, the Minister-Secretary of State also provides assistance for the President in his role as Commander-in-chief of Indonesian National Armed Forces . In addition, the State Secretary provides the President and Vice President with their reports, coordinates household matters and protocols, as well as assisting in
8932-406: The Moscow Trials to be frame-ups." In the second trial, Karl Radek testified that there was a "third organization separate from the cadres which had passed through [Trotsky's] school," as well as "semi-Trotskyites, quarter-Trotskyites, one-eighth-Trotskyites, people who helped us, not knowing of the terrorist organization but sympathizing with us, people who from liberalism, from a Fronde against
9086-428: The NKVD was the largest of this kind. The Polish operation claimed the largest number of the NKVD victims: 143,810 arrests and 111,091 executions according to records. Snyder estimates that at least eighty-five thousand of them were ethnic Poles. The remainder were 'suspected' of being Polish, without further inquiry. Poles comprised 12.5% of those who were killed during the Great Terror, while comprising only 0.4% of
9240-447: The NKVD and located as a rule on the outskirts of major cities. The "Kulak Operation" was the largest single campaign of repression in 1937–38, with 669,929 people arrested and 376,202 executed, more than half the total of known executions. A series of mass operations of the NKVD was carried out from 1937 through 1938 targeting specific nationalities within the Soviet Union, on the order of Nikolai Yezhov . The Polish Operation of
9394-400: The NKVD. Although an Opposition Bloc led by Trotsky and with zinovievites really existed, Pierre Broué asserts that Bukharin was not involved. Differently from Broué, one of his former allies, Jules Humbert-Droz , said in his memoirs that Bukharin told him that he formed a secret bloc with Zinoviev and Kamenev in order to remove Stalin from leadership. The fact that Yagoda was one of
SECTION 60
#17327764045649548-529: The NKVD. Eventually, the purges were expanded to the Red Army and military high command, which had a disastrous effect on the military. The campaigns also affected many other categories of the society: intelligentsia , wealthy peasants —especially those lending out money or wealth ( kulaks )—and professionals. As the scope of the purge widened, the omnipresent suspicion of saboteurs and counter-revolutionaries began affecting civilian life. The purge reached its peak between September 1936 and August 1938 under
9702-456: The Party, gave us this help." By the "third organization," he meant the last remaining former opposition group called the Rightists , led by Bukharin, whom he implicated by saying: I feel guilty of one thing more: even after admitting my guilt and exposing the organisation, I stubbornly refused to give evidence about Bukharin. I knew that Bukharin's situation was just as hopeless as my own, because our guilt, if not juridically, then in essence,
9856-502: The Party. (Oswald Freisler died, allegedly by suicide, in 1939.) In 1941, in a discussion at the "Führer Headquarters" about whom to appoint to replace Franz Gürtner , the Reich Justice Minister, who had died, Goebbels suggested Roland Freisler as an option; Hitler's reply, referring to Freisler's alleged "Red" past, was: "That old Bolshevik? No!" Freisler was a committed Nazi ideologist and used his legal skills to adapt its theories into practical law-making and judicature. He published
10010-410: The Prime Minister. Despite this type of department no longer officially existing in the organization of the Portuguese Government, it is still common usage for the portfolio of a secretary of State to be colloquially referred to as a "secretariat of State". Historically, since the 17th century, the title of "secretary of State" was used to designate the heads of the Government departments of Portugal. In
10164-399: The SDP newspaper Vorwärts of 3 May 1924 ran an article entitled SPIRITUAL KINSHIP: JEWISH–COMMUNIST, POPULAR REICHSTAG CANDIDATE, in which it stated that Freisler had been "until rather recently a member of the German Communist Party" and that this was interesting because "his grandmother was a full Jewess." Another possibility is that after the Russian Revolution the description "Commissar"
10318-405: The Soviet Union and restore capitalism. These trials were highly publicized and extensively covered by the outside world, which was mesmerized by the spectacle of Lenin's closest associates confessing to most outrageous crimes and begging for death sentences: It is now known that the confessions were given only after great psychological pressure and torture had been applied to the defendants. From
10472-417: The Soviet economy in the late 1920s, veteran Bolsheviks no longer thought necessary the "temporary" wartime dictatorship, which had passed from Lenin to Stalin. Stalin's opponents inside the Communist Party chided him as undemocratic and lax on bureaucratic corruption. This opposition to current leadership may have accumulated substantial support among the working class by attacking the privileges and luxuries
10626-452: The Soviet government desired to put Trotsky on trial during the purge, his exile prevented this. Trotsky survived the purge, though he would be assassinated in 1940 by the NKVD on the orders of Stalin. Following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, a power vacuum opened in the Communist Party, the ruling party in the Soviet Union (USSR). Various established figures in Lenin's government attempted to succeed him. By 1928, Joseph Stalin,
10780-400: The State, working closely with both the State President as head of state and head of government, and the parliament of the South African Republic . In Liberia , from 1847 until 1972, the Secretary of State was the head of the Department of State and the chief foreign policy officer of the republic, responsible for conducting diplomacy and implementing the nation's foreign affairs. The title
10934-656: The United States by supporters of Trotsky, to establish the truth about the trials. The commission was headed by the noted American philosopher and educator John Dewey . Although the hearings were obviously conducted with a view to proving Trotsky's innocence, they brought to light evidence which established that some of the specific charges made at the trials could not be true. For example, Georgy Pyatakov testified that he had flown to Oslo in December 1935 to "receive terrorist instructions" from Trotsky. The Dewey Commission established that no such flight had taken place. Another defendant, Ivan Smirnov , confessed to taking part in
11088-517: The Wehrmacht's "numerous murders in Poland", by roaring at him in an exaggerated and theatrical manner, declaring " Sie sind ja ein schäbiger Lump! " (roughly, "You really are a lousy piece of trash!"). Nearly all of the accused were sentenced to death by hanging, with some of the sentences being carried out within two hours of the verdict being delivered. On the morning of 3 February 1945, Freisler
11242-410: The accounts of former OGPU officer Alexander Orlov and others, the methods used to extract the confessions are known: such tortures as repeated beatings, simulated drownings, making prisoners stand or go without sleep for days on end, and threats to arrest and execute the prisoners' families. For example, Kamenev's teenage son was arrested and charged with terrorism. After months of such interrogation,
11396-540: The accused is not essential. The confession of the accused is a medieval principle of jurisprudence" in a trial that was based solely on confessions. He finished his last plea with the words: [T]he monstrousness of my crime is immeasurable especially in the new stage of struggle of the U.S.S.R. May this trial be the last severe lesson, and may the great might of the U.S.S.R. become clear to all. Romain Rolland and others wrote to Stalin seeking clemency for Bukharin, but all
11550-522: The accused showed the speed at which the purges were consuming their own. It was now alleged that Bukharin and others sought to assassinate Lenin and Stalin from 1918, murder Maxim Gorky by poison, partition the USSR and hand its territories to Germany, Japan, and Great Britain, and other charges. Even previously sympathetic observers who had accepted the earlier trials found it more difficult to accept these new allegations as they became ever more absurd, and
11704-485: The activities of the other dicasteries. The secretariat is also responsible for the Holy See 's foreign relations. During a sede vacante , the former Secretary of State (the appointment expires when the pope dies or resigns) assumes some of the functions of the head of state as a part of a temporary commission. Luxembourgian Secretaries of State ( French : secrétaire d'Etat , Luxembourgish : Staatssekretär(in) , German : Staatssekretär(in) ) are members of
11858-487: The assassination of Sergei Kirov in December 1934, at a time when he had already been in prison for a year. The Dewey Commission later published its findings in a 422-page book titled Not Guilty . Its conclusions asserted the innocence of all those condemned in the Moscow Trials. In its summary, the commission wrote Independent of extrinsic evidence, the Commission finds: The commission concluded: "We therefore find
12012-524: The basis of denunciations or because they were related to, were friends with or knew people already arrested. Engineers, peasants, railwaymen, and other types of workers were arrested during the "Kulak Operation" based on the fact that they worked for or near important strategic sites and factories where work accidents had occurred due to "frantic rhythms and plans". During this period the NKVD reopened these cases and relabeled them as "sabotage" or "wrecking." The Orthodox clergy , including active parishioners,
12166-523: The cabinet, and are ranked below ministers. They are given specific briefs, covering the same briefs as the ministers, and help to assist their respective ministers to perform their functions. They often hold more than one brief or assist more than one minister. In the first Juncker-Asselborn cabinet , there was one Secretary of State, Octavie Modert , who is responsible for Relations with Parliament; Agriculture, Viticulture, and Rural Development; and Culture, Higher Education, and Research. There had been two in
12320-403: The constitution and laws of the particular state, but they often include responsibility for overseeing elections within the state. In the state of Oregon the secretary of state is an elected office that acts as the equivalent of a lieutenant governor in other states among many other duties. In three states ( Massachusetts , Pennsylvania , and Virginia ), the position is called " Secretary of
12474-538: The council of ministers. In Mozambique, the role of vice-minister ( Portuguese : vice-ministro ) exists as an intermediate government rank between those of minister and Secretary of State. The role of vice-minister also exists in the Government of Angola, but it is junior to that of Secretary of State. In the South African Republic the Secretary of State was the main administrative officer of
12628-614: The country ( Siberia , the Urals , Kazakhstan, and the Far North ), former tsarist civil servants, former officers of the White Army , participants in peasant rebellions, members of the clergy, persons deprived of voting rights, former members of non-Bolshevik parties, ordinary criminals, like thieves, known to the police and various other "socially harmful elements". However, a large number of people were arrested at random in sweeps, on
12782-695: The country as threatened from within by fascist spies. From the October Revolution onward, Lenin had used repression against perceived and legitimate enemies of the Bolsheviks as a systematic method of instilling fear and facilitating control over the population in a campaign called the Red Terror . As the Russian Civil War drew to a close, this campaign was relaxed although the secret police did remain active. From 1924 to 1928,
12936-472: 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. Freisler became known during this period for berating each member of the steady stream of defendants passing before him. He was known to be interested in Andrei Vyshinsky ,
13090-456: 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. Freisler considered Jim Crow racist legislation "primitive" for failing to provide a legal definition of
13244-407: The defendants were driven to despair and exhaustion. Zinoviev and Kamenev demanded, as a condition for "confessing", a direct guarantee from the Politburo that their lives and that of their families and followers would be spared. This offer was accepted, but when they were taken to the alleged Politburo meeting, only Stalin, Kliment Voroshilov , and Yezhov were present. Stalin claimed that they were
13398-530: The drafting of bills and/or Governmental regulations. The Kuwaiti Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Sheikh Muhammad Al-Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah , is in charge of international relations of Kuwait, and all Kuwaiti representatives abroad. Al-Sabah is a member of the cabinet of ministers, and reports directly to Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah , The Emir of Kuwait. He is also in charge of all the diplomatic representatives in Kuwait . In Malaysia , Chief Secretary to
13552-499: The eastern territories. On 20 January 1942, Freisler, representing Acting Reichsminister of Justice Franz Schlegelberger , attended the Wannsee Conference of senior governmental officials in a villa on the southwestern outskirts of Berlin to provide expert legal advice for the planning of the destruction of European Jewry . The official minutes of the conference do not record any comments by Freisler. However, he had
13706-547: The effective date of the Constitution ) by the narrower title Secretary of Foreign Affairs and the corresponding departmental name; the change reflected the addition of some miscellaneous domestic responsibilities. The position is widely regarded as the most senior in the Cabinet . In the presidential line of succession the secretary of state falls first among Cabinet officers, and fourth overall. The secretary of state
13860-534: The estimated number of "kulaks" and "criminals" in their districts. These individuals were to be arrested and executed, or sent to the gulag camps. The party chiefs complied and produced these lists within days, with figures which roughly corresponded to the individuals who were already under secret police surveillance. On 30 July 1937, the NKVD Order No. 00447 was issued, directed against "ex-kulaks" and other "anti-Soviet elements" (such as former officials of
14014-586: The event which set the Holocaust in motion. He was appointed President of the People's Court in 1942, overseeing the prosecution of political crimes as a judge, and became known for his aggressive personality, his humiliation of defendants, and frequent use of the death penalty in sentencing. Although the death penalty was abolished with the creation of the Federal Republic in 1949, Freisler's 1941 definition of murder in German law , as opposed to
14168-402: The files was that of Fabian von Schlabrendorff , a 20 July Plot member who was on trial that day and facing execution. The flattened remains of Freisler were found beneath the rubble still clutching the files he had stopped to retrieve. A differing account stated that Freisler "was killed by a bomb fragment while trying to escape from his law court to the air-raid shelter," and "bled to death on
14322-412: The first three into fervent anti-communists eventually. To them, Bukharin's confession symbolized the depredations of communism, which not only destroyed its sons but also conscripted them in self-destruction and individual abnegation. On the first day of trial, Krestinsky caused a sensation when he repudiated his written confession and pleaded not guilty to all the charges. However, he changed his plea
14476-459: The first time in German legal history." 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
14630-721: The historian Robert Conquest in his 1968 book The Great Terror , whose title was an allusion to the French Revolution 's Reign of Terror . The purges were largely conducted by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), which functioned as the interior ministry and secret police of the USSR. Starting in 1936, the NKVD under chief Genrikh Yagoda began the removal of the central party leadership, Old Bolsheviks , government officials, and regional party bosses . Soviet politicians who opposed or criticized Stalin were removed from office and imprisoned or executed by
14784-483: The human cost of the first five-year plan and the collectivization of agriculture . From 1930 onwards, the Party and police officials feared the "social disorder" caused by the upheavals of forced collectivization of peasants and the resulting famine of 1932–1933 , as well as the massive and uncontrolled migration of millions of peasants into cities. The threat of war heightened Stalin's and generally Soviet perception of marginal and politically suspect populations as
14938-512: The incumbents did not hold a seat in parliament. The German Parliamentary Commission for Culture and the Media [ de ] ( German : Ausschuss für Kultur und Medien ) serves in place of a proper ministry for this department. Since 1998, the office of Kulturstaatsminister has been held by Michael Naumann (1998–2001), Julian Nida-Rümelin (2001–2002), Christina Weiss (2002–2005), Bernd Neumann (2005–2013), Monika Grütters (2013–2021) and Claudia Roth (since 2021). In Greece,
15092-409: 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. 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
15246-466: The kulaks (i.e., wealthy peasants that owned farmland) in a policy called dekulakization . The kulaks responded by destroying crop yields and other acts of sabotage against the Soviet government. The food shortage led to a mass famine across the USSR and slowed the Five Year Plan. A distinctive feature of the Great Purge was that, for the first time, members of the ruling party were included on
15400-556: The late stages of the Purge rather than deliberate discrimination in sentencing). The wives and children of those arrested and executed were dealt with by the NKVD Order No. 00486 . The women were sentenced to forced labour for 5 or 10 years. Their minor children were put in orphanages. All possessions were confiscated. Extended families were purposely left with nothing to live on, which usually sealed their fate as well, affecting up to 200,000–250,000 people of Polish background depending on
15554-427: The leadership of Nikolai Yezhov , hence the name Yezhovshchina . The campaigns were carried out according to the general line of the party , often by direct orders of the politburo headed by Stalin. Hundreds of thousands of people were accused of various political crimes (espionage, wrecking , sabotage , anti-Soviet agitation , conspiracies to prepare uprisings and coups). They were executed by shooting or sent to
15708-472: The leading defendants were executed except Rakovsky and two others (who were killed in NKVD prisoner massacres in 1941). Despite the promise to spare his family, Bukharin's wife, Anna Larina , was sent to a labor camp, but she survived to see her husband posthumously rehabilitated a half-century later by the Soviet state under Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988. On 2 July 1937, in a top secret order to regional Party and NKVD chiefs Stalin instructed them to produce
15862-580: The less severe crime of manslaughter, survives in the Strafgesetzbuch § 211. Roland Freisler was born on 30 October 1893 in Celle , Lower Saxony , the son of Julius Freisler (b. 1862 in Klantendorf , Moravia ), an engineer and teacher, and Charlotte Auguste Florentine Schwerdtfeger (1863–1932). He was baptized as a Protestant on 13 December 1893. He had a younger brother, Oswald , who became
16016-474: The mass repression – including incarceration in the Gulag system – dropped significantly. By 1929, Stalin had defeated his political opponents and gained full control over the party. He organized a committee to begin the process of industrialization of the Soviet Union. Backlash against industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture escalated, which prompted Stalin to increase police presence in rural areas. Soviet authorities increased repression against
16170-422: The moderates. The 1934 Party Congress elected Kirov to the central committee with only three votes against, the fewest of any candidate, while Stalin received 292 votes against. After Kirov's assassination, the NKVD charged the ever-growing group of former oppositionists with Kirov's murder as well as a growing list of other offenses, including treason, terrorism, sabotage, and espionage. Another justification for
16324-465: The most feared judge in Nazi Germany , and the personification of Nazism in domestic law. However, despite his talents and loyalty, Adolf Hitler never appointed him to any post beyond the legal system. That might have been because he was a lone figure, lacking support within the senior echelons of the Nazi hierarchy, but he had also been politically compromised by his brother, Oswald Freisler , also
16478-524: The new form of Party organization, the Politburo, and Stalin in particular, were the sole dispensers of ideology. This required the elimination of all Marxists with different views, especially those among the prestigious "old guard" of revolutionaries. As the purges began, the government (through the NKVD) shot Bolshevik heroes, including Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Béla Kun , as well as the majority of Lenin's Politburo, for disagreements in policy. The NKVD attacked
16632-660: The next day after "special measures", which dislocated his left shoulder among other things. Anastas Mikoyan and Vyacheslav Molotov later claimed that Bukharin was never tortured, but it is now known that his interrogators were given the order "beating permitted", and were under great pressure to extract confession out of the "star" defendant. Bukharin initially held out for three months, but threats to his young wife and infant son, combined with "methods of physical influence" wore him down. But when he read his confession amended and corrected personally by Stalin, he withdrew his whole confession. The examination started all over again, with
16786-500: The only minister is constitutionally responsible for all the statssekretær' s decisions in office. In Portugal , a secretary of State ( Portuguese : secretário de Estado , masculine; secretária de Estado , feminine; secretários de Estado , plural) is a junior minister, of intermediate rank between that of cabinet minister and that of under-secretary of State. Although having the Constitutional status of Government members ,
16940-403: The party's General Secretary, had triumphed over his opponents and gained control of the party. Initially, Stalin's leadership was widely accepted; his main political adversary, Trotsky, was forced into exile in 1929, and Stalin's doctrine of " socialism in one country " became enshrined party policy. However, in the early 1930s, party officials began to lose faith in his leadership, largely due to
17094-465: The party. In this atmosphere of doubt and suspicion, the popular high-ranking official Sergei Kirov was assassinated . The assassination, in December 1934, led to an investigation that revealed a network of party members supposedly working against Stalin, including several of Stalin's rivals. Many of those arrested after Kirov's murder, high-ranking party officials among them, also confessed plans to kill Stalin himself. The validity of these confessions
17248-576: The passport regime", etc. were also dealt with in a summary way. In Moscow, for example, nearly one third of the 20,765 persons executed on the Butovo firing range were charged with a non-political criminal offence. To carry out the mass arrests, the 25,000 officers of the State Security personnel of NKVD were complemented with units of ordinary police, and Komsomol ( Young Communist League ) and civilian Communist Party members. Seeking to fulfill
17402-569: The pavement outside the People's Court at Bellevuestrasse 15 in Berlin". Von Schlabrendorff was "standing near Freisler when the latter met his end". Von Schlabrendorff was re-tried, acquitted, and survived the war, and ultimately followed Freisler as a judge, on the Federal Constitutional Court . A foreign correspondent reported, "Apparently nobody regretted his death". Luise Jodl , wife of General Alfred Jodl , recounted more than 25 years later that she had been working at
17556-476: The population. Overall, national minorities targeted in these campaigns composed 36% of the victims of the Great Purge, despite being only 1.6% of the Soviet Union's population. 74% of ethnic minorities arrested during the Great Purge were executed while those sentenced during the Kulak Operation had only a 50% chance of being executed, (though this may have been due to the Gulag camp's lack of space in
17710-603: The post in 1991. In the Republic of San Marino a Secretary of State is a senior Cabinet Minister in charge of a State Department. The Secretary of State is a member of the Council of Ministers ( Congresso di Stato ). Great Purge The Great Purge , or the Great Terror ( Russian : Большой террор , romanized : Bol'shoy terror ), also known as the Year of '37 ( 37-й год , Tridtsat' sed'moy god ) and
17864-404: The potential source of an uprising in case of invasion. Stalin began to plan for the preventive elimination of such potential recruits for a mythical "fifth column of wreckers, terrorists and spies." The term " purge " in Soviet political slang was an abbreviation of the expression purge of the Party ranks . In 1933, for example, the Party expelled some 400,000 people. But from 1936 until 1953,
18018-525: The previous cabinet, and three between 1984 and 1989. As in France and Belgium, a State Secretary in the Netherlands is a junior minister who is responsible to a Cabinet Minister or the Prime Minister. Some of them may, in specific circumstances, call themselves Minister when visiting a foreign country. Each State Secretary has a certain portfolio, which is different to their Cabinet Minister to split up
18172-454: The prisoners be taken to an air raid shelter, but stayed behind to gather files before leaving. A bomb struck the court building at 11:08, causing a partial internal collapse, and a masonry column came loose whilst Freisler was distracted by his documents. The column came crashing down on Freisler, causing him to be crushed and killed instantly. Due to the column collapsing, a large portion of the courtroom also landed on Freisler's corpse. Among
18326-567: The purge expanded to include almost every living Old Bolshevik leader except Stalin and Kalinin . No other crime of the Stalin years so captivated Western intellectuals as the trial and execution of Bukharin, who was a Marxist theorist of international standing. For some prominent communists such as Bertram Wolfe , Jay Lovestone , Arthur Koestler , and Heinrich Brandler , the Bukharin trial marked their final break with communism, and even turned
18480-399: The purge was to remove any possible "fifth column" in case of a war. Vyacheslav Molotov and Lazar Kaganovich , participants in the repression as members of the Politburo, maintained this justification throughout the purge; they each signed many death lists. Stalin believed war was imminent, threatened both by an explicitly hostile Germany and an expansionist Japan. The Soviet press portrayed
18634-513: The purges, criticized the NKVD for carrying out mass executions, and oversaw the execution of Genrikh Yagoda and Nikolai Yezhov , who headed the NKVD during the purge years. Scholars estimate the death toll for the Great Purge (1936–1938) to be roughly 700,000-1.2 million. Despite the end of the Great Purge, the widespread surveillance and atmosphere of mistrust continued for decades. Similar purges took place in Mongolia and Xinjiang . While
18788-419: The quotas, the police rounded up people in markets and train stations, with the purpose of arresting "social outcasts". Local units of the NKVD, in order to meet their "casework minimums" and force confessions out of arrestees worked long uninterrupted shifts during which they interrogated, tortured and beat the prisoners. In many cases those arrested were forced to sign blank pages which were later filled in with
18942-527: The responsibilities and relieve the workload. The top civil servant in a government department is called Secretary-General (secretaris-generaal) . A statssekretær in Norway plays more or less the same role as the French or Swedish equivalent . Secretaries of State are connected to specific ministry , and serve as a de facto vice minister. However, the State Secretary cannot attend a Council of State and
19096-548: The secretaries of State do not usually participate in the Council of Ministers , unless summoned for certain meetings and, in those cases, without right to vote. They act merely as deputies of ministers, having only the powers delegated to them by their ministers or directly by the prime minister . Until the reorganization of the Portuguese Public Administration structure in 2004, it was common for
19250-446: The size of their families. National operations of the NKVD were conducted on a quota system using album procedure . The officials were mandated to arrest and execute a specific number of so-called "counter-revolutionaries", compiled by administration using various statistics but also telephone books with names sounding non-Russian. The Polish Operation of the NKVD served as a model for a series of similar NKVD secret decrees targeting
19404-489: The state apparatus and was thereafter never used again. The organization of the governments of Angola , Cape Verde , Guinea-Bissau , Mozambique and São Tome and Príncipe closely mirrors the Portuguese government model . Thus, in these countries, a Secretary of State ( Portuguese : secretário de Estado ) is a junior minister, subordinate to a cabinet minister. Usually, the secretaries of State do not participate in
19558-418: The state offered to its high-paid elite. The Ryutin affair seemed to vindicate Stalin's suspicions. Ryutin was working with the even larger secret Opposition Bloc in which Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev participated, and which later led to both of their deaths. Stalin enforced a ban on party factions and banned those party members who had opposed him, effectively ending democratic centralism . In
19712-482: The state. It also led to a clash with his superior Franz Gürtner , 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
19866-577: The supporters, friends, and family of these "heretical" Marxists, whether they lived in Russia or not. The NKVD nearly annihilated Trotsky's family before killing him in Mexico; the NKVD agent Ramón Mercader was part of an assassination task force put together by Special Agent Pavel Sudoplatov , under the personal orders of Stalin. By 1934, several of Stalin's rivals, such as Trotsky, began calling for Stalin's removal and attempted to break his control over
20020-422: The term "Jew" could not be given a precise legal definition. 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
20174-517: 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 , and, therefore, German laws could similarly target Jews even if
20328-459: The term changed its meaning, because being expelled from the Party came to mean almost certain arrest, imprisonment, and often execution. The political purge was primarily an effort by Stalin to eliminate challenge from past and potential opposition groups, including the left and right wings led by Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin , respectively. Following the Civil War and reconstruction of
20482-413: The title "Secretary of State" ( Greek : Γραμματεύς της Επικρατείας ) was used only intermittently during the early years of the modern Greek state . It was first employed for the head of the cabinet under the governorship of Ioannis Kapodistrias , a post held successively by Spyridon Trikoupis (1828–29) and Nikolaos Spiliadis [ el ] (1829–31). It was then abandoned, until used instead of
20636-509: The title of "Minister" (Υπουργός) for the cabinet members in the 1835–37 Cabinet of Josef Ludwig von Armansperg , with Armansperg being designated "Chief Secretary of State" (Αρχιγραμματεύς της Επικρατείας). The Secretary of State of His Holiness The Pope , or Cardinal Secretary of State, presides over the Secretariat of State , which is the most important dicastery of the Roman Curia , as it organizes, makes appointments to, and directs
20790-926: The title of "secretary of State" was reintroduced to designate the then created role of a junior minister, subordinate to a cabinet minister. In the devolved governments of the Autonomous Regions (the Azores and Madeira ), cabinet members are called "Regional Secretary" of a given portfolio ( Portuguese : Secretário Regional ), and the head of the cabinet is titled "President of the Regional Government" ( Portuguese : Presidente do Governo Regional ). The position of State Secretary ( Russian : Статс-секретарь , romanized : Stats-sekretar or Russian : Государственный секретар , romanized : Gosudarstvennyj sekretar ) has existed at certain periods of time. Boris Yeltsin revived
20944-479: The use of mailing pamphlets urging passive resistance. A third resistance member, Christoph Probst was soon arrested. On 22 February 1943, Freisler was flown into Munich for the sole purpose of presiding over their trial. The verdict was as expected: guilty. Freisler sentenced the three to death by hanging but, fearful of them being raised to martyrdom status if they were publicly killed, it was decided to execute them by guillotine instead. On 19 April 1943, Freisler
21098-495: The while drawing very generous pay due to receiving two salaries, both as a secretary of state and as a member of parliament. For example, when interviewed in 2005 about his post as a parliamentary minister of state in the German Foreign Office (1998–2002) during an investigation into visa abuse , Ludger Volmer [ de ] claimed that he had been cut off from the workflow within the ministry, and called
21252-528: Was Karl Terras . Before the Soviet re-occupation in 1944, the State Secretary went into exile until the position came back to Estonia in 1992. A state secretary ( Finnish : valtiosihteeri ), is the highest official below each minister. Ministers, who lead ministries (government departments), comprise the Finnish Government . Each state secretary is appointed for the term of the minister and
21406-526: Was abolished in 1972 and replaced with the new nomenclature, Minister of Foreign Affairs . Throughout most of Liberia's history, holders of that office usually went on to become president. The Secretary of State (Secretario de Estado) in Argentina (federal government) is a high official with the same rank of a Minister, who is responsible directly to the President. The position must be distinguished from
21560-497: Was abolished. Since 1993, some junior ministers have been styled Secretary of State , and assigned in specific policy areas to assist Cabinet ministers. However, these junior ministers are not themselves members of Cabinet. A similar role is played by Ministers of State , however Ministers are members of the cabinet. In Mexico a secretary of state is a member of the Mexican Executive Cabinet who responds to
21714-604: Was conducting a Saturday session of the People's Court when United States Army Air Forces bombers attacked Berlin , led by the B-17 of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rosenthal . Government and Nazi Party buildings were hit, including the Reich Chancellery , the Gestapo headquarters, the Party Chancellery and the People's Court. Hearing the air raid sirens, Freisler hastily adjourned the court and ordered that
21868-490: Was created because the constitution of Belgium explicitly limits the number of ministers to fifteen (seven French-speaking ministers and seven Dutch-speaking ministers, with the prime minister being officially "linguistically neutral"). Therefore, appointing people as secretaries of state allows the government to circumvent this constitutional limitation. See Current list of secretaries of states for Belgian Federal Government . There are also three secretaries of state in
22022-555: Was elected as a deputy of the Reichstag , retaining his seat until his death. Reelected in 1936 and 1938, he represented electoral constituencies 19 ( Hesse-Nassau ), 13 ( Schleswig-Holstein ) and 35 ( Mecklenburg ), respectively. In 1927, Karl Weinrich , a Nazi member of the Prussian Landtag along with Freisler, characterised his reputation in the rapidly expanding Nazi movement in the late 1920s: "Rhetorically Freisler
22176-803: Was elected to the Hesse-Nassau provincial Landtag , a position he held between 1930 and 1933. In 1931, he joined the Association of National Socialist German Legal Professionals , founded by fellow Nazi lawyer Hans Frank . He was elected to the Prussian Landtag in April 1932 serving until the Landtag was dissolved in October 1933. At the November 1933 German parliamentary election he
22330-461: Was flown back again to stand as judge over the second trial of the White Rose members. Out of the thirteen defendants, three were sentenced to death, nine were given prison sentences, and one was acquitted. In August 1944, some of the arrested perpetrators of the failed assassination of Adolf Hitler were brought before Freisler for punishment. The proceedings were filmed in order to be shown to
22484-435: Was in written confession and refuse to go any further. The result was a curious mix of fulsome confessions (of being a "degenerate fascist" working for "restoration of capitalism") and subtle criticisms of the trial. One observer noted that after disproving several charges against him, Bukharin "proceeded to demolish or rather showed he could very easily demolish the whole case." He continued by saying that "the confession of
22638-475: Was merely an administrative title given by the Bolshevik authority for anyone employed in an administrative post in the prison camps without the political connotations that the title later acquired. However, in the early days of his Nazi Party career in the 1920s, Freisler was a part of the movement's left wing. In the late 1930s, during Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge in the Soviet Union , Freisler attended
22792-414: Was nearly annihilated: 85% of the 35,000 members of the clergy were arrested. Particularly vulnerable to repression were also the so-called "special settlers" ( spetzpereselentsy ) who were under permanent police surveillance and constituted a huge pool of potential "enemies" to draw on. At least 100,000 of them were arrested in the course of the Great Terror. Common criminals such as thieves, "violators of
22946-521: Was placed in charge of the personnel office and used his authority to force out Jewish members of the staff. By June, he was promoted to State Secretary in the Ministry. On 31 July, Prussian Minister president Hermann Göring appointed him to the recently reconstituted Prussian State Council . On the founding of the Academy for German Law by Hans Frank in October 1933, Freisler was made a member. He
23100-525: Was specifically reserved for Malay Muslims and required nomination by the Sultan. Under the 1959 Constitution, the State Secretary became the principal officer managing internal administrative affairs , ensuring departmental coordination and policy consultation. The State Secretary also held a seat in the Council of Ministers and worked alongside other key officials like the Attorney General and
23254-562: Was the chairman of its Criminal Law Committee, head of its department of scientific studies and editor of the Academy newspaper. When the Prussian Ministry of Justice was merged with the Reich Ministry of Justice on 1 April 1935, Friesler became the State Secretary in the unified Ministry, where he served until August 1942. Freisler's mastery of legal texts, mental agility, dramatic courtroom verbal dexterity and verbal force, in combination with his zealous conversion to Nazi ideology, made him
23408-471: Was the same. But we are close friends, and intellectual friendship is stronger than other friendships. I knew that Bukharin was in the same state of upheaval as myself. That is why I did not want to deliver him bound hand and foot to the People's Commissariat of Home Affairs. Just as in relation to our other cadres, I wanted Bukharin himself to lay down his arms. The third and final trial, in March 1938, known as
23562-417: Was trying to hold up his trousers after being purposely given old, oversized and beltless clothing: "You dirty old man, why do you keep fiddling with your trousers?" Another instance is from Freisler's public appearance during the trial of the defendant Ulrich-Wilhelm Graf Schwerin von Schwanenfeld . The footage taken shows Freisler drowning out Schwerin's weak and muted testimony, prompted by his concern over
23716-407: 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." On 8 July 1940,
#563436