Marion Freisler

Marion Freisler (10 February 1910, Hamburg - 21 January 1997), née Russegger was the wife of Roland Freisler, the infamous judge and chairman of the Nazi Volksgerichtshof (People's court), who died in 1945 during an air raid in Berlin. They were married on 28 March 1928 and had two sons, Harald and Roland. She is sometimes mistakenly referred to as Anna Freisler.

In 1985, there was a scandal about Freisler, who had been living in Munich under her maiden name, Marion Russegger, since the end of World War II. In 1974, her pension was raised by about 400 DM. The explanation given by the pension office was that had her husband survived, he presumably would have had a successful career as a lawyer or a senior judge. This decision was protested by a member of the Bavarian Landtag, but the move was rejected by the state government and there were no consequences for Marion Freisler. This was one of the last incidents connected with the problematic issue of social integration of National Socialist jurists in the Federal Republic of Germany in the early years.[1]

In 1997, Marion Freisler was buried in Berlin, in the Russegger family plot, alongside her parents and her husband (Roland Freisler's name is not on his gravestone).

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ^ Guido Knopp, Hitler's Hitmen, Sutton, 2002, p. 251.