JUDGES from Germany

Top 4

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary German Judges of all time. This list of famous German Judges is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Roland Freisler (1893 - 1945)

With an HPI of 66.90, Roland Freisler is the most famous German Judge.  His biography has been translated into 40 different languages on wikipedia.

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, 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 the less severe crime of manslaughter, survives in the Strafgesetzbuch § 211.

2. Fritz Bauer (1903 - 1968)

With an HPI of 59.43, Fritz Bauer is the 2nd most famous German Judge.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Fritz Bauer (16 July 1903 – 1 July 1968) was a German Jewish judge and prosecutor. He played an instrumental role in the post-war capture of former Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann and the beginning of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials.

3. Georg Konrad Morgen (1909 - 1982)

With an HPI of 53.54, Georg Konrad Morgen is the 3rd most famous German Judge.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Georg Konrad Morgen (8 June 1909 – 4 February 1982) was an SS judge and lawyer who investigated crimes committed in Nazi concentration camps. He rose to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer (major). After the war, Morgen served as witness at several anti-Nazi trials and continued his legal career in Frankfurt. Morgen was known as a Blutrichter, or 'blood judge', as a result of being one of the members of the judiciary authorised to issue the death penalty. A mistranslation of this may also be the reason that he earned the nickname 'The Bloodhound Judge', said to be for his determination and doggedness in achieving justice.

4. Thomas Hoeren (b. 1961)

With an HPI of 32.37, Thomas Hoeren is the 4th most famous German Judge.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Thomas Hoeren (born on 22 August 1961 in Dinslaken) is a German law professor and a former Court of appeal judge with focus on Information and Media Law.