Otto Georg Thierack

German politician and lawyer, born in Wurzen, E Germany. As president of the Volksgerichtshof (1936–42) and Reichsjustizminister (1942–5) he was instrumental in bending justice to the requirements of the NS regime. He committed suicide in 1946.

Otto Georg Thierack (born 19 April 1889 in Wurzen, Saxony;

Thierack took part in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 as a volunteer, reaching the rank of lieutenant.

On 1 August 1932, he joined the Nazi Party. The groundwork on which this rise was built was not merely that Thierack had been a Nazi Party member, but rather also that he had been leader of the National Socialist jurists' organization, the so-called Rechtswahrerbund.

On 12 May 1933, having been appointed Saxony's justice minister, it was Thierack's job to "Nazify" justice, which was a part of the Nazis' Gleichschaltung that he had to put into practice in Saxony.

On 20 August 1942, Thierack assumed the office of Reich Minister of Justice. After this, the higher state court presidents, in proceedings of public interest, had at least every fortnight to discuss with the public prosecutor's office and the State Court President – who had to pass this on the responsible criminal courts – how a case was to be judged before the court's decision.

Thierack not only made penal prosecution of all unpopular persons and groups harsher. Soon afterwards, though, he utterly forwent any pretense of legality and simply began handing these people over to the SS

Thierack came to an understanding with Heinrich Himmler that certain categories of prisoners were to be, to use their words, "annihilated through work"

Ever since coming to office as Reich Minister of Justice in August 1942, Thierack had seen to it that the lengthy paperwork involved in clemency proceedings for those sentenced to death was greatly shortened.

At Thierack's instigation, the execution shed at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin was outfitted with eight iron hooks in December 1942 so that several people could be put to death at once, by hanging (there had already been a guillotine there for quite a while).

After the Allies arrested him, Thierack committed suicide by poisoning before he could ever be brought before the court at the Nuremberg Judges' Trial.