Freisler became notorious during this period for berating each member of the steady stream of defendants passing before him , in a personalized injudicial manner from the bench on their way to their deaths , often shouting and occasionally yelling at them &ndash; particularly in cases of resistance to the authority of the Nazi state &ndash; in an enraged , glaringly clarion but dramatically controlled harsh voice , using a mastery of the craft of artificially professional legal courtroom " performance " . He was known to be interested in Andrei Vyshinsky , 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
Soviet purge trials
Great Purge
Roland Freisler