15 Facts About Vasiliy Ulrikh

Vasiliy Vasilievich Ulrikh was a senior judge of the Soviet Union during most of the regime of Joseph Stalin.

Vasili Vasiliy Ulrikh was born in Riga, Latvia, then a part of the Russian Empire.

Vasiliy Ulrikh's father was a Latvian revolutionary of German descent, and his mother was a Russian noblewoman.

In 1910, young Vasiliy Ulrikh returned to his native Riga and began to study at the Riga Polytechnical Institute.

Vasiliy Ulrikh joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in the same year.

Vasiliy Ulrikh graduated in 1914, and with the beginning of World War I he was sent to the front as an officer.

Vasiliy Ulrikh subsequently served on a number of military tribunals, and came to the attention of Stalin, who apparently liked the efficient way in which he carried out his duties and his terse, even laconic style of reporting these tribunals' actions.

In 1926, Vasiliy Ulrikh became Chairman of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.

Vasiliy Ulrikh sentenced Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Tukhachevsky, Rodzaevsky, Beloborodov, Yezhov and many others.

Vasiliy Ulrikh attended the executions of many of these men, and occasionally performed executions himself.

Vasiliy Ulrikh personally executed Yan Karlovich Berzin, former head of Red Army Intelligence Directorate, later called GRU.

Vasiliy Ulrikh was the chief judge during the Trial of the Sixteen leaders of the Polish Secret State and Home Army in 1945.

In 1948, a number of top judges, including Vasiliy Ulrikh, were removed from their positions for severe drawbacks in the judicial system, including corruption and what were classified as political errors.

Vasiliy Ulrikh was reassigned to be the course director at the Military Law Academy.

Vasiliy Ulrikh died of a heart attack on May 7,1951, and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.