Representative Anthony Alfred Fleger

Anthony Alfred Fleger (October 21, 1900 – July 16, 1963) was a Democratic U.S. Representative from Ohio who served one term in the United States Congress from 1937 to 1939. His congressional service occurred during a significant period in American history, in the midst of the New Deal era, when he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his Ohio constituents in the House of Representatives.

Fleger was born in Austria-Hungary on October 21, 1900. In 1903 he immigrated to the United States with his parents, who settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Growing up in an immigrant family in an industrial city, he attended the public schools of Cleveland, where he received his early education. His upbringing in a working-class, immigrant community helped shape his later interest in public service and Democratic Party politics in northeastern Ohio.

After completing his primary and secondary education in Cleveland’s public schools, Fleger pursued legal studies. He enrolled in the John Marshall School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio, from which he graduated in 1926. That same year he was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Cleveland. He later moved to nearby Parma, Ohio, where he continued his legal work and began to assume local judicial and political responsibilities. During this period he married Mary Nemec; the couple had two children, Corinne and Donald.

Fleger’s formal public career began in local and state office. In Parma he served as justice of the peace from 1930 to 1932, gaining experience in the administration of local justice and community affairs. Building on this role, he was elected a member of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1932 and served from January 1, 1933, to December 31, 1933. He resigned from the state legislature at the end of 1933 after being elected mayor of Parma. As mayor, he served from January 1, 1934, to December 31, 1935, overseeing municipal governance during the depths of the Great Depression.

In 1936 Fleger was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-fifth Congress and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from January 3, 1937, to January 3, 1939. During his one term in office, he contributed to the legislative process as part of the Democratic majority that supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. As a member of the House of Representatives, Anthony Alfred Fleger participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his Ohio constituents at the federal level. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1938 to the Seventy-sixth Congress and again an unsuccessful candidate in 1940 for election to the Seventy-seventh Congress, after which he resumed the practice of law in Cleveland.

Following his congressional service, Fleger continued his legal and public career at the federal level. He was appointed special assistant to the Attorney General in Washington, D.C., serving from March 3, 1941, to July 9, 1950. In this capacity he worked within the U.S. Department of Justice during World War II and the early Cold War period. From July 10, 1950, to May 9, 1953, he served as an attorney in the Department of Justice, further extending his federal legal service. After leaving government employment, he engaged in the private practice of law in Washington, D.C., while residing in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

Anthony Alfred Fleger died on July 16, 1963, at Alexandria Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. He was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in Brook Park, Ohio, returning in death to the region where he had begun his legal and political career.