Alfréd Meissner was born in Mladá Boleslav, a city about 50 kilometres (31 miles) northeast of Prag, on April 10, 1871, in what was then the Kingdom of Bohemia, a crown-land of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In 1930 Meissner was made honorary president of the conference of the International Association of Penal Law in Prague.

By reelection (in 1925, 1929 and 1935) he remained a member of the National Assembly until the German invasion and subsequent occupation in 1939.

The Germans deported Meissner and his wife to the Theresienstadt concentration camp; they arrived there on January 30, 1942.

The Commandant of the camp and the SS subsequently fled a few days later, and on May 8 Theresienstadt was liberated by Soviet troops.