Andreasstrasse memorial and educational site
The Andreasstrasse memorial and educational center in Erfurt is located in a former remand prison of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the GDR . It is dedicated to the former political prisoners as well as the people who first occupied a “Stasi” district administration here in 1989. With the permanent exhibition “Imprisonment - Dictatorship - Revolution. Thuringia 1949–1989 ”and cultural events, it offers deeper historical insights.
Prehistory of the place
During the GDR era, Andreasstrasse in Erfurt was synonymous with the "Stasi" as the seat of the district administration of the Stasi and a prison. Before that, however, there had been a craftsmen's and traders' quarter on the site at the foot of the Petersberg for centuries. On the front of the cathedral square, which reached up to the level of the cathedral steps, were magnificent town houses. This quarter was destroyed when Erfurt was bombarded on November 6, 1813 during the Wars of Liberation . Since then, the cathedral square has been unusually large. To the north of it, the "Louisental" green area was built in 1823. It disappeared with the construction of the Prussian regional court and the associated prison in 1874/1879.
MfS remand prison
Across five political systems - the Empire, Weimar Republic, Third Reich, Soviet Zone / GDR and Federal Republic - the building of today's memorial functioned as a pre-trial detention center. With the dissolution of the states in the GDR in 1952, the former state of Thuringia became the districts of Erfurt, Gera and Suhl. Accordingly, the courthouse has now been rededicated as the Erfurt District Court. At the same time, the MfS moved into its new district administration in what is now the police building on Andreasstrasse. Until 1989, the Ministry of the Interior or the People's Police and Stasi shared the pre-trial detention facility in between. The basement and ground floor were assigned to the police, the 1st and 2nd floors to the MfS. More than 5000 people were imprisoned here for political reasons until the end of the GDR.
Memorial and educational site
After the detention center was finally closed in 2002, the Andreasstrasse memorial and educational center opened on December 4, 2012 as an institution of the Ettersberg Foundation . The memorial not only deals with the topic of Stasi pre-trial detention. It reminds of the oppression and resistance in Thuringia during the GDR era. As a mixture of memorial and contemporary history museum, she wants to open the permanent exhibition “Prison - Dictatorship - Revolution. Thuringia 1949–1989 ”as well as other offers and events define a broader historical framework. In doing so, she takes up the fact that on December 4, 1989 in Erfurt a Stasi headquarters was occupied for the first time during the peaceful revolution and the last "bastion" of SED rule was stormed.
The tour of the permanent exhibition begins in the carefully restored detention floor on the 2nd floor, shows the living conditions in the GDR and its surveillance system based on selected topics, but also shows examples of inflexibility and opposition and ends with the overcoming of the dictatorship on the ground floor. In addition to numerous video clips from contemporary witnesses, the permanent exhibition also contains stories based on real experiences in the style of graphic novels . In 2014 the memorial received the British Travel Journalists Award for "Outstanding new tourism project". The historian Jochen Voit has been head of the memorial and educational facility since 2012 .
Cooperation partners are contemporary witness associations ("Freiheit", "VOS", "Gesellschaft für Zeitgeschichte") as well as various processing initiatives and history mediators (including the Thuringian Archive for Contemporary History "Matthias Domaschk", Our History - The Memory of the Nation e. V.). The Andreasstrasse Memorial and Educational Center is a member of the Thuringia Museum Association.
Peaceful Revolution Cube
The landmark of the Andreasstrasse memorial and educational site is the concrete and glass extension with its mirrored comic facade. The Ettersberg Foundation dedicated the cube designed by the Stadermann architects to the Peaceful Revolution in Thuringia. The almost 40 meter long facade was designed by the agency freybeuter and the draftsman Simon Schwartz on the basis of numerous original photos from autumn 1989. The memorial's event room is located inside the cube.
literature
- Frank Palmowski: The siege of Erfurt. Her traces from 1813 to 2013. Erfurt 2013.
- Horst Stecher, Christel Perlik: The Louisental - A park-like garden in the middle of the city. In: Erfurter Contributions , 3 (1999). Pp. 129-176.
- Ulman Weiß: A shared story - About the prison in Andreasstrasse. In: City and History. Journal for Erfurt, 48 (2011). P. 26 f.
- Andrea Herz: Pretrial detention and prosecution at the State Security Service in Erfurt / Thuringia. The MfS detention center Andreasstrasse 37 (1952 / 54–1989). Erfurt 2000.
- Steffen Raßloff : Peaceful Revolution and Land Foundation in Thuringia 1989/90. Erfurt 2009. (6th edition 2016).
- Steffen Raßloff: 100 monuments in Erfurt. History and stories. Essen 2013. p. 220 f.
- Peter Maser : The long way to Andreasstrasse. Notes on coming to terms with the SED dictatorship in Thuringia. In: Hans-Joachim Veen (ed.): Interim balance sheets . Thuringia and its neighbors after 20 years. Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2012. pp. 53–76.
- Peter Maser, Hans-Joachim Veen , Jochen Voit: imprisonment - dictatorship - revolution - Thuringia 1949–1989. The book on the memorial and educational site Andreasstrasse Erfurt. Erfurt 2015.
- Jochen Voit: A new place of remembrance in Erfurt. Opening of the permanent exhibition in the Andreasstrasse Memorial and Education Center on December 4, 2013 - a workshop report. In: Gerbergasse 18 , edition 3/2013, pp. 38–41.
- Jochen Voit: Andreasstrasse Memorial. Imprisonment, dictatorship and revolution in Erfurt. Berlin 2016.
- Society for contemporary history (ed.): The history of the citizens' committee in Erfurt, part I and part II. Erfurt 2004 and 2010.
Web links
- Andreasstrasse memorial and educational site of the Ettersberg Foundation
- Sina Speit / Jochen Voit: "Welcome to the designer jail!"
- History of the Andreasstrasse memorial and educational site on erfurt-web.de
- Society for Contemporary History V.
- Chronological sequence of the occupation of the Erfurt district administration of the MfS on December 4, 1989
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 50 ° 58 '43 " N , 11 ° 1' 24.1" E