Detention camp Wöllersdorf

Memorial on the site of the former detention camp in Wöllersdorf

Plan of the warehouse in the Industrial District Museum Wiener Neustadt

Plaque at the entrance to the memorial

Detail of the memorial

The detention camp Wöllersdorf was a detention camp of the Austrofascism in Wöllersdorf-Steinabrückl , Lower Austria .

history

In 1933, the government of the Austrian corporate state set up a so-called detention camp in some halls of the Wöllersdorfer Werke . In October the first prisoners - nine National Socialists and one Communist - were brought to Wöllersdorf. In January 1934, a second detention camp was started with the Kaisersteinbruch detention center in Burgenland . With the civil war in February 1934, hundreds of Schutzbund and social democratic functionaries were brought to Wöllersdorf. As of May 1, 1934, there were 831 political prisoners in the camp, 508 Social Democrats and Communists and 323 National Socialists. With the failed July coup in 1934, the Wöllersdorf detention camp expanded with thousands of National Socialists. In October 1934, the highest number was reached with just under 5,000 people, 4,256 of them National Socialists and 538 Social Democrats and Communists. An amnesty in 1936 reduced the number of prisoners to around 500 people. After the Berchtesgaden Agreement between Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg and Adolf Hitler in February 1938, the camp was closed. Shortly before the closure there were 114 people in Wöllersdorf, including 45 National Socialists, 11 Social Democrats and 58 Communists.

The conditions in the camp are described as comparatively pleasant. The different groups of inmates each developed their own Wöllersdorf narratives. In the Nazi memorial literature, imprisonment in Wöllersdorf was stylized as "martyrdom" in order to establish the hero myth of the illegals before the " Anschluss ". In the memorial literature of the left-opposition prisoners, the detention in Wöllersdorf is overshadowed by the later persecution by the National Socialists. Everyday life in the camp in Wöllersdorf appeared to be relatively mild compared to incarceration in the prison houses and even more so in comparison to National Socialist concentration camps . All prisoners criticized the deprivation of liberty as a massive violation of fundamental rights. The mild and humane portrayal of everyday life in the camp in Wöllersdorf cannot simply be transferred to other, smaller detention camps.

In the course of the annexation of Austria to Hitler's Germany in March 1938, the camp was reactivated by the National Socialists for the imprisonment of functionaries of the corporate state. In the spirit of the so-called liberation propaganda, the camp was closed on April 2, 1938 and the barracks burned down. The prisoners were taken to the Dachau concentration camp .

In 1973, based on a design by A. Kirchner, a memorial was erected on the site of the former detention camp and unveiled in February 1974 to commemorate the 40-year memory of the February fights .

Known prisoners

Communists

Serious Burger Heinrich Dürmayer Friedl Fürnberg Leo Gabler Josef Hans Grafl Walter Greif Friedrich Hexmann Fritz Jensen Josef Meisel Franz Pixner Erwin Puschmann

Egon Schönhof Franz Schuster Leo star Josef Teufl

Social democrats

Manfred Ackermann Gottfried Albrecht Bonaventure Berloschnik Josef Bloderer Julius Braunthal Max Eibegger Franz Enge Otto Glöckel Johann Otto Haas Karl Honay Leopold Horacek Norbert Horvatek Ludwig Kostroun Johann corpse Karl Mantler Anton Matourek Karl Miksch

Rudolf Prikryl Franz Rauscher Karl Richter Paul Johannes Schlesinger Karl Schneller Rudolf Singer Felix Slavik Paul Speiser Franz Staffa Felix Stika Leopold Thaller Otto Tschadek Wilhelm Guard Anton Weber Heinrich Widmayer

National Socialists

Hans Arnhold Alois Bachinger Helmut Breymann August Eigruber Josef Fitzthum Hans Hiedler Hugo jury Franz Konrad Wilfried Krallert Franz Kutschera Hans Lukesch August Meyszner Josef Palham Franz Peterseil Anton Plankensteiner Friedrich Plattner

Franz Rappell Franz Richter Anton Slupetzky Richard Suchewirth Siegfried Stoitzner Heinrich Strecker Karl Taus Eugene Werkowitsch Anton Wintersteiger

literature

• Sn: Austrian concentration camps. In: Swiss monthly books . Journal for politics, economy, culture. Volume 14 / April 1934 - March 1935, ZDB -ID 2600245-0 . Cooperative for the publication of the Swiss monthly books, Zurich 1935, pp. 98-102. doi: 10.5169 / seals-157842 .
• Karl Flanner : The concentration / detention camp Wöllersdorf. (= Documentation of the "Industrial District Museum" Wiener Neustadt, Volume 129). Association Museum and Archive in the district under the Vienna Woods, Wiener Neustadt 2008, OBV .
• Anton Philapitsch : Wöllersdorf 1933–1938 Trauma or Myth? In: Klaus Mulley, Hans Leopold (ed.): Bullets - Scandals - Barbed wire, workers and the armaments industry. Ebenfurth-Pottendorfer Line, 1999, ISBN 3-9500563-1-6 .
• Pia Schölnberger: The detention camp at Wöllersdorf 1933–1938. Structures - breaks - memories. Lit, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-643-50628-3 .
• Regina Zodl : The Wöllersdorf detention camp 1933–1938 Additional remarks. In: Klaus Mulley, Hans Leopold (ed.): Bullets - Scandals - Barbed wire, workers and the armaments industry. Ebenfurth-Pottendorfer Line 1999, ISBN 3-9500563-1-6 .

Web links

Commons : Anhaltelager Wöllersdorf  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Pia Schölnberger: “Quite tolerable”? Everyday life in the detention camp in Wöllersdorf. (PDF; 977 kB). In: DÖW Mitteilungen . Episode 195, March 2010, ZDB -ID 186762-3 . Documentation archive, Vienna 2010.
• Kurt Bauer : Short biographies of 309 known left detainees from 1933–1938.
• The delicate handling of a warehouse orf.at from February 14, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gerhard Jagschitz : The detention camps in Austria. In: Ludwig Jedlicka , Rudolf Neck (ed.): From the Justizpalast to Heldenplatz. Studies and documentation 1927 to 1938. Österreichische Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1975, p. 149.
2. ↑ Pia Schölnberger: The detention camp Wöllersdorf 1933-1938. Structures - breaks - memories . Lit, Vienna 2015, pp. 185–191.

Coordinates: 47 ° 51 ′ 2.2 ″  N , 16 ° 11 ′ 39.5 ″  E