Antoine barracks
The Antoine barracks was a barracks complex in Bad Arolsen , which was used successively by the Prussian Army , the SS and the Belgian armed forces from 1869 to 1994 .
history
Waldeck and Prussia
Arolsen, seat of government of the Principality of Waldeck since 1722 , did not initially house a garrison , but the Waldeck troops were housed in the neighboring towns of Mengeringhausen and Helsen . After the military convention concluded with Prussia in 1862 , however, the Waldeck military was reorganized and in 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War , the 4th company of the battalion was relocated from Helsen to Arolsen and then called the "Waldecker Regiment".
In 1867 the newly established Prussian fusilier battalion of the Prussian Infantry Regiment No. 83 “Von Wittich” zu Kassel moved into Arolsen. To accommodate the soldiers, it was decided to set up a barracks, for which Prince Georg Victor provided a piece of land on the "Große Allee" on the so-called Alleefeld of the Domanium free of charge. The construction of a billeting house, a hospital and a drill house began in 1869. A year later, the simple, functional buildings made of brick were completed and in 1871 soldiers returning from the Franco-Prussian War moved in. In 1898 a representative officer's mess was built on the north side of the Große Allee, in 1905 a new staff building and a team building along the Birkenweg were built.
Weimar Republic and the Nazi era
After the First World War and the disempowerment of Friedrich von Waldeck-Pyrmont , whose family was allowed to continue to live in the residential palace , the facility was used for civilian purposes, and in 1920 the buildings, among other things, housed the Arolsen secondary school.
In 1929 the son of Friedrich von Waldeck-Pyrmont, Josias zu Waldeck and Pyrmont , joined the NSDAP and the SS . He became Heinrich Himmler's adjutant , SS group leader in 1932 and a member of the Reichstag in 1933 . Immediately after the seizure of power , the Arolsen barracks housed a “voluntary labor service” of 120 men set up by Stahlhelm , as well as a sports training camp and an SA sports school, which consisted of up to 5 companies with a total of 500 men. In 1934 the 2nd battalion of the SS "Germania" troop came to Arolsen. In 1936, Arolsen also became the seat of the SS upper section “Fulda-Werra” and the location of the SS pioneer tower 3 and the SS news tower 3. The Austrian SS architect Norbert Demmel had the majority of the Wilhelminian-style buildings demolished and built with monumental new buildings in the style replace the Nazi architecture , which were arranged symmetrically around the significantly enlarged parade ground. Only the officers' building, the staff building and a team house remained. In addition, the area was expanded to include an extensive riding stable with a riding hall in the west of the barracks.
In 1938 Josias zu Waldeck-Pyrmont, who had risen to become SS-Obergruppenführer , took over the management of the "Fulda-Werra" section, which included the Buchenwald concentration camp founded the year before in addition to the SS accommodations in the area . After the 700-strong infantry unit had been motorized and the horses had been abolished, the stables were converted into garages and workshops for vehicles. During the November pogroms of 1938 , members of the SS, some of them dressed as civilians, moved from the Arolsen barracks to neighboring cities, including Warburg and Fritzlar , on November 8 , and destroyed the synagogues there as well as the homes and businesses of Jewish citizens. On August 17, 1939, the SS disposal group "Germania" left the barracks in the course of mobilization .
During the Second World War , the barracks were subordinated to the " SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt " (SS-WVHA) under SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl . The WVHA administered the SS's own industries, trades and businesses in the concentration camps and brought them together to form their own corporations . In Arolsen, among other things, SS training units were housed. A SS-WVHA driver's school was later added there, at which SS leader Max Kiefer, among others, completed a course for eight weeks from mid-September 1944. From November 14, 1943 to March 29, 1945 there was also a branch of the Buchenwald concentration camp , in which over 100 prisoners worked at times. They were used for house services and to serve the SS men.
post war period
After the war, the barracks were initially taken over by the American occupying forces . One building was initially used by the International Tracing Service . In November 1952, within the framework of NATO until May 5, 1959 First, the Walloon infantry unit "2e régiment de carabiniers-cyclistes", hereafter the Flemish reconnaissance unit of the Belgian armed forces , the "first Regiment Jagers te Paard ", moved to Arolsen, which used the entire barracks until 1993 and called them" Sous Lieutenant Antoine barracks ". In the following years, the military area in the south was expanded to include extensive garages for military vehicles. In 1984, the area of a former Continental AG bicycle tire factory was moved west of the “Am Hasenzaun” street . To accommodate the more than 1000 military personnel, a new housing estate with a shopping center and elementary school was built 300 m east of the barracks area on both sides of Zolderstrasse.
In 1990 the Hessian State Chancellery informed the city of Arolsen that the Antoine barracks were to be released and recommended that they prepare for it. The city commissioned the Hessische Heimstätte GmbH with the preliminary urban planning studies and planning. In the following years, the older buildings and part of the SS barracks and the riding stables were placed under monument protection. After the western accommodation building and the central farm building were demolished, the southern part of the parade ground was built over with a DIY and garden center. A food market and a technical department store were built in the former riding stables building. The northern part of the parade ground was designed as a central parking lot and called "Belgischer Platz". On the former garage area on the slope of the Thielebach , a new leisure pool was opened in 2000 with the "Arobella-Therme" to increase the attractiveness of the seaside resort of Arolsen.
literature
- Elmar Nolte: City of Arolsen development report OLT.-Antoine-Kaserne. Ed .: Hessische Heimstätte GmbH, Kassel 1992.
Web links
- Arolsen, concentration camp external commandos, barracks. Topography of National Socialism in Hesse. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
Individual evidence
- ^ Rüdiger Schmidt: Army and communal economy. The communities of Diez and Arolsen in comparison (1866–1914) . In: Hessian State Office for Historical Regional Studies and Working Group of the Historical Commissions in Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Marburg and Wiesbaden (Hrsg.): Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte . tape 52 . Self-published by the editors, 2002, ISSN 0073-2001 , p. 104 .
- ↑ Marco Kieser, Georg Lüdecke: Max Kiefer - an architect from Kempen in the SS. In: Preservation of monuments in the Rhineland. 2008 issue 4, pp. 162-164.
Coordinates: 51 ° 22 ′ 40.1 ″ N , 9 ° 0 ′ 46.1 ″ E