Documentation and information center Torgau
The Documentation and Information Center (DIZ) Torgau , the office of the Saxon Memorials Foundation to commemorate the victims of political tyranny , is a memorial in Saxony . The DIZ Torgau documents and informs about the history of the Torgau detention centers during the time of National Socialism , the Soviet occupation and the GDR .
history
Historic place
Headquarters of the Nazi Wehrmacht penal system
In Torgau , Fort Zinna and bridgehead were two of the eight military prisons of the Wehrmacht justice system . Between 1936 and 1939 Fort Zinna was expanded to become the largest and most modern prison of the Wehrmacht. In both prisons, military courts arrested soldiers convicted of military service or refusal to obey orders , desertion , “ degradation of military strength ”, “ favoring the enemy ” and “ espionage ” as well as soldiers convicted of criminal offenses. The inmates also included prisoners of war and members of the resistance as well as foreign nationals who were forcibly recruited for the Wehrmacht.
In March 1941, the High Command of the Army (OKH) designated the Fort Zinna prison as a checkpoint for those convicted of “probation”. A year later, the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) ordered the erection of field prison camps I and II in Torgau. In August 1943, the Reich Court Martial , the highest instance of Wehrmacht justice, was moved from Berlin to the Zieten barracks in Torgau. During the war , this imposed almost 1400 death sentences , 1200 of which were carried out. The total number of executions in Torgau can no longer be determined exactly afterwards; however, the incomplete documents can be used to prove at least the shooting of at least 197 convicted members of the armed forces. The actual number of execution victims is likely to be far higher. The Wehrmacht penal system in Torgau was only ended when Soviet and American troops met on April 25, 1945 .
Soviet special camps
After the end of the Second World War, the Soviet secret police NKVD set up two special camps in Torgau .
In the special camp No. 8 set up in Fort Zinna in August 1945, the majority of members of the NSDAP or other Nazi organizations as well as prisoners of war were interned without judgment. Membership in the relevant organizations or denunciation were usually sufficient grounds for internment . The inmates were kept in complete isolation; Relatives were not given any information about their whereabouts or death. By the end of 1945, Fort Zinna, which was designed for 1,000 prisoners, was filled with around 7,500 prisoners who were housed in the cell structure and makeshift barracks within the fortress. In March 1946 the camp moved to the neighboring Seydlitz barracks (special camp No. 10) and was disbanded in January 1947 when the prisoners were transferred to special camps No. 2 Buchenwald and No. 1 Mühlberg / Elbe .
Fort Zinna continued to operate under the designation Special Camp No. 10 from May 1946 to October 1948. From autumn 1946 it served primarily as a temporary storage facility for Soviet SMT convicts . In proceedings contrary to the rule of law, they were sentenced to five to 25 years in a labor camp for collaboration with the Germans, desertion or criminal offenses and scheduled for deportation to the USSR . Half of all deportations to the USSR via special camps were carried out in this way via Torgau. The convicted German citizens were less war criminals or active National Socialists than people who resisted or were suspected of resisting Soviet post-war policies.
According to Soviet sources, between 1945 and 1948 800 to 850 people perished in the Torgau camps. Almost all of them died of physical emaciation or tuberculosis as a result of inadequate food rations and medical care. Other prisoners died after their deportation to the Soviet Union.
GDR People's Police prison
Between 1950 and 1990 Fort Zinna served as a prison for the GDR People's Police . The first prisoners to be arrested were prisoners from the Soviet special camps after their dissolution. In the 1950s and 1960s , opponents of the SED policy convicted by the GDR judiciary were also held prisoner in Torgau. Only later did the proportion of people convicted of criminal offenses predominate. Until 1975, juvenile offenders were also imprisoned in the Fischerdörfchen detention building, and from 1963 in Fort Zinna. In addition, prisoners who had been convicted of “ illegally crossing the border ” or other “crimes against the GDR” served their sentences in Torgau. Everyday life in detention was characterized by a high workload, controls and harassment as well as spying on fellow inmates and prison staff. The structural and hygienic conditions of the overcrowded prison remained unsatisfactory until its end, so that prisoners protested against these abuses in autumn 1989. Since reunification in 1990, the former Torgau penal facility has been a penal institution of the Free State of Saxony.
memorial
The Friends of the Documentation and Information Center (DIZ) Torgau was founded in June 1991 with the aim of documenting the history of the Torgau detention centers during National Socialism, the Soviet occupation and the GDR. Since 1998 the DIZ Torgau has been funded equally by the federal government and the Free State of Saxony, and since 1999 it has been working under the umbrella of the Saxon Memorials Foundation to commemorate the victims of political tyranny . Since the central detention center Fort Zinna is used as the Torgau correctional facility of the Free State of Saxony, the DIZ Torgau with its permanent exhibition “Traces of Injustice”, which was completed between September 1996 and May 2004 in three parts, is not located there, but in the nearby Hartenfels Castle .
literature
- Michael Eberlein, Norbert Haase, Wolfgang Oleschinski: Torgau in the hinterland of the Second World War. Military justice, Wehrmacht prisons, Reich court martial . Series of publications by the Saxon Memorials Foundation in memory of the victims of political tyranny, Vol. 6, Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-378-01039-8 .
- Brigitte Oleschinski , Bert Pampel: "Hostile elements are to be kept in custody". The Soviet special camps no. 8 and no. 10 in Torgau 1945–1948 , series of publications by the Saxon Memorials Foundation in memory of the victims of political tyranny, Vol. 3, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-378-01017-7 .
- Norbert Haase, Brigitte Oleschinski (ed.): The Torgau tabu. Wehrmacht penal system, NKVD special camp, GDR penal system . Forum-Verlag, Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-86108-269-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b See DIZ Torgau: Torgau as the headquarters of the Wehrmacht penal system (1936–1945) , last viewed on February 23, 2012.
- ↑ a b c d Cf. DIZ Torgau: The Soviet Special Camps No. 8 and No. 10 in Torgau (1945–1948) , last viewed on February 23, 2012.
- ↑ See DIZ Torgau: The GDR's penal system in Torgau 1950 to 1990 , last viewed on February 23, 2012.
- ↑ a b c Cf. DIZ Torgau: History of the history of the memorial , last viewed on February 23, 2012.
- ↑ See DIZ Torgau: permanent exhibition , last viewed on February 23, 2012.