Hohenasperg fortress

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Historical photo of Hohenasperg fortress from 1950
View from Hohenasperg to Asperg
Entrance gate
Hohenasperg under siege, by Albrecht Dürer

The Hohenasperg fortress was an active fortress of the state of Württemberg on the Asperg , also called Hohenasperg , near the town of Asperg in today's Ludwigsburg district in Baden-Württemberg from 1535 to 1693 . It has served as a prison since the beginning of the 18th century, in which many prominent political prisoners were also held until 1945 . Since 1968 it has been a prison of the Baden-Württemberg judiciary .

Mount Asperg

The Hohenasperg fortress is located at 355.8  m above sea level. NHN high reed sandstone summit plateau ( Stuttgart formation ) of the Aspergs , an isolated elevation about 4 km west-northwest of Ludwigsburg in the greater Stuttgart area . The Keuper Berg with steep slopes and an almost triangular, around six hectare plateau on the watershed between the Enztal in the west and the Neckar valley in the east is visible from afar due to its dominant location around 100 meters above the otherwise only moderately hilly surrounding area. He offered himself to build a fortress.

The slopes to the east and north are wooded; to the west joins the narrow, about two kilometers long, beginning 310- 300  m above sea level. NHN high hill ridge Hurst . Wine is grown on the terraced southern flank . The small town of Asperg lies beneath the vineyards in a natural depression stretching from west to east, beyond which on the ridge of the hill that borders it in the south of just 317.7  m above sea level. NHN high grave mound Kleinaspergle stands.

history

Access to Hohenasperg fortress
Access for cars and pedestrians
View of the moat
View from the tour of a castle tower

Already inhabited in the Stone Age, the Hohenasperg was in pre-Christian times, around 500 BC. Chr. Celtic prince seat with a refuge . Numerous Celtic tombs in the vicinity are arranged in such a way that they offer a clear view of the Hohenasperg, for example the large barrow near Hochdorf or the tomb on the Katharinenlinde near Schwieberdingen . The Kleinaspergle , located on the southern edge of Asperg, offers a particularly good view of the Hohenasperg. Since an excavation in 1879, it has been known to be a Celtic barrow .

Around 500, after the victory of the Franks over the Alemanni , the Hohenasperg became a Franconian manor and place of residence . The name at that time was "Ascisberg".

Asperg was first mentioned in a document as early as 819, when Gaugraf Gozberg donated his property there to the Weissenburg monastery in Alsace. However, the place only gained greater importance in the 13th century with the establishment of the independent town of Hohenasperg until 1909. In 1510, Asperg also received town charter. In 1519 troops of the Swabian Confederation under Georg von Frundsberg besieged Hohenaspergs, where Duke Ulrich von Württemberg was staying.

On May 12, 1525, the farmer's leader Jäcklein Rohrbach was captured by the Burgvogt des Aspergs and detained there until he was handed over to the Waldburg Truchsess . From 1535 the mountain was expanded as a fortress , the residents were relocated to the foot of the mountain.

In the Thirty Years' War , the castle was from 1634 to 1635 from a part of Württemberg - Protestant garrison, reinforced by Swedish defense forces against a siege by imperial troops. The siege ended with the handover to the imperial troops.

After the Thirty Years' War, the fortress returned to Württemberg ownership. In 1675, Duke Wilhelm Ludwig had the entrance portal to the fortress, the Löwentor , built in the early Baroque style as the only entrance to the fortress. There is an inscription above the archway, the year and the four-part ducal coat of arms. During the Palatinate War of Succession in 1688 and 1693, the Hohenasperg was occupied by French troops, after which the complex lost its importance for national defense and became a garrison and state prison. In 1718 Asperg was incorporated into the Oberamt Ludwigsburg , but 17 years later it was again seat of its own office. In 1781 it was finally incorporated into the Ludwigsburg Oberamt.

Inner gate tower from 1535. Photo from 1925 with school class

Hohenasperg fortress has been used as a prison for several centuries. Today the Hohenasperg penal hospital and the Baden-Württemberg social therapeutic institution are located there.

Burgvögte, governors and commanders

year Commander and troops
1519 Hanns Leonhard von Reischach with 500 men from Württemberg troops
1522 Captain Bastian Emhart with imperial troops on Hohenasperg (walled in alive)
1534 Hans Dietrich Späth with 800 imperial troops
1535 Wilhelm von Janowitz († 1562), Württemberg troops
1546 Wilhelm von Massenbach († 1558) with 800 soldiers from Württemberg
1547 Spanish troops under Captain Zinzineres
1551 Heinrich Freiherr von Waldburg-Wolfegg, Imperial Colonel, Captain Erasmus Voßle
1553 Imperial Colonel Count Carl zu Hohenzollern
1553 Wilhelm von Janowitz, with 40 men from Württemberg troops
1634 Captain Eckstein with 400 men
1634 Rüdiger von Waldo, a Swedish lieutenant colonel, and Werner Dietrich von Münchingen with 596 men and 113 horses
1635 Achilles of Soye with 276 imperial troops
1648 Field Marshal Lieutenant Lothar Dietrich von Bönninghausen , 2 companies of infantry, 40 horsemen
1649 Lieutenant Colonel von Kessel Bavarian troops
1688 Major von Keller Württemberg troops
1688 13th to 23rd December French troops 200 men
1693 General Uxelles with 400 French troops
1728 Marshal and Lieutenant Colonel Julius Otto Damian von Biberstein († June 17, 1760)
1760 Colonel Friedrich Christoph von Kettenburg
1768
1772 General Philipp Friedrich von Rieger († May 15, 1782)
1782 General Johann Andreas von Hügel
1804 Lieutenant General Alexander von Rau
1808 Franz Jakob von Berndes, major general
1812 Colonel von Wolfs
1812 General Franz Karl Friedrich von Etzdorff
1813 von Hövel, Colonel
1815 Interim Commander Lieutenant Colonel von Bequignoles
1816 Lieutenant General von Wöllwarth
1818 Colonel von Höfe
1828 Ernst Karl Adolf von Kechler († July 1, 1828), Colonel
1847 Heinrich von Arlt († November 21, 1869), Colonel
1847 Colonel Friedrich Karl von Sonntag (* 1790)

Prisoners on the Asperg

From the late Middle Ages until the 20th century, the Hohenasperg was used almost continuously as a prison for lawfully convicted criminals as well as for "political prisoners".

This use is responsible for the fact that the Asperg is , according to a bon mot , “Württemberg's highest mountain” : It only takes five minutes to get up, but years to get down again. Because of the large number of intellectuals imprisoned from the 18th to the 20th century, some of them politically active, the fortress was also popularly called the “local mountain of the Swabian intelligentsia” . Other typical political function of the fortress names of the people were sometimes Democrats hump , tears mountain , demagogues hostel and the sentence "In the mountains does not live the freedom on the Asperg but" .

Holy Roman Empire

Schiller's visit to Schubart on the Hohenasperg, 1781

One of the first prisoners was Hartmann I. von Grüningen . After his capture on April 6, 1280, he was imprisoned on the Hohenasperg, where he died after six months in prison.

As a result of the privately motivated murder of Ulrich von Württembergs of his stable master Hans von Hutten , there was fierce fighting within the aristocratic ranks, as a result of which the Vogt von Weinsberg , Sebastian Breuning , the Vogt von Tübingen , Konrad Breuning , and the Vogt von Cannstatt , Konrad Vaut , arrested on November 20, 1516. The torture extorted confessions on charges of a constructed lese majesty led to judicial murder by execution on December 11, 1516.

In 1737 Joseph Suss Oppenheimer , financial advisor to the Duke of Württemberg, was the victim of a judicial murder. He was imprisoned on the Hohenasperg for seven months and executed in Stuttgart in 1738.

On September 16, 1756, Duke Carl Eugen had the chamber singer and confidante of his wife, Marianne Pirker, arrested. She had made the mistake of reporting openly to Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth about her husband's infidelities. After a month and a half imprisonment at Hohentwiel Fortress , she was taken to Hohenasperg, where she remained imprisoned until the end of 1764.

In a meeting, the Tübingen senior bailiff, Johann Ludwig Huber , asked the citizens of his city to refuse their consent to a property tax planned by Duke Carl Eugen for military purposes. Thereupon he was arrested on June 21, 1764 and taken to the Hohenasperg without interrogation or a formal conviction, where he remained for six months. Over thirty years later, Huber remembered this time:

"We are innocent people: but we were brought here as rebels because we have maintained and still maintain that the well-known tax project is illegal, impossible and impracticable."

The Asperg became famous far beyond the borders of Württemberg when the poet Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart was imprisoned here from 1777 to 1787 without interrogation, charge or judgment. In 1939 an exhibition was held in the casemates to commemorate his 200th birthday. In addition, the restoration facility ( Schubart-Stuben ) on the Hohenasperg is named after him. With Schubart's fate in mind, Friedrich Schiller wrote his drama The Robbers - and even escaped possible imprisonment on the Hohenasperg by fleeing to Mannheim in the neighboring Electoral Palatinate .

19th century

Because of revolutionary activities, which could not be proven, the state parliament members Victor Hauff , mayor of Tübingen, and Christian Friedrich Baz , mayor of Ludwigsburg, were imprisoned as state prisoners of the Duke and later King Friedrich in 1800 . After that there were mainly deserters, military convicts and separatists ( radical pietism ) from the environment of the radical pietist group von Rottenacker on the Hohenasperg.

Other prisoners on the Hohenasperg were the writer Berthold Auerbach , who was imprisoned for two months in 1837, the economist Friedrich List (1824/1825), the manufacturer Jakob Friedrich Kammerer (1833), the doctor and poet Theobald Kerner (1850-1851) Theologian Karl von Hase , the satirist Johannes Nefflen , the poet Leo von Seckendorff , the writer Theodor Griesinger and numerous other, mostly political prisoners, who were usually imprisoned for their anti-monarchist attitude.

As part of the national movement of 1848/49 , more and more people were imprisoned on the Hohenasperg. One of the first was the editor of the radical Heilbronner Zeitung Neckar-Dampfschiff , Adolph Majer , who had called for a violent overthrow of the government in a public meeting. In view of the increasing number of political prisoners on remand only briefly held, the Ministry of the Interior installed its own investigative court on the fortress in October 1848.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 almost 900 French prisoners of war were briefly interned on the Hohenasperg.

In 1887/88 a water tower was built on the Hohenasperg fortress area , which today carries antennas for the police radio.

Since 1894 there has been a prison for civilian sentences on the Hohenasperg.

20th century

The Sinti were escorted through the village on foot under police surveillance (in the background the Hohenasperg, picture of the RHF )

At the beginning of the National Socialist era in the spring and summer of 1933, numerous Catholic , Social Democratic and Communist opponents of Hitler were arrested and tortured. Among them was the Württemberg state president Eugen Bolz , who was murdered in 1945 during the grating in Berlin. At least 101 prisoners, 20 of whom were named by the Ludwigsburg VVN , died due to the extremely harsh penal system. You will be remembered with a plaque in the prison cemetery.

At the same time as the National Socialist crimes, Hohenasperg Fortress was used as a site for an exhibition on the 200th birthday of Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart in 1939 and as a tourist attraction. For this purpose, a contract was signed between the city and the penitentiary for the purpose of leasing the observation tower and the casemates for tourism purposes.

Deportation of south-west German Sinti. Photo from May 22, 1940 Hohenasperg by the RHF

Due to the greatly increased number of deaths among the prisoners from tuberculosis and National Socialist murders, the city of Asperg declined to bury the dead in the city cemetery due to lack of space. Therefore, a fortified cemetery was created on the north side of the mountain .

For the first centrally planned deportations of Sinti and Roma from all of southwest Germany west of the Rhine ( Mainz , Ingelheim am Rhein , Worms ) in May 1940, the prison was used as a stopover for entire imprisoned families. The deportation took place with a special train, the families were escorted on foot from the train station through the village under police surveillance. A final examination and assessment by the " Ritter Research Center " took place in the prison , which decided the fate of the arrested. The next deportation led to the Generalgouvernement . Those who could not be classified as "gypsies" were not deported any further. At least until the beginning of 1943 the prison was used as a transit station for Sinti to other concentration camps. The next deportation led to the "gypsy family camp " of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp , where the prisoners were murdered ( extermination camp ).

In the final phase of the war, from Hohenasperg and from the village was Asperg from artillery fire on on the Enz lying enemy positions directed. The place itself was attacked by airmen and bombarded with artillery, killing 12 residents and damaging some houses. When the mayor tried to persuade the combat leader residing at Hohenasperg fortress to withdraw with his battery, he was sentenced to death by a court martial on charges of sabotage .

After the withdrawal of the German units, the Hohenasperg was occupied by a French infantry company on April 21, 1945 . In July 1945 the fortress was handed over to the American administration and used until 1947 as internment camp I. C. 76 for denazification and re-education .

On April 1, 1947, German authorities took over Hohenasperg as a penal institution and central hospital for the (Baden-) Württemberg penal system . In 1968 Hohenasperg became a prison. A visit to the interior is not possible for safety reasons.

From 2 to 21 August 1995 sat Peter Graf , father of tennis player Steffi Graf , there during the investigation by the Mannheim public prosecutor against him and (first and) his daughter because of tax evasion due to poor health in prison hospital Hohenasperg in custody one before it in the correctional facility in Mannheim was relocated.

21st century

Renovation work in September 2014

Because of the escape of a prisoner from the prison hospital in 2007, member of the state parliament Jürgen Walter and other parliamentary group members of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen applied for information from the state government about whether the structural condition still met the current safety standards and whether it was not appropriate not to invest any more money in the renovation of the facility.

The serial killer Heinrich Pommerenke , who died there on December 27, 2008, was also in custody in the prison hospital . Another prisoner was the former concentration camp commandant and SS Oberscharführer Josef Schwammberger , who died there on December 3, 2004.

The prison hospital has 172 beds, of which an average of 130 are occupied. The state of Baden-Württemberg is planning to move the hospital to a new building on the premises of the Stammheim prison .

Other known former inmates

Museum "Hohenasperg - A German Prison"

Cannon in front of the museum

In 2010, the state museum, Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg , set up the decentralized permanent exhibition Hohenasperg - A German Prison in the arsenal building of the fortress . On view are 23 biographies of the most famous prisoners, from Joseph Oppenheimer to Karl Jäger to Günter Sonnenberg . There is also a reading room with research facilities and further information.

literature

  • Max Biffart: History of the Württemberg Hohenasperg Fortress and its strange prisoners . Aue, Stuttgart, 1858.
  • Theodor Bolay: The Hohenasperg - past and present . Krug, Bietigheim, 1972.
  • Horst Brandstätter: Asperg - A German prison . Wagenbach's pocket library, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-8031-2045-4 .
  • Horst Brandstätter, Franziska Dunkel, Jürgen Walter: Asperg - A German prison . Verlag Regionalkultur 2015. ISBN 978-3-89735-928-4
  • Eberhard Fritz: "Condemned to the Hohen-Asperg fortress". Life and everyday life of the prisoners in the reign of Friedrich von Württemberg (1797–1816) . In: Ludwigsburg history sheets, 67/2013. Pp. 67-92.
  • Erwin Haas: The seven Württemberg state fortresses Hohenasperg, Hohenneuffen, Hohentübingen, Hohenurach, Hohentwiel, Kirchheim / Teck, Schorndorf . Harwalik, Reutlingen 1996, ISBN 3-921638-59-3 .
  • Immanuel Hoch: History of the Württemberg fortress Hohenasperg and its strange political and other prisoners . Stuttgart 1838.
  • Albrecht Krause, Erich Viehöfer: On the mountains of freedom. The Hohenasperg and the judgment on the revolution . House of History Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-933726-11-5 .
  • Wolfgang Ranke: Schiller , Schubart and the Hohenasperg . German Schiller Society , Marbach am Neckar 2009, ISBN 978-3-937384-50-4 .
  • Paul Sauer : The Hohenasperg - princely seat, hilltop castle, bulwark of national defense . DRW-Verlag, Leinfelden-Echterdingen 2004, ISBN 3-87181-009-6 .
  • Theodor Schön: The state prisoners on Hohenasperg . Gundert, Stuttgart 1899.
  • S.-W .: The Württemberg Bastille . In: The Gazebo . Issue 1, 1873, pp. 6–9 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Hohenasperg Fortress  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c heights according to the inscriptions or the contour line image of this detail map on: Landesanstalt für Umwelt Baden-Württemberg (LUBW) ( information ).
  2. ↑ For geology, see State Institute for the Environment Baden-Württemberg (LUBW) ( information ), there for the finer scales in particular the layers of the Geological Map 1: 50,000 section
  3. ^ Paul Sauer: Der Hohenasperg, Fürstensitz-Höhenburg-Bollwerk der Landesverteidigung , DRW-Verlag, 2004, p. 236.
  4. ↑ M. Hennecke, The Fransozeneinfall 1693 in southwest Germany: Urasachen, consequences, problems: Contributions of Backnanger symposium on 10 and 11 September 1993, p 55
  5. ^ Reichsadel and Freiherrenstand on December 14, 1801, cf .: Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der Graflichen Häuser, 1935, p. 189
  6. ^ Royal Württemberg State and Government Gazette, p.337
  7. ^ Royal Württemberg State and Government Gazette : from 1816, p.367
  8. ^ Heinrich Moegling, Stamm-Register for the family foundation of Baroness Agnes Schilling von Cannstatt, born in 1646. Freiin von Münchingen, intended to be preambles for female relatives of the founder, with news about this foundation , p.42
  9. ^ Revolution in the Southwest. Sites of the democracy movement 1848/49 in Baden-Württemberg . Edited by the working group of full-time archivists in the Baden-Württemberg City Council. 2nd Edition. Info Verlag, Karlsruhe 1998, ISBN 3-88190-219-8 , p. 55.
  10. ↑ Horst Brandstätter : Asperg. A German prison , Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin, 1978, p. 18 u. 19th
  11. ↑ Theodor Bolay, Paul Müller: The Hohenasperg - past and present . 5th edition. Published by Stadt Asperg, 1998, p. 49 ff.
  12. ↑ Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, ed. Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Volume 13, 1881, Johann Ludwig Huber, p. 232.
  13. ↑ Johann Ludwig Huber: Something about my curriculum vitae and something about my muse on the fortress. A small contribution to the personal history of my fatherland , Stuttgart, 1798, p. 79.
  14. ^ Revolutions in the southwest - sites of the democracy movement 1848/49 in Baden-Württemberg , published by the working group of full-time archivists in the Baden-Württemberg City Association, Info Verlag, Karlsruhe, 2nd edition, 1998, p. 55.
  15. ^ Revolutions in the southwest - sites of the democracy movement 1848/49 in Baden-Württemberg . Published by the working group of full-time archivists in the Baden-Württemberg City Association, 2nd edition Info Verlag, Karlsruhe 1998, p. 56.
  16. ↑ Horst Brandstätter: Asperg. A German prison . Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 1978, p. 112.
  17. ↑ Max Miller: Eugen Bolz. Statesman and confessor . Stuttgart 1951, p. 457 ff.
  18. ↑ Memorial sites for the victims of National Socialism. A documentation . Volume I. Bonn 1995, pp. 20 f., ISBN 3-89331-208-0 .
  19. ↑ Horst Brandstätter: Asperg. A German prison . Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 1978, p. 122.
  20. ↑ Horst Brandstätter: Asperg, A German Prison , Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin 1978, p. 123.
  21. ↑ Work lists of the Ritter Research Center (Federal Archives holdings R 165/38), deportation lists and correspondence from the police in Mainz.
  22. ↑ Reutlingen 1930–1950; National Socialism and the Post-War Period . Edited by the city of Reutlingen, school, culture and sports department with the Reutlingen city archive, 1995, ISBN 3-927228-61-3 , pp. 159–160.
  23. ^ Friedrich Blumenstock: The invasion of the Americans and French in northern Württemberg in April 1945 . W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1957, p. 216 u. 217.
  24. ↑ Hans Leyendecker , Heiner Schimmöller, Klaus Brinkbäumer: “There is a lot of ego involved” . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 1996 ( online ).
  25. ↑ Landtag of Baden-Württemberg, printed matter 14/1195 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 42 kB)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.landtag-bw.de  
  26. ↑ Stefan Hupka: Sitting more beautifully . In: Badische Zeitung , September 1, 2012.
  27. ↑ New chance to move the prison clinic. Retrieved July 23, 2018 .
  28. ^ Hohenasperg - A German prison . Permanent exhibition of the House of History Baden-Württemberg; Retrieved July 23, 2010.

Coordinates: 48 ° 54 ′ 37 ″  N , 9 ° 8 ′ 18 ″  E