Fortress imprisonment
The fortress detention (in the early 19th century in Prussia also fortress arrest , in Austria from about 1880 until the interwar period called state prison ) was a special form of imprisonment . Fortress prisoners were accorded an honorable disposition . The fortress detention was therefore also called honorary detention . It was a custodia honesta ( Latin for "honorable custody") without any work obligation . As a prison sentence, she stood next to a penitentiary and prisonand was mainly imposed on members of the higher class, in the case of political crimes or against duelists . The Switzerland never knew this form of punishment.
The place of imprisonment was usually a fortress , but this form of detention could also be served in other places.
In the penal code of the Federal Republic of Germany, “fortress custody” was replaced by “ confinement ” in 1953 , which in turn gave way to the imprisonment sentence that was now introduced in 1969 as part of the major criminal law reform . In Austria, the 1930 draft for a new penal code no longer provided for this type of penalty. However, due to the political developments that followed, it never came into force. When the current Austrian criminal law was republished in 1945 (StG 1945), numerous articles of the penal code of 1852 that were considered obsolete or that had been formally repealed by the interim legislation were omitted, including the provisions on fortress detention.
Imprisonment in Prussia
In 19th century Prussia, fortress detention was to be distinguished from fortress punishment. Only non-commissioned officers and men were sentenced to fortress punishment. Until 1872 they served this sentence under lockdown and guard and had to do military work. In 1872 this sentence was replaced by a pure prison sentence.
In contrast, fortress detention was considered an honorable punishment. It could be imposed on officers and members of the higher, educated classes. From the 1870s at the latest, the places for fortress detention were called fortress house prisoners institutions . One of these institutions was located on the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress from 1878 to 1909, where fortress prisoners are documented as early as the 1830s. After the dissolution of this institution there were still the following places to serve the fortress detention in Prussia: the fortresses Weichselmünde near Danzig and Magdeburg for NCOs, men and lower military officers, the fortress Glatz for officers of the Guard Corps and the I. to VI. and the XVII. Army Corps and finally the Wesel Fortress for officers of the other Army Corps.
The fortress prisoners in Prussia were under supervision of their life and under guard, but were allowed tobacco and liquors enjoy and receive visitors. Daily exercise in the open air was permitted. Around 1900 it was even possible to get leave from the fortress commanders in the city and from the public prosecutor's office, but this was not counted as part of the prison term.
Duelists were usually sentenced to imprisonment because the duel was officially forbidden but actually tolerated. As a rule, duelists also received an early pardon from the king. Political prisoners, e.g. As in pre-March have also been sentenced to imprisonment as Catholic clergymen in the culture war z. B. violated the " pulpit paragraph ". Anyone who was sentenced to imprisonment instead of imprisonment for a crime was given a special grace.
In accordance with Section 17 of the Reich Criminal Code of 1871, imprisonment was for life or temporary. The early imprisonment could be imposed from one day to 15 years.
Well-known fortress prisoners - a selection
- Anton Graf von Arco-Valley , who shot the Bavarian Prime Minister Kurt Eisner on February 21, 1919 and who was pardoned after a death sentence
- August Bebel (1872 in the course of the Leipzig high treason trial )
- Hanns Heinz Ewers , writer, cabaret artist, filmmaker, was imprisoned in 1897 for a duel at the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress
- Thomas Theodor Heine , caricaturist, 1898 six months for insulting majesty
- After the march on the Feldherrnhalle in 1923, Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Heß served around nine months of imprisonment in Landsberg am Lech
- Franz Junghuhn , doctor and Java researcher, served a fortress detention at the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress in 1832/33 because of a duel
- Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter , German diplomat, was imprisoned in 1894 for a duel at the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress
- Karl Liebknecht , who was sentenced to one and a half years in 1907
- In 1916 Rosa Luxemburg spent a few months of her imprisonment in the central prison of the province of Posen in Wronke
- Karl Mack von Leiberich was sentenced to death in 1806, then pardoned to 20 years of imprisonment and released from prison in 1808
- Erich Mühsam (several times, until about 1924 as a result of his role in the Munich Soviet Republic )
- Fritz Reuter (from 1833 to 1840 for " lese majesty and attempted high treason ")
- Richard Scheringer was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in the Ulm Reichswehr trial
- Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (from 1777 to 1787)
- Werner von Siemens (1842 because of a duel in which he had acted as a second )
- August Silberstein was sentenced to five years imprisonment in a fortress in 1854, but released after two years
- Hans von Sponeck (shot on July 23, 1944 on Himmler's orders in the military prison in Germersheim )
- Frank Wedekind (for insulting majesty for a political poem published in Simplicissimus )
- Ernst Toller , writer, sentenced to five years imprisonment in a fortress in 1920 for his leading role in the Munich Soviet Republic
literature
- Manfred Böckling: Workers' department, arrest and fortress house prisoner institution. The Prussian fortress Ehrenbreitstein as a place of execution. In: New research on the fortress Koblenz and Ehrenbreitstein, Volume 3, ed. by General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate and the German Society for Fortress Research, Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner 2012, pp. 63–97. ISBN 978-3-7954-2475-6
- Klaus Jordan: fortress arrest, fortress detention, fortress punishment. In: Festungsjournal, magazine of the German Society for Fortress Research e. V., 40 (2011), p. 53.
- Jürgen W. Schmidt : "Construction and fortress prisoners on the Silesian fortress Glatz: Three unusual fates from the years 1825, 1832 and 1896" In: "Schlesische Geschichtsblätter" 2012 (39th year) issue 2 pp. 48–71
Web links
- Adolf Hitler's imprisonment in Landsberg am Lech at www.landsberger-zeitgeschichte.de