Judicial prison (Hanover)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Around 1872: The royal cell prison behind the main train station. The Alte Celler Heerstrasse leads out to the bottom right in the picture. Engraving (excerpt) from the Illustrirten Zeitung from 1872 after a drawing by Carl Grote

The judicial prison in Hanover was partly on the site of today's Raschplatz and the pavilion . The prison , which was originally built as a royal cell prison, was able to accommodate more than 800 prisoners. The serial killer Fritz Haarmann was executed in the institution . The KPD chairman Ernst Thälmann sat here in solitary confinement for years during the Nazi era .

In 1963, the Hanover correctional facility on Schulenburger Landstrasse was used as a replacement.

history

Royal cell prison

1865–1875 the “Royal Cell Prison” was built on the stone gate field , which was still undeveloped at that time, behind Hanover Central Station . The architect was later the secret building officer Eduard Schuster . The architect in the Hanoverian state services, who mainly built in the arched style , created here in the old Celler Heerstraße (today: the beginning of the Lister Meile ), Zwingerstraße (opposite the Leibnizschule since 1878 ), Weissekreuzstraße , Leonhardtstraße (here bordered to the south by the Palace of Justice and since 1881 by the Royal Kaiser-Wilhelms-Gymnasium ) and Hallerstraße , pentagon formed an early German building in the so-called "radial style".

The prison was initially intended for 274 men and 17 women, but was expanded several times by the beginning of the 20th century and could finally accommodate more than 800 prisoners.

Weeks-long interrogations of the serial killer Fritz Haarmann in the court prison, in particular by the detective inspector Heinrich Rätz, who "even had the murderer's partial confessions searched for body parts at night" led to the execution of the serial killer in the prison yard on April 15, 1925 after the subsequent trial. There Haarmann was beheaded with a guillotine . The prison was also the place of execution until 1937 .

From August 13, 1937 to August 11, 1943, the KPD chairman Ernst Thälmann was the most prominent prisoner here.

After the air raids on Hanover in World War II , the Raschplatzviertel was redesigned in 1963, the Hamburger Allee continued to be built and the prison formerly located in the middle of the city was demolished.

The birch of hope

Schoolchildren in front of the "Hope Birch" on the prison wall;
Colored postcard from 1901

The birch of hope was a birch that was spontaneously sown on the wall of the court prison on the corner of Alte Celler Heerstrasse and Hallerstrasse and grew to a certain size on it (see the colored postcard). In 1925 Theodor Lessing described this little tree that "every Hanoverian knows" in his book about Fritz Haarmann :

“Behind the Hanover train station in the deadliest, most soulless stone desert district on Celler Strasse is a prison; a huge area surrounded by a desolate giant wall made of red bricks. On a corner of this wall blooms a lovely miracle that every Hanoverian knows: a small birch, the most delicate and toughest tree, so blond and so modest, so tart and so lovely, with such vulnerable and delicate bark and such tough and healthy roots , like the children of our Lower Saxony landscape. By a miracle in the middle of the treeless stone desert she put down roots on the red prison wall, a greeting of the good life that breaks through all of our human misery and fornication "

The writer Albrecht Schaeffer , who grew up in Hanover, also describes the tree in his novel Helianth , published in 1920 . One of the main characters, Jason al Manach, walks through Hanover early on Sunday morning - which is called Altenrepen in the novel (from Alta Ripa , Hohes Ufer ) - and approaches the "cell prison" in Alte Celler Heerstrasse:

"Soon I was walking towards the corner of the high red prison wall where his street runs along, and I saw the little birch on the corner of the wall in its light green, which strangely has taken root there and is called the 'Hope Birch'."

The birch of hope, this "greeting of the good life" (Lessing) both to the inmates of the court prison and - perhaps as a warning ?! - to the passers-by on Alte Celler Heerstraße (today's Lister Meile), who were free, the imagination of many Hanoverians moved. Not least that of the students at the Leibniz School opposite , which was only separated from the judicial prison by Zwingerstraße (which has now disappeared). One of these Leibniz students was the librarian and writer Werner Kraft , who later emigrated from Hanover , who graduated from high school here in 1914 and described the situation as follows in his memoirs "Spiegelung der Jugend":

“The school stood next to the prison, which was surrounded by high walls, it wasn't one. At one point on the wall a little tree had taken root and held up. Through the class window you could see the courtyard where the convicts were walking. "

Personalities

Prisoners (selection)

Commemoration

memorial

Memorial court prison

At one point in the building that was demolished in 1963, the court prison memorial built in 1989 by Hans-Jürgen Breuste commemorates the various groups of victims of the National Socialists . It is at the beginning of the Lister Meile , on the side of the pavilion entrance facing the train station.

Games app

In 2016, the cultural center Pavillon worked with citizens and game developers to develop an analog-digital history project on the former court prison, in which an app in game design was filled with historical and fictional content in workshops. The “Pavillon Prison Break” app has been available free of charge in the app stores since 2017 . As a location-based game , it guides the players through a time travel story around the former location of the court prison.

literature

  • Arnold Nöldeke : The art monuments of the province of Hanover. City of Hanover , 2 parts, 1932; here: Volume 1, p. 716 ff.
  • Heinrich Deichert: On the history of the embarrassing administration of justice in old Hanover , in: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , Vol. 15 (1912), pp. 97-175
  • Ulrike Dursthoff, Michael Pechel (Red.): Places of Remembrance. Guide to sites of persecution and resistance during the Nazi regime in the Hanover / Hanover region ... , ed. from the Network Remembrance and Future in the Hanover Region c / o Förderverein Gedenkstätte Ahlem eV, in cooperation with the State Capital of Hanover and the Region of Hanover, Hanover: City Office for the City of Hanover and City Office for the Region of Hanover, [2007?], pp. 45 ff. and 53
  • Günter Gebhardt: "Prisons and execution sites in Hanover", in: Military affairs, economy and traffic in the center of the electorate and kingdom of Hanover 1692–1866 . Studies on Lower Saxony State History, Vol. 1, ibidem (Edition Noëma), Stuttgart 2010, p. 67 ff. ISBN 978-3-8382-0184-9
  • Klaus Mlynek : Prisons , in: Stadtlexikon Hannover , p. 206
  • Ulrike Puvogel and Martin Stankowski (with the assistance of Ursula Graf): Memorials for the victims of National Socialism. A documentation . Vol. I, 2nd, revised and expanded edition of Volume 245 of the series of publications published in 1987 (federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein); Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-89331-208-0 ; here: p. 418
  • Herbert Obenaus , Wilhelm Sommer (ed.): Political prisoners in the court prison in Hanover during the National Socialist rule , in the cultural information series , ed. from the cultural office of the city of Hanover, reprint from: Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter , Neue Reihe 44, Hanover: Landeshauptstadt Hannover, Der Oberstadtdirektor - Kulturamt, 1990
  • The former court prison in Hanover 1933–1945 - no reason for a warning? ; in: Antifaschistische Reihe , Ed .: Association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Association of Antifascists - Lower Saxony eV, District Association Hanover, Rolandstrasse 16, Hanover, "Eigendruck Hanover 1988" (brochure)
  • Gudrun Hennke: Tour 14, strolling paradise and dreams of a better world, Oststadt, 2nd court prison ; in: Hannover on foot, 18 district tours through history and the present , ed .: Ingo Bultmann, Thomas Neumann and Jutta Schiecke, VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-87975-471-3 ; here: p. 195
  • Ernst Bohlius; Wolfgang Leonhardt: "The List". 700 years of looking around the village and town history . Norderstedt: Books on Demand 2003, p. 16 (with a small picture of the "Hope Birch")
  • Rainer Hoffschildt : Commemorative speech at the court prison memorial in Hanover on May 8th, May 8th 2010 (manuscript)

Web links

Commons : Hanover court prison  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pharus-Plan Hannover 1907. Reprint, 1: 10.200. Berlin: Pharus Plan 2005 (= 1907), grid squares H 4–5
  2. ^ Frank Winternheimer: Remembrance remains / Haarmann investigator's gravestone saved , in: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of February 6, 2013; online , last accessed February 12, 2013
  3. ↑ The merchant Haarmann, born on October 25, 1879 in Hanover, was arrested on June 23, 1924 and was interrogated in the judicial prison at Leonhardtstrasse 1 until August 16. From June 29, he gradually admitted to having killed, dismembered and disposed of numerous young men since 1918. (Blazek, Matthias: Haarmann and Grans - The case, the participants and the press coverage. Ibidem, Stuttgart 2009, p. 13, ISBN 978-3-89821-967-9 .)
  4. ^ Theodor Lessing: Haarmann - the story of a werewolf (first Berlin 1925), Neuausg. Edited and introduced by Rainer Marwedel. Frankfurt am Main 1989 (Luchterhand collection. 865), p. 191. In his article "German Trees" (Prager Tagblatt of November 29, 1924, again in: Theodor Lessing: Meine Tiere. Berlin 1926) Lessing also approaches the birch of hope speak: "I have known her for more than ten years. During this time she has become a stately tree and blooms every spring. For many years my listless path led me past this wall in the morning. Then a lonely miracle waved down from the high prison wall : the little birch in bloom. Then I thought of the prisoners behind the wall. Do you understand this symbol, my brothers? " Quoted from: Theodor Lessing: "I threw a message in a bottle into the arctic ocean of history". Essays and features (1923–1933). Edited and introduced by Rainer Marwedel. Darmstadt 1986 (Luchterhand Collection 639), pp. 304–309, here p. 309. ÖNB / ANNO
  5. ↑ Here, quoted from the new edition edited by the author in American exile: Albrecht Schaeffer: Helianth. Pictures from the life of two people after the turn of the century. Edited by Rolf Bulang. Bonn: Weidle 1995. Vol. 3, p. 161.
  6. ↑ Werner Kraft: Spiegelung der Jugend. Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 9
  7. ↑ Diana Schulle (ed.), Susanne Brömel, Christine Müller-Botsch , Johannes Tuchel (collaborators): Biographies: Wilhelm Hahn jun. ... on the page Sozialistische-front.de , publisher: German Resistance Memorial Center with the support of the Lindener Geschichtswerkstatt in the Linden leisure center
  8. ↑ Thomas Kaestle: "Pavillon Prison Break" game app is available in the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung from August 4th. 2017


Coordinates: 52 ° 22 ′ 47.2 "  N , 9 ° 44 ′ 39.9"  E