Prisoner uprisings in Bautzen I 1950
There were two prisoner uprisings in Bautzen I prison in March 1950 , with the SMT convicts imprisoned there rebelling against the inhumane conditions. To draw attention to the catastrophic conditions, almost all of the prisoners went on a hunger strike on March 13, 1950 . Since this had no effect, the desperation of the detainees flared up again on March 31, 1950, leading to an uprising. The first and largest prisoner uprising in the GDR was brutally suppressed.
History and causes
After the end of the Second World War , the Bautzen I State Penitentiary became part of the Soviet "forced labor camp system" Gulag . This is how “Special Camp No. 4”, one of ten in the GDR, was created on the premises of the detention center. This special camp was initially used to detain Nazi and war criminals. From 1946, however, political opponents convicted by the SMT were increasingly housed in Bautzen I. These often received long prison terms of usually up to 25 years. At the beginning of 1950 almost 6,000 people were imprisoned in the special camp in Bautzen, more than 1,000 of whom were infected with TB . The situation in the detention center was catastrophic: In a detention room measuring 33 by 12 square meters, there were mostly 350–400 inmates. Hunger, cold and poor hygienic conditions increased the prisoners' displeasure and were part of the everyday life of the "yellow misery", a name that the prison soon received due to its yellow exterior, which was due to the use of yellow clinker as a building material. Between 1945 and 1950 over 3000 people died in Bautzen I.
After the founding of the GDR , the German People's Police took over the place of detention from the Soviet occupation forces in February 1950 . Thus “Special Camp No. 4” was officially dissolved. The handover of the overcrowded detention center was negligent, for example no meaningful detention documents were handed over. The People's Police were overwhelmed with such a situation.
The inmates placed great hope in the change of responsibilities. “The extradition to the Germans provoked reactions. You had felt defenseless against the Russians. But these people spoke our language. Something had to be 'in'. "- Walter Kempowski " In addition to improving the hygienic and medical care and improving the nutritional situation, the prisoners also hoped that their judgments would be re-examined.
Instead of the hoped-for improvement in everyday prison life, however, military drill and rougher manners set the tone. All prisoners remained in custody, the sick received neither medical care nor were they transferred, more people died every day and the risk of the disease continued to rise. The prisoners' hope gave way to disillusionment and anger. The tense situation in the detention center was exacerbated: “Everyone who was still alive had gone through hundreds of hells […]. So it was no wonder that it was fermenting and seething among the prisoners. "
The riot
Hunger strike on March 13, 1950
Although contact with the guards was not permitted, democratically elected speakers tried to make the prison management's last attempt to remedy the numerous grievances surrounding the tense situation. Otherwise, they threatened a hunger strike. The prison administration's response included increasing the number of beatings and penalties, as well as cutting food for two days.
On the morning of March 13, 1950, almost all prisoners refused the thin water soup in protest against the increasingly life-threatening conditions in prison and their uncertain fate. They went on a hunger strike . The call for food was distributed throughout the building. Spontaneous chants arose in the individual prison rooms. They shouted at her despair and anger through the detention center windows. “We're hungry!”, “We're calling the Red Cross!”, “We're innocent!”, “Let's not perish!” The noisy choir of thousands of voices could be heard from afar, even in the city center of Bautzen, and so moved the public focus on the otherwise very isolated prison. In addition to the fear of the residents, there were also many expressions of solidarity from citizens who, for example, tried to bring food to the prisoners. But the prison administration fought them off. In addition to chanting, the prisoners also tried to draw attention to their catastrophic situation through self-made banners, made from labeled sheets and broomsticks. The guards were overwhelmed with the situation and did not intervene. Only on the following day did the detention center management show up "officers of the administrative staff and representatives of the government" to calm the detainees. On March 15, 1950, a commission of Russian officers from Berlin-Karlshorst appeared to examine the situation in Bautzen. They promised the inmates improvements in medical care and an increase in food supplies. Because of this, the prisoners calmed down again. The first uprising subsided for now.
The uprising on March 31, 1950
The announced improvements have not actually been implemented. Two weeks later, on March 31, 1950, there was a second prisoner uprising in Bautzen I. First, the prisoners marked by tuberculosis joined in chanting. The speakers tried again to draw the guards' attention to the tense atmosphere and requested improvements in detention. Again without success, instead they were locked away by the German People's Police in custody. Angry about this measure, the prisoners demanded the release of the speakers in the hall and the promised improvement in prison conditions. They issued an ultimatum to the prison authorities to start another hunger strike.
This time, however, the prison authorities were prepared for the uprising. The police squirted water from fire hoses into the halls to drive the prisoners calling from the windows. The tuberculosis sufferers, who were mainly housed on the lower floors, were deliberately soaked through. The political prisoner and trained firefighter Ernst Othmer was supposed to support the German People's Police in these measures. He refused, so they badly mistreated him, and he was arrested. “Here I had to watch that one was defenseless and terminally ill, tuberculosis-sick prisoners, who z. Some of them were completely in plaster of paris, not only soaked in water, but after the water action they were bloody whipped and beaten up by specially assembled inhumanly behaving people police beatings. " stormed into the halls and brutally beat the prisoners with rubber truncheons. The police let them run the gauntlet and set a trained German shepherd on the prisoners. The uprising was put down after a short time.
Two prisoner letters smuggled from Bautzen and published in West Germany report on these events. This made Bautzen internationally known as a place of communist crimes and the “yellow misery” became a symbol of political persecution in the GDR.
After the uprising
The prisoners were broken mentally and physically after the violent suppression of the uprising. Many were seriously injured due to the brutal manner in which the police attacked the insurgent prisoners. After the uprising in April 1950, new prison regulations were implemented that only partially improved the prison conditions. The majority of those wrongly convicted were not freed until 1956. Many of them fled to the FRG and were recognized there as politically persecuted. In the GDR there was no longer any talk about the "yellow misery" and so the prisoner uprising in March 1950 fell into oblivion. In Germany ZDF 1979 showed the adaptation of the novel A chapter in itself of the special camp inmate Walter Kempowski where the insurgency is shown.
With the collapse of the GDR, the suppressed memories of the former prisoners were released. Many broke their silence and reported as contemporary witnesses in schools and in memorials. They write books and process their experiences artistically. As part of prisoner meetings, they return to the place of their suffering and commemorate their deceased fellow prisoners.
Memory of the uprising
Forty years after the uprising, on March 31, 1990, former prisoners from both Bautzen prisons formed a victims' association and founded the Bautzen Committee. The committee is still involved today in researching and coming to terms with the crimes in Bautzen prisons. On the initiative of the association, for example, the Bautzen memorial and the burial site on the Karnickelberg were created as a place of remembrance of the suffering of the many innocent victims. Since 2011, a joint prayer of the Evangelical Lutheran Parish of St. Petri Bautzen, the Bautzen Memorial, the BautzenKomitee e. V. and the city of Bautzen on the anniversary of the prisoner uprising.
The Bautzen Memorial in particular documents the history of the uprising in the permanent exhibition “Bautzen Special Camp 1945 - 1956”. The touring exhibition The Forgotten Prisoners' Uprising can also be seen at the Bautzen Memorial until November 15, 2015 . The Bautzen “Yellow Misery” in March 1950 , which authentically explains its history with the help of drawings, sound and video recordings.
literature
- Saxon Memorials Foundation (publisher), history of the Bautzen special camp. 1945–1956, Michel Sandstein Verlag, 2004
- Letters from Bautzen handed over to the public by the board of the Social Democratic Party of Germany
- Sven Riesel: We don't want to die , in: Gerbergasse 18, Thuringian quarterly magazine for contemporary history and politics, 1/2016, issue 78, pp. 24–29.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kempowski, Walter: Im Block, Munich 2004, p. 145.
- ↑ Schwollius, Heinz: Reminder report, in: Bautzen Committee (Ed.): "The Yellow Misery". Bautzen prisoners report. 1945–1956, Munich / Berlin 1997, pp. 240–251, p. 246.
- ↑ Rieke, Dieter: Beloved Life. Experienced and endured between the millstones of recent German history, Berlin 1999, p. 175.
- ^ Report by Ernst Othmer on the use of fire extinguishers against the prisoners, February 1954. Archive of social democracy of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.