International Romberg Park Committee
The International Romberg Park Committee was founded in Dortmund in 1960 and deals with the detection of end- of- war crimes at the end of the war in 1945.
status
The committee includes members from all countries and communities who suffered victims in the Gestapo massacre at the end of the war in Dortmund in 1945. On February 19, 2011, the IRPK merged with the Steinwache Dortmund development association (see below).
Historical background
The name Rombergpark comes from the park of the same name in Dortmund. In this park and in the Dortmund Bittermark , mass executions took place after a wave of arrests in Dortmund on April 10, 1945, the day the US troops marched in.
Such crimes happened in many German cities, similar to the scorched earth policy when the Wehrmacht withdrew . In January 1945 the Gestapo commandos and SS leaderships were instructed by the Gestapo headquarters on the instructions of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller of the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin to prevent subversive activities by German leftists and foreign workers. "Those concerned are to be destroyed" , it said in the orders.
Actions
The following actions were carried out:
- Approximately 8,000 German soldiers as " deserters " in the last months of the war in 1945 summarily shot .
- Execution of concentration camp inmates and former concentration camp prisoners
- The death marches from the concentration camps heading west
- Executions in prisons , murder of prisoners of war and Jews from " mixed marriages "
This corresponded to the post-war and survival concept of German fascism. Obviously, they wanted to keep as few active democrats alive as possible in order to make it more difficult to build a new society after 1945. Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller said: “We will not make the same mistake that was made in 1918; we will not let our internal German enemies live. "
Meeting 2005
Together with the Federation of Resistance FIR , the Federal Association of Victims of Nazi Military Justice and the VVN / BdA , the committee prepared a meeting in Dortmund from March 24th to March 26th, 2005 with bereaved relatives, action groups from places with end-of-war crimes and numerous foreign guests and scientists . Guests were among others:
- Kurt Julius Goldstein , 90-year-old Dortmund Holocaust survivor, Honorary President of the International Auschwitz Committee and Honorary Chairman of the Association of Persecuted Persons of the Nazi Regime / BdA
- The General Secretary of FIR , Ulrich Schneider
- Celine van der Hoek , Sigmund Gingold , Jacquot Szmulewicz , Anton Zagovec (Holocaust survivors)
- Belgian and Polish anti-fascists, victims of fascism from the countries of the former USSR.
At the meeting in Dortmund's town hall, over 60 crime scenes of end-of-war crimes in Germany were named. The survivors of the victims of the crime and those who are acting on their behalf today have compiled this record.
Merger with the Steinwache Friends' Association in 2011
On February 19, 2011, the organizational merger of the IRPK and the Friends' Association Steinwache Memorial in Dortmund took place. The new organization bears the name “Förderverein Steinwache / Internationales Rombergpark-Komitee e. V. “The members elected the previous chairman of the Steinwache development association, the union secretary i. R. Ernst Söder as chairman and the previous managing director of the IRPK Norbert Schilff as deputy chairman. Marc Frese was elected cashier, and the board also includes 13 assessors.
The previous foreign members of the IRPK board were made honorary members, including resistance fighters, concentration camp victims and former forced laborers from the Netherlands, France, Poland, Ukraine and Russia. The previous President of the International Romberg Park Committee, Celine van der Hoek-de Vries from Amsterdam, and the long-time Secretary General Gisa Marschefski were elected honorary members of the new association. The new association continues the membership of the IRPK in the Federation of International Resistance (FIR).
See also
literature
- Ulrich Sander: Murderous finale. Nazi crimes at the end of the war . Edited by International Romberg Park Committee, PapyRossa Verlag, 2008, ISBN 3-89438-388-7 .
- Ulrich Sander: Murder in Rombergpark. Factual report. Published by the International Romberg Park Committee, Grafit, Dortmund 1993, ISBN 3-89425-900-0 .
Web links
- Website of the International Romberg Park Committee
- Commemorative event of the International Romberg Park Committee 2009