St. Georgen-Bayreuth correctional facility

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St. Georgen-Bayreuth correctional facility
St. Georgen-Bayreuth correctional facility
Information about the institution
Surname St. Georgen-Bayreuth correctional facility
Reference year 1735
Detention places 890
Employee 364
Institution management Matthias Konopka

The correctional facility St. Georgen-Bayreuth is located in the Bayreuth district of St. Georgen and is the third largest correctional facility in Bavaria after the JVA Munich Stadelheim and the JVA Nuremberg .

numbers

The institution, which consists of three spatially separated areas, has a total capacity of 911 prison places, two of which are for disabled prisoners.

Branch office

From an administrative point of view, the Hof correctional facility, which had been independent since January 1, 2019 and had 202 prison places, was affiliated to the Bayreuth facility.

history

In 1713, Margrave Georg Wilhelm applied to the state parliament for the construction of a breeding and working house, which the churches and hospitals had to contribute to the financing . The state parliament signaled its approval and an amount of 4,000 Franconian guilders was made available. In the following years these plans were not pursued any further.

It was not until 1724 that an institution for 200 "trainees" was commissioned. Georg Wilhelm sent begging letters to the High Princely Landscapes , the High Princely Consistory and, a little later, to the “Provincial and Office Governments, together with the mayor and council” of the six capitals of the Principality . The latter were asked to provide hospital funds. The princes and the churches should each contribute 4,000 guilders, the hospitals Bayreuth 1000, Hof 1000, Wunsiedel 800, Kulmbach 400 and Neustadt 300 guilders. In addition, 49 different taxes were created for the subjects to establish and maintain the prison. The margrave appointed a three-man "prison deputation" to collect money and supervise the building. Regarding the use of church funds for the construction of the penitentiary, he obtained an expert opinion from the University of Wittenberg . In it, the correctness of his actions was certified "according to the instructions of the Holy Scriptures and church history".

Sankt Georgen penitentiary in the 18th century - in the inner courtyard, a prisoner is beaten on the "breeding donkey"

Construction of the prison began in 1724 under the supervision of the court architect Johann David Räntz . On the instructions of the margrave, the forestry department had to provide the timber that was transported to Sankt Georgen by labor free of interest. The construction work itself was largely carried out by prisoners . In the following year Georg Wilhelm enlarged the prison deputation and the financial means were increased. At the end of 1725 the first prisoners were housed in newly built cells . However, Georg Wilhelm's successor, Georg Friedrich Karl , extended the construction period from 1726, presumably for financial reasons. Therefore, the institution, which was built for 18,000 guilders, was not completed until 1735.

The three-storey, four-wing complex enclosed a large inner courtyard that was used in many ways. The entire building had two meter thick outer walls made of smooth ashlar stones, and all the windows were barred. The front building, also known as the “Fronte”, was only connected to the two cell wings at the corners. The administrator's apartment and the officials' chambers were housed there, as well as the prison kitchen, a marble workshop and storage rooms. The northern cell wing was intended for male prisoners, the southern for female prisoners. In addition to the cells, there were also work rooms for the inmates in both wings. The rear building housed the prison chapel, some of the furnishings of which came from the castle chapel in Thierbach . The bakery and the apartment of the "Zuchtknechte" were also housed in this transverse building. At some distance north-west of the main building, the round well house, which stood Ziehbrunnen supplied the prison with water.

Two two-story building sections in extension of the two cell wings belonged to the so-called porcelain factory. Their production facilities were relocated there in 1724, shortly before the prison was built. Porcelain was not made in the princely manufactory, however, but faience made from the clay from nearby manorial pits . In 1729 or shortly afterwards the company was privatized and relocated to Brandenburger Straße around 1745.

The layout of the 18th century can hardly be compared with today's prison. Three different institutions were united under one roof. The main group of inmates was the prisoners, separated according to men and women. It also housed “mentally ill people” before Margrave Karl Alexander had them moved to the “Princesses House” opposite in 1784. The third function was that of an educational institution . Parents could “entrust their unrated children to prison”; they had to "allow themselves to be caressed with the whip of a man who was diligently appointed for breeding".

According to a list from 1750, the following were imprisoned: blasphemers, swearers and swearers, sabbath abusers, adulterers and fornicators, thieves and their fenders, unfaithful officials, diligent and deliberate failures , idlers and gourmets, unfaithful servants, agitators at workmen , suspicious idle Women, suspicious beggars with false passports, restless peacemakers, disobedient and stubborn subjects, drunkards ... This list did not include the "felons": convicted murderers were either punished with death or as galley convicts .

The penal methods of the 18th century were cruel. In 1724, 17 gypsy women were hanged from an oak tree in nearby Berneck because they refused to reveal their husbands' hiding place. Among them were a twelve year old girl and a 98 year old old woman. On the road to Bindlach there was a fast gallows , where people were executed who had entered Bayreuth during the plague without a certified health passport. The goal that was harshly pursued in prison was deterrence. All means were suitable for this; the perpetrators should not only be punished, but the common people were shown in a drastic way the consequences of crimes. For this purpose, the executions of prisoners were public, and the residents of Bayreuth and the surrounding area took part "in incredible numbers in the company of their children".

Upon entering the penitentiary, the penitent offenders known as the “honest” were hung on the “welcome pillar” with their hands drawn up. The "infamen" were tied with arms and feet to a donkey-shaped wood resting on two legs ("breeding donkey"). Then the new inmates were given preventive "twenty to thirty pranks according to the proportion of each crime". Repeat offenders and prisoners arrested on the run were "given double pranks by the groom". In addition, they were provided with an anklet (called "leg jumpers") or a chain with a heavy iron ball called a "bomb". The women were given "a chain with an attached wooden stick of different weights" attached. Other "terrible and painful instruments" were the particularly feared "breeding bank", the "iron balaclava" and the "Commod-Wagen", a wooden donkey resting on rollers.

After waking up at dawn, going to church was compulsory, and another in the evening after work. During the day, there were two one-hour breaks, which meant that the prisoners largely financed their stay themselves. For men, the focus was on working marble, while women spun, wove, sew and knit. Those who did not work or did badly were severely punished. The food was sparse and monotonous, meat was only available on the three major public holidays, the church consecration festival and at the Lord's Supper .

After the "mentally ill" had been transferred to the Princesses' House, rooms in the prison became vacant. As a result, a playing card factory and later a spectacle glass grinding shop were set up there. In 1791 the last margrave ceded his principalities to Prussia in a secret treaty . Prussian administration became more humane.

Kingdom of Bavaria

Seal of the Royal Bavarian Administration of the St. Georgen prison
Royal penitentiary St. Georgen

In 1806 the former principality of Bayreuth came under French administration. Napoleon Bonaparte sold it to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1810 . The Bavarian state thus took over the prison, which and its financing remained under the Royal Bavarian Administration until 1918.

Around 1855 a reformatory was set up in which juvenile offenders up to the age of 20 were to be rehabilitated separately from the actual prison system. At that time the prison was rebuilt and expanded. The rear wing buildings were raised and connected by a transverse building in 1860, creating a second inner courtyard. The new parts of the building included the kitchen and washrooms. In 1901 the prison complex was again considerably expanded and a new cell block was built.

In 1897, the St. Georgen Order Castle , built in 1722, was integrated into the institution, which today houses the hospital ward with a tuberculosis ward. As another local penal institution, the regional court prison was built in 1870 a short distance away . Executions were carried out in the cell-only prison around the turn of the century, for each of which a guillotine was brought from Munich-Stadelheim to Bayreuth. Convicted murderers were later executed in the state capital.

Third Reich

Release from prison in 1933 for Elias Rausch (SPD member)

In 1933 the administration of the regional court prison was transferred to the penal institution. From then on, the building was used as an investigation, police and penal prison. The prison complex thus consisted of three different institutions: the old breeding and workhouse with its numerous extensions was internally referred to as Institution I, the former Order Castle became Institution II, and Institution III was the regional court prison.

On the night of March 9, 1933, the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior ordered all police offices to take all communist functionaries into " protective custody ". In the early morning of the following day, 28 members of the SPD and its aid organizations were also arrested, and several of them, including Friedrich Puchta and Oswald Merz , were taken to the Sankt Georgen prison.

150 politically persecuted people were imprisoned there by September 1933. Since the prison staff was no longer sufficient, members of the SA and Stahlhelm were hired as auxiliary police officers at the end of March 1933 . The prisoners were ill-treated and had to do degrading work. As a Jew, the Social Democrat Kurt de Jonge was exposed to particular harassment. On April 24, 1933, he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp . He and other Bayreuthers from the Sankt Georgen prison were among the first inmates of this concentration camp .

Since the detention center was under the supervision of the local judicial authority, SA and SS men could only act as police helpers. Although this constellation largely prevented major excesses against the prisoners for the time being, there was still mistreatment.

During the Second World War , large numbers of foreigners were brought in, especially Czechs and forced deported Eastern workers . Special tightening was prescribed for the execution of sentences against Poles and French resistance fighters . Towards the end of the war, the prison, which had room for around 1200 prisoners, was overcrowded with over 5000 prisoners from more than ten nations. Since the local Gauleiter Fritz Wächtler wanted to excel with the record number of German war refugees, the prison had to surrender almost all supplies at the inmates' expense.

In October 1944, the injured French clergyman David Abbé was transferred to Bayreuth. He said that the inmates had to work from six in the morning until six in the evening. To protect against the winter cold, he wrapped his legs in paper, but was forbidden to do so. In the workshops, the prisoners made clothes, shoes and knitwear. They were also used in the Bayreuth factories and an ammunition factory 15 kilometers away. The prisoners had their only sheet taken away; Their wooden beds, which were stacked on top of one another, were removed, and the three of them had to sleep on two straw mats on the cell floor. The French were discriminated against by the captured Czechs who distributed the scanty food. Towards the end of March 1945, Abbé observed the removal of 40 French fellow prisoners, who were executed nearby shortly afterwards. During the air raids on Bayreuth in April 1945, the prisoners remained locked in their cells.

On February 17, 1945, 270 political prisoners arrived from Berlin . The senates of the People's Court responsible for high treason and state treason should try them after its planned relocation to the Bayreuth Palace of Justice . Among them were Gerhard Schultze-Pfaelzer and the later President of the Bundestag Eugen Gerstenmaier . On April 14, 1945, they narrowly escaped being shot in the face of the approaching US troops , thanks to the selfless commitment of Karl Ruth, who had escaped from prison shortly before .

1945 until today

During the Allied bombing raids on the city, the building of the regional court prison (Institution III) was completely destroyed, whereby twelve prisoners were killed. After the Second World War , a tuberculosis prison hospital was built north of the Order's Palace in 1951-53 , which was henceforth designated as Institution III.

Since 1957, Sankt Johannis Castle has been an agricultural operation of the penal institution.

Known prisoners

Web links

Commons : JVA Bayreuth  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

  • History workshop Bayreuth (publisher): Bayreuth looked around and questioned , Bumerang Verlag, Bayreuth, 1992, ISBN 3-9802212-9-6
  • Schultze-Pfaelzer, Gerhard: Battle for the head , Verlag der Nation Berlin, 1977, p. 234 ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History workshop Bayreuth (editor): Bayreuth looked around and questioned: St. Georgen Prison - Former breeding and workhouse , p. 18.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Christoph Rabenstein , Ronald Werner: St. Georgen Pictures and History (s) . Druckhaus Bayreuth, Bayreuth 1994, ISBN 3-922808-38-7 , p. 69 ff .
  3. ↑ Christoph Rabenstein, Ronald Werner: St. Georgen Pictures and History (s) , p. 95 ff.
  4. ↑ History workshop Bayreuth (editor): Bayreuth looked around and questioned: Prinzessinnenhaus , p. 20.
  5. ↑ http://www.ordensschloss.de/gefaengnis.html
  6. ↑ Helmut Paulus: The gruesome plans of the Nazi justice in: Heimatkurier - the historical magazine of the North Bavarian Courier, issue 2/2005
  7. ↑ Rüdiger Scholz : The short life of Johanna Catharina Höhn. Child murders in the Weimar of Carl August and Goethe. The files on the cases of Johanna Catharina Höhn, Maria Sophia Rost and Margarethe Dorothea Altwein , Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 2004, p. 126 f.
  8. ↑ Nordbayerischer Kurier of August 8, 2012, p. 24.
  9. ↑ Werner Meyer: Götterdämmerung - April 1945 in Bayreuth , p. 106 ff.

Coordinates: 49 ° 57 ′ 19.2 "  N , 11 ° 35 ′ 21.7"  E