Prison Vienna-Simmering
The Vienna-Simmering Prison is an Austrian penal institution . It is located in the Kaiserebersdorf district of Vienna's 11th district Simmering in the building of Schloss Kaiserebersdorf , a former imperial residence, as well as in the new wing attached to it. Until 1973, the Federal Institute for the needy of education Kaiserebersdorf was located in the castle , which was known as a so-called terminal home for young people who were difficult to educate.
history
After the juvenile court law passed on July 18, 1928, the former palace area was used as a federal institution for those in need of education to accommodate children and young people who were difficult to raise on January 1, 1929 . The educational institution, which was modern at the time, was headed by Richard Seyß-Inquart, brother of the later National Socialist Chancellor Arthur Seyß-Inquart . Richard Seyß-Inquart, however, relied on educational and psychological measures, his principle was "You should not punish, you should improve". After Austria was annexed to Germany, he had to accept the reorganization of the educational institution into a youth prison. Roland Freisler , President of the National Socialist People's Court, did not think much of Richard Seyß-Inquart's ideas and described them as “eccentric educational experiments” that should be used to spare youth arrest. The underage pupils were transferred to other homes, the institution's own schools and training workshops were closed and qualified educators were dismissed. On March 11, 1941, Richard Seyß-Inquart complained about the changes in a report at the German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy in Berlin and died three months later.
The prison doctor, Dr. Mras, examined 280 pupils from 1939 onwards on the basis of forensic biology and was given a forensic biology research station on September 2, 1941 after a visit by Robert Ritter and Eva Justin . At this point in time there were 210 young people in Kaiser-Ebersdorf, 168 of them were pupils of the reformatory and 42 were prisoners. On March 1, 1944, there were 388 prisoners. The young people were charged with offenses such as petty theft, listening to the wrong radio stations, breach of employment contract (54 young people in Vienna came to the youth judge for breach of employment contract alone in March 1944), because they didn't want to join the Hitler Youth, and increasingly because of active resistance imprisoned against the Nazi regime. Ernst Kaltenbrunner , chief of the security police and the security service, said of them:
"It is only to be hoped that with the help of the draft law on the treatment of non-community members, we will soon be able to dry up the legacy of the inferior, who provide the offspring of criminals."
When the end of National Socialist rule became increasingly clear in 1945, numerous young people from Kaiser-Ebersdorf were also sent to the front as the last contingent, for example to the 500 Probation Battalion . Some of the prisoners were evacuated to the Regensburg prison on April 5 . Those who were still in Kaiser-Ebersdorf were liberated by the Red Army on April 7, 1945. The evacuees to Regensburg were liberated there on April 26th by US troops.
After 1945 the institute, which also had a branch in Kirchberg am Wagram , was subordinated to the Ministry of Justice and continued to operate as a federal institute for those in need of education without any major changes in staff . It remained a total institution , and the use of violence against young people continued. Around 400 male children and young people (30 of them were under 14 years of age in 1952) from all over Austria had to wear gray trousers, blue jackets and coarse shoes as institutional clothing. If they behaved well, they were granted an exit on one Sunday a month, which they had to complete in yellow suits. The stay was at least one year; After serving their sentence, offenders could be left in the institution until they reached the age of 20.
The pupils had to go to roll call twice a day; After morning exercise, which consisted of dozens of push-ups, they worked under prohibition of speaking in the institute's own workshops, such as a basket weaving shop or a bookbindery for ten shillings a month; half of this was retained as a reserve. The work was done in piece. Anyone who did not meet the requirements for cotter pins to be processed or lighters to be stuffed etc. was beaten up. A distinction was made between normal punches, fist punches, so-called “brain bussis” (punches against the forehead) and “jacky puffs” (knee hits against the thighs). Anyone who revolted repeatedly or disregarded the rules of the home (for example, speaking to their neighbors despite being banned from speaking) was transferred to the penalty group, where the "green Minna", a metal baton covered with hard rubber, was in action day and night. The pupils often lay unconscious on the floor afterwards.
The young people all came from poor backgrounds, almost all from incomplete families, many of them had long careers at home as orphans or they came to Kaiser-Ebersdorf because their stepfathers mistreated them. Sexually abused children and children of victims of National Socialism were also among them. In the documents such as management files, survey and court reports, those responsible described the young people with adjectives such as "musty", "borderline debilitating", "uninhibited", "sneaky", "unruly", "primitive", "lazy" or " deeply neglected ". They didn't see anything positive in the young people. Upbringing was based on a sophisticated kapo system , military drill, coercion, violence and arbitrary withdrawal or granting of privileges. In addition to the school and apprentice groups, there were also penalty groups. Anyone who tried to escape got a bald head and was locked in a dark cell for one or two weeks, which was only equipped with a straw mattress. When they returned to their group, they had to enter with a blanket over their head, while the others were instructed to beat the attempted escapist.
The transfer to the Kirchberg branch was considered the severest punishment. The educators there had a reputation for being the most brutal, they shaved the heads of arriving "convicts" and put them in solitary cells. They only used one of the cells for beating and called it the "laughing room". The pupils had to work on split pins or glue paper sacks from five in the morning to ten in the evening . Most of the time, they had to do this work in handcuffs. They had to run to get food or go to the toilet. Work was interrupted from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. - to play football. There were blows for every losing goal.
On November 19, 1952, as a result of an unsuccessful escape attempt by three young people, a child uprising broke out in Kaiser-Ebersdorf. Together with two other youths, they barricaded themselves in a cell and refused to work. A shot in the cell by a presumably drunk officer and his threat to shoot everyone in the skull was followed by a general uprising in which the youth smashed furniture and set straw sacks on fire. The sixteen-man raid squad that stormed the facility had to withdraw again. In the end, 140 police students with helmets and truncheons were used to beat the youths and take sixty of them to prisons. There were several seriously injured. The five ringleaders received conditional sentences of several years. As a result, some of the staff was changed; Educators and psychologists were hired.
On March 25, 1971, around 1,000 young people organized by the Spartakus group demonstrated in front of the institution. Your demands were u. a. the abolition of Kaiser-Ebersdorf and all other closed reforming homes, and instead the creation of open and self-administered homes. The year before, Spartakus had already criticized the violent methods in the nursing homes in a 20-page documentary, Kaiser-Ebersdorf was referred to as a “youth concentration camp” and a “whipping camp”.
The Federal Institute for the Needy of Education Kaiser-Ebersdorf was finally closed in 1974. They were replaced by open shared apartments run by the probation service.
From 1975 the Simmering prison was set up as a penitentiary for adults. From 1994 to 1999 a new wing was built on the premises of the prison to accommodate prisoners on remand. In the course of the construction work, extensive excavations were carried out on the grounds of the former castle.
Conception
The Vienna-Simmering Prison is a penal institution for male prisoners with short to medium-long (up to about 5 years) imprisonment.
Special attention is paid to the vocational training of inmates in the institution. Since 1975, more than 1,000 successful professional qualifications have been made possible. In addition, the Simmering Prison, with around 6,000 exits per year, allows an above-average number of detention periods . As of August 30, 2007, exactly 487 prisoners were housed on an area of around 36,000 m². With 429 planned detention places, this results in a total occupancy of 113.5%, which is just below the Austrian average occupancy of prison facilities. Furthermore, the Simmering prison is the fifth largest prison in Austria in terms of available prison places.
Web links
- Website of the Simmering Prison in the Justice Department.
Individual evidence
- ^ Youth Court Act 1928. Austrian National Library, accessed on March 19, 2014 .
- ^ Herbert Exenberger: Prison instead of education. Kaiser-Ebersdorf youth prison 1940 - 1945. Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance .
- ^ Hans Weiss: Crime scene children's home. An investigation report . Deuticke in Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-552-06198-9 , p. 53-58 .
- ^ Hansjörg Schlechter: Revolt in the educational institution. Dressing up the youth: The hard way has failed before. In: Augustin . October 24, 2007, accessed March 22, 2014 .
- ^ Hans Weiss: Crime scene children's home. An investigation report . Deuticke in Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-552-06198-9 , p. 53-58 .
- ↑ Michael Genner: Induction to revolt . Mandelbaum, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-85476-616-2 , p. 65-66 .
- ^ Johann Werfring: Once celebrations, today just sadness. Article in the "Wiener Zeitung" of December 16, 2010, supplement "ProgrammPunkte", p. 7.
Coordinates: 48 ° 9 ′ 33 ″ N , 16 ° 28 ′ 23 ″ E