Hohnstein concentration camp

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Hohnstein Castle

The Hohnstein Concentration Camp ( KZ Hohnstein ) was a so-called " early concentration camp " in Hohnstein in Saxon Switzerland from March 1933 to August 1934. From 1939 to 1940 it was used as the Oflag IV-A officers' prison .

history

On March 8, 1933, SA men of Storm 5/100 occupied the youth castle Hohnstein and converted it into a concentration camp. The first prisoners came to the camp on March 14th. The prisoners were mostly anti-Nazi opponents - mostly communists , social democrats , trade unionists - and others from the greater Dresden area who were unpopular with National Socialism, such as 17 Jehovah's Witnesses . But there were also about 400 young people imprisoned in the castle.

By August 1934, around 5,600 people had been deported to Hohnstein. The guard was carried out by members of the Pirna SA Storm 177. The prisoners were used in the Heeselicht quarry (near Stolpen ) for the most difficult forced labor . Several prisoners died here as a result of the torture by SA members , and some took their own lives. In total there were around 40 fatalities. In some cases, prisoners of the concentration camp were obliged to do forced labor on public buildings, including the construction of the nearby Deutschlandring , one of the first race tracks in Germany, when prisoners were forced to expand the serpentines on Wartenbergstrasse. After the SA was overthrown in the course of the alleged Röhmputsch , members of the SS took over the guard on June 30, 1934 under the direction of SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Otto Koch . They immediately brought some arrested SA leaders into the camp, including the deposed Prime Minister and SA Obergruppenführer Manfred von Killinger . The camp was closed on August 25, 1934. Many of the prisoners were transferred to the Sachsenburg concentration camp .

On October 1, 1939, the prison was reopened as officers camp Oflag IV-A . Polish, French and Dutch officers were imprisoned here until the end of 1940. Well-known prisoners included Juliusz Rómmel , Tadeusz Kutrzeba and Henryk Sucharski .

Processes

In the early years of the Nazi era , individual public prosecutors and judges were still fulfilling their criminal prosecution duties: in 1935 the SA guards were on trial and were convicted on May 15, 1935 in Dresden for “collective bodily harm in office”. Because of "bodily harm in the office in act unity with their tolerance", there were sometimes 6-year prison sentences. However, Hitler then pardoned her personally.

After the end of the war, the so-called Hohnstein Trials took place. Several of those convicted there were later recruited as unofficial employees by the Ministry for State Security of the former GDR .

Known inmates

Memorial plaque for Emerich Ambros at the former RAW Dresden-Friedrichstadt
  • Emerich Ambros (1896–1933), Hungarian-German anti-fascist, murdered in 1933 in Hohnstein concentration camp
  • Willy Anker (1885–1960), politician and resistance fighter, member of the SPD
  • Wolfgang Bergold (1913–1987), resistance fighter, ambassador of the GDR to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
  • Peter Blachstein (1911–1977), politician (SPD), Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Yugoslavia (1968–1969)
  • Rudolf Brückner-Fuhlrott (1908–1984), painter and sculptor
  • Wilhelm Dieckmann (1902–1934), red mountaineer
  • Herbert Ebersbach (1902–1984), painter
  • Karl Friedemann (1906–2000), resistance fighter and worker functionary, honorary citizen of Dresden
  • Eugen Fritsch (1884–1933), SPD politician, resistance fighter, murdered in 1933 in Hohnstein concentration camp
  • Helmut Gansauge (1909–1934), member of the Red Rockets and the United Climbing Division
  • Linus Hamann (1903–1985), political leader in the KPD
  • Manfred von Killinger (1886–1944), naval officer, SA member and Saxon Prime Minister
  • Kurt Krjeńc (1907–1978), Sorbian communist and long-time chairman of Domowina
  • Arno Lade (1892–1944), worker functionary, KPD member
  • Hermann Liebmann (1882–1935), politician (SPD)
  • Reinhold Lochmann (1914–2008), resistance fighter, member of the Communist Youth Association of Germany
  • Richard Mildenstrey (1884–1956), politician (KPD), member of the Saxon state parliament
  • Paul Rumpelt (1909–1961), KPD member, department head of the Ministry for State Security (securing prisons)
  • Ernst Heinrich Prince of Saxony (1896–1971), youngest son of the last Saxon King Friedrich August III.
  • Richard Schäfer (1884–1945), local politician
  • Eva Schulze-Knabe (1907–1976), painter and graphic artist, member of the KPD
  • Fritz Schulze (1903–1942), painter and resistance fighter, member of the KPD
  • Georg Schwarz (1896–1945), Political Secretary of the KPD and resistance fighter
  • Rudolf Stempel (1879–1936), pastor, died as a result of the torture suffered in 1934 in the Hohnstein concentration camp; Martyrs of the Evangelical Church
  • Mario Rigoni Stern (1921-2008), Italian writer, veteran of World War II
  • Armin Walther (1896–1969), resistance fighter, member of the SPD
  • Arthur Weineck (1900–1944), Dresden worker functionary and resistance fighter
  • Arno Wend (1906–1980), politician (SPD)

Commemoration

Memorial stele by Wilhelm Landgraf (1961)
  • On November 1, 1952, a memorial was opened at Hohnstein Castle. In 1995 this permanent exhibition was closed.
  • On July 2, 1961, Wilhelm Landgraf's memorial stele, which still exists today, was inaugurated in the presence of former prisoners.
  • In Dresden a street was named after Emerich Ambros ( Emerich-Ambros-Ufer ). There is a memorial plaque at house number 50.
  • In Dresden, a memorial stele on the corner of Pillnitzer Strasse and Rechtsstrasse commemorates the Mathildenstrasse detention center , from which prisoners were brought to the Hohnstein concentration camp.
  • In Pirna , a memorial plaque from 1984 at the old Pirna city prison, the Fronfeste at Schmiedestrasse 8, reminds of the persecution of political opponents who were deported from there to the Hohnstein concentration camp.
  • In Struppen (Hauptstrasse 32), a memorial plaque commemorates the communist opponent of Hitler, Martin Hering, who was murdered in the Hohnstein concentration camp in 1933 .
  • In Weinböhla (Dresdner Straße) a plaque commemorates Hellmut Türk , who was murdered in the Hohnstein concentration camp in 1933.
  • Rudolf-Stempel-Strasse in Riesa- Gröba and the Christian grammar school “Rudolf Stempel” are named after Rudolf Stempel.

See also

literature

  • Anna Seghers (under the pseudonym Peter Conrad): Mord im Lager Hohenstein , in: Mord im Lager Hohenstein. Reports from the Third Reich. Publishing Cooperative of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow / Leningrad 1933, pp. 25–29.
  • Carina Baganz: Education for the "Volksgemeinschaft"? The early concentration camps in Saxony 1933 / 34–37 , Berlin 2005.
  • Carina Baganz: "Mildness against the criminals would be a crime against the victims." The Hohnstein Trials 1949. In: Jörg Osterloh and Clemens Vollnhals (Ed.): Nazi Trials and the German Public: Occupation, Early Federal Republic and GDR. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2011. ISBN 978-3-525-36921-0 , ISBN 978-3-647-36921-1 (e-book), pp. 207–220 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  • Falco Werkentin: The Waldheim “Trials” - a field of experimentation for future sham justice under the control of the SED? In: Contributions to the legal history of the GDR. (= Series of publications by the Berlin State Commissioner for the Documents of the State Security Service of the former GDR , Volume 12). 4th edition, Berlin 2009, pp. 33–52 ( online as PDF; 283 kB ).
  • Norbert Haase, Mike Schmeitzner (eds.): Peter Blachstein. “The flag of freedom lives in us”: Testimonies to the early Hohnstein Castle concentration camp . Saxon Memorials Foundation, Dresden 2005, ISBN 3-934382-16-9 .
  • CF Rüter (ed., With the assistance of L. Hekelaar Gombert and DW de Mildt): GDR justice and Nazi crimes. Collection of East German convictions for Nazi homicide crimes. Vol. VIII: The proceedings no. 1393-1455 of 1949 , Amsterdam-Munich, 2006.
  • Lothar Gruchmann: Justice in the Third Reich 1933–1940 , Munich 1988.
  • Johannes Gallus: "The sight that presented itself to me is etched in my memory." The early Hohnstein concentration camp in Saxony . In: Mike Schmeitzner, Gerhard Lindemann (ed.): ... that's where we strike. Political violence in Saxony 1930–1935 (= Reports and Studies No. 78 of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism). V & R unipress, Göttingen 2020, ISBN 978-3-8471-0934-1 , pp. 137–162.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hohnstein concentration camp. Special exhibition “From Sachsenburg to Sachsenhausen. Pictures from the photo album of a concentration camp commandant ”. In: www.stiftung-bg.de. Brandenburg Memorials Foundation, accessed on November 6, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Information Sheet of gedenkplaetze.info: Burg Hohnstein-A-fruhes concentration camp
  3. ↑ Hans Hesse: From the beginning a "special hate object". Jehovah's Witnesses in the early concentration camps. in: Jörg Osterloh, Kim Wünschmann (ed.): "... at the mercy of the most unrestricted arbitrariness." Prisoners of the early concentration camps 1933-1936 / 37. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2017. p. 277.
  4. ↑ Johannes Gallus: “The sight that presented itself to me is etched in my memory.” The early Hohnstein concentration camp in Saxony . In: Mike Schmeitzner, Gerhard Lindemann (ed.): ... that's where we strike. Political violence in Saxony 1930–1935 (= Reports and Studies No. 78 of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism). V & R unipress, Göttingen 2020, ISBN 978-3-8471-0934-1 , pp. 137–162, here p. 153.
  5. ^ Exhibition "What then started was monstrous ..." Early concentration camps in Saxony 1933-1937, Saxon Memorials Foundation to commemorate the victims of political tyranny
  6. ^ Hugo Jensch: The denazification in the city and district of Pirna. (PDF; 0.6 MB) 1945–1949. Retrieved November 6, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Carina Baganz: From security guard to unofficial employee. Perpetrators of the early Saxon concentration camps and their work for the state security . In: Günther Heydemann , Jan Erik Schulte , Francesca Weil (eds.): Saxony and National Socialism (= writings of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarian Research . Volume 53). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 3-525-36964-6 , pp. 351–364, in particular pp. 360–362.
  8. ↑ Alexander O. Müller: Fritsch, Franz Eugen . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .

Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 47 "  N , 14 ° 6 ′ 34"  E