Memorial court prison Hanover

The court prison memorial with the wreath laid down on May 8, 2005

The memorial court prison Hanover is a memorial in Hanover , which is located behind the main train station and the Raschplatz on the Lister Meile in front of the entrance to the pavilion . It is reminiscent of the former court prison , which was built in 1865–75 as the royal cell prison in Hanover . Various victims and groups of victims of the National Socialists suffered in it . It is also the first urban memorial in the Federal Republic of Germany that expressly reminds of the persecution of homosexual men during the Nazi era .

It was created by Hans-Jürgen Breuste and presented to the public with a commemorative event on May 8, 1989, the anniversary of the liberation from National Socialism .

description

The memorial shows various, interrupted, vertically arranged steel grid plates that are crossed by a large St. Andrew's cross. The inscription on the foot points across Hamburger Allee in the direction of Raschplatz, where the walls of the demolished court prison reached.

Picture gallery

Memorial with the entrance to the pavilion
Side view
Memorial up close
Inscription of the memorial

inscription

The inscription on the memorial reads:

“Until it was demolished in 1965, the Hanover judicial prison stood here, where numerous opponents of National Socialism were imprisoned from 1933 to 1945. They came from all strata of the population, until 1937 mainly from the working class - including Social Democrats , Communists and trade unionists .

Besides them, men and women from persecuted minorities such as Sinti , Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals were imprisoned here. During the Second World War , foreign forced laborers also suffered here. In this prison many were members of the Hanoverian Socialist Front , one of the largest resistance groups of the SPD against the Nazis imprisoned. Of them are Gustchen Breitzke , Fritz Lohmeyer , Therese Wittrock and Fritz Wulfert called. Otto Brenner belonged to a resistance group of the Socialist Workers' Party . From 1937 to 1943 the chairman of the KPD , Ernst Thälmann , was in solitary confinement.

Paul Arndt , Marianne Baecker , Grete Hoell and Walter Krämer are named as representatives of those persecuted from the communist resistance . The court prison memorial is a reminder that the judiciary and the police acted as accomplices of fascism . Here was a place of denunciation , where people were arbitrarily and for political reasons detained. "

literature

Ulrike Puvogel and Martin Stankowski (with the assistance of Ursula Graf): Memorials for the victims of National Socialism. A documentation . Vol. I, 2nd, revised and expanded edition of Volume 245 of the series of publications published in 1987 (federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Schleswig-Holstein); Federal Agency for Civic Education , Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-89331-208-0 ; here: p. 418
The former court prison in Hanover 1933–1945 - no reason for a warning? ; in: Antifascist series , ed. from the association of those persecuted by the Nazi regime - Bund der Antifaschisten - Niedersachsen eV, Kreisvereinigung Hannover , Rolandstrasse 16, 3000 Hannover 1, "Eigendruck Hannover 1988" (brochure)
Gudrun Hennke: Tour 14, strolling paradise and dreams of a better world, Oststadt, 2nd court prison ; in: Hannover on foot, 18 district tours through history and the present , ed .: Ingo Bultmann, Thomas Neumann and Jutta Schiecke, VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-87975-471-3 ; here: p. 195