Schwedt military prison

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The Schwedt military prison was the only military prison in the German Democratic Republic and was located in the north-east Brandenburg city of Schwedt / Oder . It was used to detain members of the National People's Army and the barracked units of the MdI . Roughly half of the reasons for the imprisonment are divided into crimes such as assault , theft , but also “ anti-state agitation ” or defamation of the state, and military crimes such as refusal to order , desertion or alcohol on duty. Smaller offenses were often used as a pretext to suppress political dissent, the expression of individuality and different thinking and to be able to punish them under the pretext of the rule of law in the GDR.

history

Establishment of the military penal system

After the establishment of the NVA on March 1, 1956 and the introduction of compulsory military service on January 24, 1962, a military justice system and the associated prison system were set up. For this reason, the prison in Schwedt was taken over for the purposes of the NVA in 1968 to relieve the Berndshof prison in the Ueckermünde district, which had already been set up in 1954 , but continued to be managed by the Ministry of the Interior . In Schwedt, the maximum duration of the sentence was designed for two years. Prison sentences of two years or more were served in other civil penal institutions of the Ministry of the Interior. In order to be imprisoned in Schwedt, the prison sentence had to be ordered by the court.

Introduction of criminal arrest

In parallel to the custodial measure, there was also criminal arrest for members of the military . Like the deprivation of liberty, this could only be imposed by a military court . Since it was anchored in law in the GDR that imprisonment had to be at least three months long, criminal arrest closed the gap between sentences of one to three months. With the criminal law reform in 1977, the minimum length of imprisonment was increased to six months; thus the maximum length of detention increased from three to six months. The detention had to be served in military detention departments. Since the only military detention center in the GDR was located in Schwedt, all convicts were imprisoned in Schwedt. In contrast to the custodial sentence, the inmate was not considered to have a criminal record after serving his sentence.

Disciplinary Unit

Accommodation block of the disciplinary unit

At the end of 1982 the administration of the military penal system changed from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Defense. From then on the object was called Disciplinary Unit 2 . At the same time, the new disciplinary penalty “Service in the disciplinary unit” was introduced. The service in the disciplinary unit was a punishment that could be imposed by regimental commanders for a period of one to two months and by division commander up to three months if the military prosecutor or the military court determined that the criminal offense was not significantly illegal under the Criminal Code was and thus a judicial punishment did not seem necessary. A new building was erected in the Schwedt military prison for these disciplinary offenders. The penalty was applied to military crimes as well as crimes that were a misdemeanor.

Even under the new name of Disciplinary Unit 2 , the previous forms of criminal arrest and military prison were continued. However, both areas were separate from each other. Since then, there have been and continue to be mixed up terms that do not take into account the fact that in the structure of disciplinary unit 2 all three types of criminal arrest, military prison and service in the disciplinary unit were to be served.

Overall, the number of inmates who went through the new disciplinary punishment in the period from 1982 to the end in December 1989 is estimated at 2500 men. Including the maximum term of three months, this results in an average company strength of 70 men. Inmates were not allowed to receive visitors during the disciplinary period. All inmates of the disciplinary unit were obliged to work. The military training, including political lessons, took place outside of working hours. To prevent contact between prisoners and disciplinary offenders, the work was carried out in alternating shifts.

As with criminal arrest, the “service in the disciplinary unit” was not entered in the criminal record. For all inmates it was the case that the penalty time was not counted towards the time of military service and that the corresponding portion had to be served.

Compared to the normal daily schedule of the NVA there was a shift of the times by two hours in the military penal system / in the disciplinary unit. In regular NVA operations, the soldiers were woken up at 6:00 a.m. on weekdays and night time was at 10:00 p.m. In the disciplinary unit, they were woken up at 4:00 a.m. and it was quiet at 8:00 p.m.

Pay to inmates

For the 1968–82 phase, only projections of the number of inmates are available, the most recent of which amounts to around 6,660 affected persons. More precise figures are available from 1982. At that time, the Ministry of National Defense took over 139 inmates, namely 85 prisoners and 54 detainees. The total number of inmates sentenced by a military court from 1982 until the closure in 1990 is given as almost 800. For this second phase, including the maximum duration of the sentence, this indicates an average number of 70 inmates. This halving is less due to a decrease in criminal offenses than to the addition of the lower (shorter) area of ​​criminal arrest by the disciplinary measure of service in the disciplinary unit . Together with the approx. 2,500 disciplinary punishments, almost 10,000 people punished with "Schwedt" can be assumed. In the end there were three companies for the military prisoners / detainees up to two years and three companies for the disciplinary punishments, one of which remained unoccupied.

completion

On April 26, 1990 the last military prisoner was released and on May 31, 1990 the facility was closed. The prison barracks were demolished in the 1990s, while the four-story administration building is sometimes used as a shelter for the homeless .

Organization and daily routine

Basic daily duty roster in disciplinary unit 2
4:00 a.m. wake up
subsequently Morning exercise, morning toilet
breakfast  
subsequently Training in the object or work at the PCK Schwedt
Noon  
subsequently Work or training in the facility
dinner  
8:00 p.m. night rest
Daily duty schedule on the weekend
Saturday political training; 10 p.m. night rest
Sunday 6:00 am wake up and 4 hours of free time in total; 20:00 night's rest

In the grounds of the Schwedt military prison, there was a workshop in which the inmates manufactured structures for military vehicles by coating pressed glass wool fleece with epoxy resin under conditions that were harmful to health . In addition, the NVA's subsidiary, Instandsetzungwerk Pinnow (IWP), operated a joinery in which the prisoners produced ammunition boxes.

The Schwedt military prison was initially administered by the Ministry of the Interior , and in 1982 the Ministry of National Defense took over the administration. As a result, the 14 officers and 13 sergeants of the People's Police who had been taken over , “Organ Penal Service”, became members of the National People's Army on December 31, 1982. This was only about half of the previous staff. The remainder required was recruited from the NVA with considerable difficulty.

Known inmates

reception

Before the peaceful revolution in the GDR , Schwedt military prison was not a fixed term for GDR citizens outside the NVA. The name "Schwedt" mainly caused fear among NVA soldiers. Details were not known, but there were many rumors, the core of which was precisely the unspeakable: Allegedly, released Schwedt prisoners did not say a word about their imprisonment. Schwedt had its permanent place in the everyday culture of conscripted NVA soldiers, so the number 133 on the tape measure of the discharge candidates was barred with black paint, which stood as a symbol for Schwedt with the then zip code 1330.

After 1989 a number of books about Schwedt appeared, first by those affected and later also by scientific treatises. In 2001 the MDR sent a documentary entitled Schwedt Army prison . In Leander Haußmann's book and feature film NVA (2005), the rebellious soldier Krüger embodied the psychological effects of imprisonment in Schwedt military prison in a subplot. In the autobiography Behind the Horizon Alone - The Prince of Prora (2005), which was published at the same time, the historian Stefan Wolter mentions a companion among the Prora construction soldiers who, after returning from the Schwedt army prison, “visibly shivering in his arms and legs (...) while being banned from speaking into another Unit "was moved. In the award-winning novel Der Turm (2008) by Uwe Tellkamp , the protagonist Christian Hoffmann comes to Schwedt.

Work-up

Left the disciplinary unit of the former NVA military prison Schwedt, right watchtower and entrance area. The entrance lock with its 3.5 m high steel gates is no longer available.

In March 2013, the GDR military prison association Schwedt e. V. , which has set itself the goal of keeping alive the history of the GDR's military prison. Both former prisoners and prison staff are involved in the association. In addition to events and projects to remember the history of the place, the aim of the association is to work on topics such as the military and society, human rights and soldiers' rights in projects - and in future also in a documentation and information center. For this purpose, a round table was formed in which representatives from the city, state and federal government take part and discuss the future of the historic site. The former defense commissioner of the German Bundestag , Reinhold Robbe, is one of the supporters of the initiative .

It is thanks to the work of the association that, in addition to a traveling exhibition, an open-air exhibition was set up at the historic site, which provides information about the history of the military prison.

literature

  • Torsten Dressler: Stand still - look at the flame: The GDR military prison and the NVA disciplinary unit in Schwedt-Oder from 1968–1990, building history, inventory documentation and reports from contemporary witnesses. Westkreuz-Verlag GmbH, Berlin / Bonn 2013, ISBN 978-3-944836-10-2 (448 pages).
  • Rüdiger Wenzke : Off to Schwedt! The history of the GDR military penal system. Ch. Links, Berlin 2011, ISBN 3-86153-638-2 ( abstract on the publisher's homepage ( memento from December 26, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )).
  • Nicole Kampa: The criminal power of the commanders in the National People's Army (NVA). A legal historical and legal factual investigation into the legal institution of the "submission of minor offenses" to the commander. Shaker, Aachen 2004, ISBN 3-8322-2108-5 ( reports from jurisprudence ; also: Humboldt-Univ., Diss., Berlin 2003).
  • Stefan Wachtel : Delict 220. Destination Schwedt. Prison diary. Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt 1991, ISBN 3-7352-0247-0 .
  • Klaus Auerswald: ... otherwise you'll come to Schwedt! Report from a military prisoner . Greifenverlag, Rudolstadt u. a. 2010, ISBN 978-3-86939-521-0 .
  • Reinhard Joksch, Stefan Starina: Whoever was there is silent. The GDR military prison Schwedt between myth and truth. Including extensive didactic accompanying material. Federal Foundation for Work-Up, Berlin 2012. 1 DVD.
  • Paul Brauhnert: Animals in Human Form: The Anatomy of a Myth. Schwedt military penal system. A report with illustrations. KUUUK, 2011, ISBN 978-3-939832-28-7 .
  • Paul Brauhnert, Ilja Hübner, Arno Polzin (eds.): The GDR military penal system and the disciplinary unit in Schwedt (1968–1990): Contemporary witnesses break their silence. Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86331-150-6 .
  • Arno Polzin: The Schwedt myth. GDR military penal system and NVA disciplinary unit from the perspective of the State Security . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2018. ISBN 978-3-525-35126-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Polzin: Mythos Schwedt , p. 156 f.
  2. ↑ Stefan Wolter: Behind the horizon alone - The Prince of Prora. 2nd Edition. Halle 2006, p. 219.
  3. ^ GDR military prison Schwedt e. V.
  4. ↑ Round table on the future of the historic site of the GDR military prison in Schwedt. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on June 10, 2017 ; accessed on June 16, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.psrb.de
  5. ↑ Stadtmuseum Schwedt: Open-air exhibition on the military prison https://www.schwedt.eu/de/stadtmuseum/ddrmilitaergefaengnis/ausstellungen/openairausstellung/406370
  6. ↑ paper note on the website of the publisher LaKD
  7. ↑ Publisher's description of the book - http://www.vr.de/de/mythos_schwedt/t-0/1087143/

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 53.8 ″  N , 14 ° 15 ′ 44.8 ″  E