Stone guard

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The building of the stone guard
Entrance to the memorial

The Steinwache in Dortmund is a reminder and memorial to the time of National Socialism and houses the permanent exhibition "Resistance and Persecution in Dortmund 1933–1945" of the Dortmund City Archives.

Coordinates: 51 ° 31 '10.7 "  N , 7 ° 27' 38.2"  E

history

The police station on Steinstrasse, the Steinwache , was established in 1906 as the seat of the 5th police station responsible for the northern inner city. In particular, Dortmund's northern city had grown rapidly in the course of industrialization , was characterized by proletarianism and was often viewed as a “trouble spot”. In 1926/27 the original Art Nouveau building was expanded. In the New Objectivity style, a five-story administrative building and a five-story prison building were built next to the original guard, which, together with the connecting wing between them and a wall, enclosed the prison yard. The prison, today's Steinwache memorial, was ready for occupancy from 1928 and was one of the most modern prisons in Germany. Until 1933 only been here custody serving.

This changed very quickly and drastically from 1933 onwards. As everywhere in the German Reich , the newly founded Secret State Police (Gestapo) used the facilities of the "normal" police and so the Steinwache soon became not only a prison for the political opposition of the National Socialists persecuted by the Gestapo , but also a place of brutal interrogation and torture. Quickly known as the “Hell of West Germany”, in the first years after 1933 it was primarily members of the communist and social democratic milieus traditionally strong in Dortmund who were taken into “ protective custody ” by the Gestapo . The prison, which is often very overcrowded, was also only a transit station for many inmates on the way to a concentration camp . For example, a large part of the male Jewish population of Dortmund was killed during the pogrom night on 9/10 November 1938 first deported by the Gestapo to the Steinwache and then to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp .

During the Second World War , several million foreign forced laborers in Germany became the new, most important Gestapo target group and soon became the largest group of inmates in the Dortmund police prison. “ Eastern workers ” in particular were affected by the racist violence of the Gestapo because of the smallest “offenses” . Many people from Poland and the Soviet Union were brought directly to execution from here after being held, tortured and interrogated in the stone guard. From November 1944 Klaus Barbie , known as the "butcher of Lyon", was transferred from France back to the SD section of Dortmund in the Steinwache. He held an unspecified position here. Shortly before the end of the war, at the end of 1944, he went into hiding in Germany.

Between 1933 and 1945, a total of over 66,000 people from the entire Arnsberg administrative district , for which the Dortmund Gestapo office was responsible, were imprisoned in the stone guard. Many of those who were still imprisoned towards the end of the war were murdered by the Gestapo as part of the end-of-war crimes in the south of Dortmund in Rombergpark and in the Bittermark, which the Bittermark Memorial still reminds us of today .

Despite the almost complete destruction of Dortmund's inner city, the Steinwache remained almost undamaged and was initially used by the police after the war. Until 1976, the administration building was part of the protection area north of the Dortmund police. The Dortmund police prison was relocated to the new police headquarters on Hohen Strasse in 1959, and the old prison was converted into a sleeping place for the homeless from 1961 to 1986. In the 1980s, the entire building complex was threatened with demolition for a long time. On the initiative of the city archives and other organizations, a concept for a long-term conversion of the prison wing into a memorial and the integration of the exhibition "Resistance and Persecution" was developed. After extensive renovation work, the administration building could be used by the foreign company in North Rhine-Westphalia , while the former “Hell of West Germany” became the “Steinwache memorial”.

The Steinwache is registered as an architectural monument in the list of monuments of the city of Dortmund .

The exhibition "Resistance and Persecution in Dortmund 1933–1945"

A first version of the exhibition was commissioned by the Dortmund City Council on the initiative of the SPD in 1978 and created by the Dortmund City Archives. Under the patronage of Erich Rüttel, the administrative department head at the time responsible for the city archive, and under the scientific direction of Günther Högl, an exhibition concept was developed, in the implementation of which numerous employees of the city archive were just as involved as those who were previously persecuted by the Nazi regime. On January 30, 1981, the exhibition was opened in the foyer of the town hall. In 1983 it was shown in the renowned Copenhagen Resistance Museum. In addition to numerous local and regional stations, she was to be seen in Vienna , Odense , Netanya , Amiens , Rostow and Leeds in the following years .

On Good Friday 1984, it was organizationally subordinate to the Museum for Art and Cultural History Dortmund , opened in the Museum am Westpark, where it remained until 1991. During this time, well over 300,000 visitors visited the exhibition. After the decision to use the former prison wing of the “Steinwache” had been decided and the subsequent renovation work had been completed, the exhibition was housed in this authentic site of local Nazi terror after a complete overhaul, which meant a redesign, restructuring and thematic expansion of the original version and has been there since 1992.

In its current, expanded version, the exhibition describes the history of National Socialist persecution and the resistance against it in Dortmund, the region and the entire German Empire using many photos, short texts, historical exhibits and, in many cases, reports from contemporary witnesses. This begins in the ground floor rooms of the former prison with the history of the house and the emergence and prehistory of the Nazi regime from the economic crisis and the worsening election campaigns and disputes at the end of the Weimar Republic to the financial support of the National Socialists that took place before 1933 individual industrialists in the Ruhr area and their involvement in the NS. In addition, the reconstructed recording room is intended to create an authentic impression. On the first floor, the beginning of the Nazi regime, especially at the local level, and the associated co- ordination of the press and the persecution of individuals in this context are traced. The "purges" on a political and cultural level in Dortmund are discussed just as much as the persecution and smashing of the various organizations of the labor movement and the persecution of homosexual people by the Nazis. In addition, the former isolation cell can be used as an example to gain insight into previous conditions in prison. One floor up, individual early victims of Nazi terror from Dortmund's socialist workers are presented, a reconstructed detention cell is shown and the subject of resistance is presented using the example of different parties and groups, but also in its different forms. Reports from contemporary witnesses complete this. Here, too, almost in the transition to the third floor, where the topics of persecution and victims of National Socialism are increasingly dealt with, the subject of forced labor and the racist persecution of those affected are also conveyed. The top floor is primarily about religious communities. From the adaptation of large parts of the two Christian churches, the courageous resistance and the brutal persecution of individuals and small groups from these milieus, the path here leads through the far more comprehensive and brutal persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses to the racially motivated systematic disenfranchisement, persecution and murder of the Jewish population. But also the persecution and mass murder of the Sinti and Roma , the persecution of unadapted youths (“ Edelweiss pirates ”) and the so-called inscription cell with preserved wall inscriptions from prisoners are shown. Finally, the direct local Gestapo terror is presented in the basement using the example of a former "torture cell" as well as the subjects of concentration camps , justice under National Socialism, euthanasia (" National Socialist Racial Hygiene ") and the mass murders of the Dortmund Gestapo in Rombergpark and in Bittermark.

Prominent inmates

literature

  • Hans-Peter Acker and Dirk Fahle (eds.): Searching for traces in the Steinwache Dortmund. Hebrew / German . Oberhausen 2002.
  • Günther Högl (Ed.): Resistance and persecution in Dortmund 1933–1945. Catalog for the permanent exhibition in the Steinwache memorial . Dortmund 2002.
  • Kurt Klotzbach : Against National Socialism - Resistance and Persecution in Dortmund 1930-1945. A historical-political study . Hanover 1969.
  • Ulrich Knipping: The history of the Jews in Dortmund during the time of the Third Reich . Dortmund 1977.
  • Kurt Piehl: Latscher, Pimpfe and Gestapo . Frankfurt a. M. 2007.
  • Ralf Piorr (Ed.): Without Return. The deportation of Jews from the Arnsberg administrative district to Zamość in April 1942. Essen 2012.
  • Sahin Aydin (ed.): A young life, lived and died for a just cause - Rudi Johann Wilhelm Steffens. A political biography. KDFK e. V., Gronau 2014.

Web links

Commons : Steinwache (Dortmund)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. No. A 0429. List of monuments of the city of Dortmund. (PDF) (No longer available online.) In: dortmund.de - Das Dortmunder Stadtportal. Monument Authority of the City of Dortmund, April 14, 2014, archived from the original on September 15, 2014 ; accessed on June 10, 2014 (size: 180 kB). 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.dortmund.de