Cell prison Nuremberg
The Nuremberg cell prison is a prison building built in 1868, parts of which are still on the grounds of the Nuremberg penal institution today . It gained worldwide fame when the accused and witnesses of the Nuremberg trials were interned there between 1945 and 1949 .
The building
The cell prison is located directly behind the Nuremberg Palace of Justice . It originally consisted of four cell wings, each with three levels, which were oriented from a central hall in a star shape to the east, northeast, northwest and west. In a fifth wing facing south there were school and administration rooms as well as the prison church. The cell prison should not be confused with the current women's prison in the northwest and the remand prison in the east of the site.
History before 1945
The cell prison was built from 1865 to 1868 according to plans by Alberth von Voit. It followed the principle of an isolation prison, which has been modern since the 1840s, but is now obsolete, in which prisoners were no longer housed in collective accommodation but in individual cells (hence the name cell prison) in order to shield them from the negative influence of other prisoners. It was only later that the Palace of Justice was built in front of the prison and inaugurated in 1916. The cell prison is therefore the nucleus of the Nuremberg justice area on Fürther Strasse. Until 1933, the cell prison was used to hold ordinary prisoners. Between 1933 and 1945, criminals and those persecuted by the Nazi regime were imprisoned here. In any case, Jewish citizens from the region were held in the cell prison after the Reichspogromnacht .
In 1945 the Americans confiscated the cell prison for the Nuremberg war crimes trials .
History during the Nuremberg Trials 1945 to 1949
From 1945 both the defendants of the Nuremberg Trial of Major War Criminals and those of the follow-up trials were brought to the cell prison . In addition, numerous members of the military, ministerial officials, high- ranking NSDAP members and other parts of the German leadership were arrested as witnesses.
The accused and witnesses were generally accommodated in different wings. During the Nuremberg Trials of Major War Criminals , the east wing served as the "Criminal Wing" to accommodate the accused. It was connected by a temporary wooden corridor to the east building of the Palace of Justice , where the main war criminals trial took place in room 600 . The defendants were usually in solitary confinement and were permanently guarded by soldiers through hatches in the cell doors to prevent suicides. The witnesses, on the other hand, were able to move freely during the day in their cell wing, during the main war criminals trial that was the northeast wing. However, men and women were separate. The cells in the witness wing were often occupied several times. The internees prepared their statements, met to play cards or gave lectures for other prisoners, for example on American history. Guard soldiers were hardly used here. During the follow-up trials, the numerous defendants and witnesses were also accommodated in the northwest wing and the west wing that is still preserved today.
The prison church was located in the southern wing, the so-called church wing. It was only open to witnesses during the major war criminals trial. During the follow-up trials, there were regular services in which both defendants and witnesses could participate. Conversations were strictly forbidden. Several guards tried to control this. The prisoners, however, used the German hymns to exchange important information while singing by changing the lyrics of the songs. For example, witnesses and accused were able to inform each other about the content of their statements without the mostly English-speaking guards noticing.
In addition, the sports hall of the prison was located in a separate building to the northeast of the east wing . The main war criminals sentenced to death were executed here .
After the end of the Nuremberg Trials in 1949, the Americans gradually evacuated the cell prison.
History after 1952
In 1952 the building was handed over to the German authorities and used again for the normal penal system. Between 1980 and 1986 the east wing, in which the main war criminals were imprisoned, as well as the north-east and north-west wings were demolished. The sports hall where the execution of the major war criminals was completed, no longer exists. Since 1995 the west wing has not been used for the permanent accommodation of prisoners. Numerous new buildings have replaced the old cell prison.
Current situation and impending demolition
Today the central hall, the west wing and the church wing of the Nuremberg cell prison are still preserved. The west wing is the last cell wing still preserved in its original form, which was used for the Nuremberg trials . The cells and the cell doors with the flaps through which the guards could observe the prisoners are largely in their original state. The building gives an authentic impression of the housing of the war criminals and witnesses. The west wing was used for the shooting of the 2005 film " Speer und Er " about the life of Albert Speer . The cells are mostly empty and are only occasionally used as waiting cells. The Nuremberg correctional facility's clothing store is in the basement .
The church in the south wing is used as a storage room. The altar is no longer there. There is also a small organ on the gallery.
Since the cell prison is located on the grounds of the Nuremberg penal institution , it can only be viewed with the permission of the prison management.
The listed building is in poor structural condition. It is unclear whether it can be preserved. In local politics there are considerations to make it usable as a museum.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Actually, the building is not oriented from east to west, but from southeast to northwest. The designations based on an east-west orientation have become common.
- ^ Sonnenberger, Franz: The Bastion of the State, in: Aufriss 5. Die Fürther Straße. A walk through their history, Nuremberg 1985, pp. 88–99.
- ↑ Jochem, Gerhard (Ed.): Bernhard Kolb: Die Juden in Nürnberg 1839–1945, p. 24, see http://www.rijo.homepage.t-online.de/pdf/DE_NU_JU_kolb_text.pdf , accessed from 2 May 2011.
- ^ Paul Schmidt: The extra at the gallery, Bonn 1951, pp. 92f., 113f.
- ^ Paul Schmidt: The extra at the gallery, Bonn 1951, p. 114; Franz von Sonnleitner: As a diplomat in the "Führer Headquarters", Munich / Vienna 1989, p. 259.
- ↑ Cf. Thomas Eichacker: The use of the Nuremberg cell prison during the Nuremberg trial of major war criminals, in: Mitteilungen des Verein für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg, Volume 97 (2010), pp. 321–349.
- ↑ Focus.de of June 17, 2014: Nuremberg SPD wants to turn cell prison into a museum , accessed on November 20, 2014
Coordinates: 49 ° 27 '20.7 " N , 11 ° 2' 47.9" E