Waldheim Prison

Last updated

Waldheim Prison
Waldheim Zuchthaus (cropped).JPG
Southeast view in June 2011
Waldheim Prison
Location Saxony, Germany
OpenedApril 3, 1716 (1716-04-03)

Waldheim Prison is a 308-year-old federal prison in Saxony, Germany.

Contents

Use

As of April 2016, the Waldheim penal institution held 373 men (aged 2180) out of a capacity of almost 400. The Saxon Minister of Justice, Sebastian Gemkow, described the focus as "humane enforcement". [1]

History

Originally an old castle, the Waldheim penitentiary opened on 3 April 1716. [2] Founded by Augustus II the Strong, elector of Saxony, the prison was initially focused on welfare and rehabilitation and housed beggars, highwaymen, and criminals (with the latter only accounting for 20% of inmates). A model for other such institutions, by the turn of the 19th century, envoys traveled from other European states to see the prison. After being stripped of its welfare roles in 1830, the prison became notorious for the atrocious treatment of inmates. In 1870, Waldheim was the first prison to install a mental ward. [1]

Waldheim was used to hold political prisoners: before World War II, for the Nazi Party, and the East German state. Some famous prisoners included Karl May, August Röckel, and Horst Sindermann. The 1950 Waldheim Trials imprisoned thousands of Nazi suspects and executed 24. In April 2016, a ceremony was held to celebrate the building's 300th anniversary, the oldest German prison still in use. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bergen-Belsen concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp

Bergen-Belsen, or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentration camp. Initially this was an "exchange camp", where Jewish hostages were held with the intention of exchanging them for German prisoners of war held overseas. The camp was later expanded to hold Jews from other concentration camps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colditz Castle</span> Renaissance castle in Colditz, Saxony, Germany

Colditz Castle is a Renaissance castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz in the state of Saxony in Germany. The castle is between the towns of Hartha and Grimma on a hill spur over the river Zwickauer Mulde, a tributary of the River Elbe. It had the first wildlife park in Germany when, during 1523, the castle park was converted into one of the largest menageries in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bautzen</span> Town in Saxony, Germany

Bautzen or Budyšin, until 1868 Budissin in German, is a town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and the administrative centre of the district of Bautzen. It is located on the Spree river, is the eighth most populous town in Saxony, and is the seat of Saxony's largest district. Bautzen lies in the bilingual Sorbian settlement area of Lusatia, and is Lusatia's third-largest town after Cottbus and Görlitz, as well as the second-largest town in Upper Lusatia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sachsenhausen concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany

Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners throughout World War II. Prominent prisoners included Joseph Stalin's oldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili; assassin Herschel Grynszpan; Paul Reynaud, the penultimate prime minister of the French Third Republic; Francisco Largo Caballero, prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War; the wife and children of the crown prince of Bavaria; Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera; and several enemy soldiers and political dissidents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warsaw concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp in Warsaw during World War II

The Warsaw concentration camp was a German concentration camp in occupied Poland during World War II. It was formed on the base of the now-nonexistent Gęsiówka prison, in what is today the Warsaw neighbourhood of Muranów, on the order of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The camp operated from July 1943 to August 1944.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Breendonk</span> Military fort which served as a Nazi prison camp in Willebroek, Belgium

Fort Breendonk is a former military installation at Breendonk, near Mechelen, Belgium, which served as a Nazi prison camp (Auffanglager) during the German occupation of Belgium during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HM Prison Belmarsh</span> Mens prison in Thamesmead, London, England

His Majesty's Prison Belmarsh is a Category A men's prison in Thamesmead, southeast London, England. The prison is used for high-profile cases, particularly those concerning national security. Within the grounds is the High Security Unit (HSU), which consists of 48 single cells. It is run by His Majesty's Prison Service. The prison has been called "Britain's Guantanamo Bay" due to the long-term detention of terrorism suspects without charge. Considered the toughest prison in the UK, Belmarsh is also notoriously known as "Hellmarsh" due to the high number of physical and authority abuses reported by both the prison's inmates, and by human rights activists.

A conjugal visit is a scheduled period in which an inmate of a prison or jail is permitted to spend several hours or days in private with a visitor. The visitor is usually their legal partner. The generally recognized basis for permitting such visits in modern times is to preserve family bonds and increase the chances of success for a prisoner's eventual return to ordinary life after release from prison. They also provide an incentive for inmates to comply with the various day-to-day rules and regulations of the prison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HM Prison Wakefield</span> Prison in West Yorkshire, England

His Majesty's Prison Wakefield is a Category A men's prison in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. The prison has been nicknamed the "Monster Mansion" due to the large number of high-profile, high-risk sex offenders and murderers held there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herzogenbusch concentration camp</span> Nazi concentration camp in the Netherlands

Herzogenbusch was a Nazi concentration camp located in Vught near the city of 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. The camp was opened in 1943 and held 31,000 prisoners. 749 prisoners died in the camp, and the others were transferred to other camps shortly before Herzogenbusch was liberated by the Allied Forces in 1944. After the war, the camp was used as a prison for Germans and for Dutch collaborators. Today there is a visitors' center which includes exhibitions and a memorial remembering the camp and its victims.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waldheim, Saxony</span> Town in Saxony, Germany

Waldheim is a town in Mittelsachsen district, in Saxony, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Bilibid Prison</span> Main insular penitentiary of the Philippines

The New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila is the main insular prison designed to house the prison population of the Philippines. It is maintained by the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) under the Department of Justice (DOJ). As of October 2022, the NBP housed 29,204 inmates, nearly five times its intended capacity of 6,345.

Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a capital offense in states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures, which may continue for several decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NKVD special camps in Germany 1945–1950</span> Post–World War II internment camps in the Soviet-occupied parts of Germany

NKVD special camps were NKVD-run late and post-World War II internment camps in the Soviet-occupied parts of Germany from May 1945 to January 6, 1950. They were set up by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) and run by the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). On 8 August 1948, the camps were made subordinate to the Gulag. Because the camp inmates were permitted no contact with the outside world, the special camps were also known as silence camps.

Three concentration camps operated in succession in Moringen, Lower Saxony, from April 1933 to April 1945. KZ Moringen, established in the centre of the town on site of former 19th century workhouses, originally housed mostly male political inmates. In November 1933 - March 1938 Moringen housed a women's concentration camp; in June 1940 - April 1945 a juvenile prison. A total of 4,300 people were prisoners of Moringen; an estimated ten percent of them died in the camp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ravensbrück concentration camp</span> Womens concentration camp in Nazi Germany

Ravensbrück was a Nazi concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, 90 km (56 mi) north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück. The camp memorial's estimated figure of 132,000 women who were in the camp during the war includes about 48,500 from Poland, 28,000 from the Soviet Union, almost 24,000 from Germany and Austria, nearly 8,000 from France, almost 2,000 from Belgium, and thousands from other countries including a few from the United Kingdom and the United States. More than 20,000 of the total were Jewish. Eighty-five percent were from other races and cultures. More than 80 percent were political prisoners. Many prisoners were employed as slave laborer by Siemens & Halske. From 1942 to 1945, the Nazis undertook medical experiments on Ravensbrück prisoners to test the effectiveness of sulfonamides.

The Federal Correctional Complex, Petersburg is a United States federal prison complex for male inmates in Petersburg, Virginia. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1 May 1944 Kaisariani executions</span>

On 1 May 1944, 200 Greek communists were executed at the firing range of the Athens suburb of Kaisariani by the Nazi occupation authorities as reprisal for the killing of a German general by Greek Resistance forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olga Körner</span> German politician (1887–1969)

Olga Körner was a German political activist and a co-founder of the proletarian women's movement in Dresden. Between 1930 and 1933 she sat as a member of the national parliament ("Reichstag").

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willi Herold</span> German war criminal

Willi Herold, also known as the Executioner of Emsland, was a Nazi German war criminal. Near the end of the Second World War in Europe, Herold deserted from the German Army and, posing as a Luftwaffe captain, organized the mass execution of German deserters held at a prison camp. He was arrested by British forces and executed for war crimes on 14 November 1946 at Wolfenbüttel Prison.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Festakt für Deutschlands ältestes Gefängnis" [Ceremony for Germany's oldest prison] (in German). Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk. 3 April 2016. Archived from the original on 23 December 2016. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  2. Lasch, Hendrik (2 April 2016). "300 Jahre hinter Gittern" [300 years behind bars] (in German). Neues Deutschland. Archived from the original on 25 January 2022. Retrieved 25 January 2022. Germany's oldest continuously used prison is located in Waldheim, Saxony