in detail
A locksmith's shop in the courtyard of the former Wolfenbüttel prison was converted into an execution site in 1937. Beginning in 1941 death sentence of the German civil and military courts were carried out here by guillotine or hanging. In the period from October 12, 1937 to March 15, 1945, more than six hundred men and women, foreigners and Germans were executed there. A few German civilians were convicted of capital offenses, but many more were sentenced to death for "plundering", "listening to foreign radio" or "illicit slaughtering of animals". Members of the German army were convicted of supposed "cowardliness", "desertion" or "self-mutilation". Another large victim group included foreign forced laborers, captives and prisoners of war from countries occupied by the German army who were, for the most part, sentenced to death by summary trial for petty crimes. Over seventy members of resistance groups from France, Belgium and Holland were executed at Wolfenbüttel as so called "Cloak and Dagger" prisoners. Jews and Sinti and Roma were also among the victims.
After liberation in April 1945, the English military authorities had 67 German war criminals and civilians and former foreign forced laborers who had violated laws of the Allied Military Government exectued here from 1945 to 1947.
The execution site that was situated within what is today the judicial penal institution of Wolfenbüttel (JVA) remained completely intact and unaltered until the early 1960s. It was then remodeled into a "prison delousing unit." Major protests from Germany and abroad were able to prevent the planned demolition of the building in th 1980s. Instead in April 1990 Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice commissioned to have a memorial and documentation center for the victims established in a few rooms of the former execution site. After the memorial was incorporated into the Lower Saxony State Office for Political Education, on October 1, 1993, a new permanent exhibition was developed in the former prison rooms of the JVA Wolfenbüttel and opened on November 22, 1999. The new exhibition "Justice in National Socialism - Crimes Committed in the Name of the German People" documets the development of the German justice system from 1933-1945 using informational panels and biographies. It names victims and perpetrators, presents biographies of those who were actively involved in the crimes and of men and women who were became victims of state violence. Most of the German judges and state attorneys welcomed the National Socialist rise to power. These jurists also accepted the notorious "Reichstag Fire Decree" which allowed for the "Rights of Individuals vis a vis the state" to be destroyed because these rights were "not reconcilable with the principles of the völkisch Reich" according to Prof. Dr. Ernst Rudolf Huber in 1936. In 1933, when the persecution of political opponants immediately began, the German judiciary showed itself to be an effective weapon of the new system whose claim to rule increasingly excluded, persectued and ultimately exterminated groups of the German population for racial and political reasons. Whether Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses or homosexuals, foreign forced laborers, resistance fighters or non-conform German "Volksgenossen," too many state attorneys and judges knew no mercy. With zeal and acumen, they developed the law into a legal tool in which sever punishment was used to fight not only every form of resistance, but also every deviating behavior. "Whoever is outside the People's Community is also ouside the protection of the law." This is how the Kiel law professor Prof. Dr. Karl Larenz explained the exclusion of all those who were to be legally exectuted. Long prison sentences and thousands of death sentences made clear the total claim to power of a criminal regime served by judges and state attorneys with judicial competence and personal commitment. In a final section the exhibition uses examples to document how the postwar justice apparatus dealt with the crimes of German judges and state attorneys. Much is said by the fact that the Federal Court first characterized Nazi justice as "blood justice" in 1995, a half a century later. Only then did it express public criticism for its failure to research the crmes of German judges and attorneys in National Socialism In this section of the exhbition there is a so-called "Peretrator Block," a design element that encompasses the whole room made of anthrazite colored sheet steel. It contains a number of drawers in which perpetrator biographies are presented. The remaining empty drawers signify the research task of the memorial site and the provisional character of the new permanent exhbition.
Each year over 300 groups from Germany and abroad visit the memorial and the new exhibition. The memorial focuses in its work on the research and documentation of the victims of Nazi justice who were executed here and also on further biographical studies on the history of victims and perpetrators in general, which will continually be added to the biographical folders in the exhibition. The memorial work also focuses on providing visiting groups with diverse informational resources in German, Englsih and French and on preparing educational material. It participates in teaching projects and educational special events on Nazi justice that are prepared in cooperation with the Lower Saxony Ministy of Justice. In November 2004 the memorial site was placed under the administration of the newly established Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation.
1937-1945
Over 600 people are executed in the Wolfenbüttel prison.
1945-1947
The English military government orders 67 death sentences to be carried out.
Mid-1980s
The plan by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice to tear down the former execution site is revoked as a result of international protest from former political prisoners supported by judges belonging to the trade union.
April 24, 1990
A documentation and memorial museum for the victims of Nazi justice, commissioned by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice, opens in the rooms of the former execution site.
October 1, 1993
The Lower Saxony State Center for Political Education takes over the management of the memorial.
November 22, 1999
Opening of the new permanent exhibition "Justice and Sentencing in National Socialism" in the former common rooms of the JVA Wolfenbüttel
