During the Second World War, the defy Adolf Hitler and his regime was incredibly dangerous.
Anyone suspected of insubordination or resistance was usually sentenced to death and was executed
in brutal fashion.
Erwin Rommel was even forced to his death, after being suspected of being involved in
the July 20th Plot.
But there was a horrific Nazi prison that was used to take the lives of thousands of
people during the Third Reich and the Nazi Era, and it became known as the House of Death.
Plotzensee Prison today still has people locked up inside, and it’s used as a juvenile prison.
But during Hitler’s time in power, it was a place where heads rolled with the German
Guillotine, the Fallbeil taking the lives of many people.
Join us today as we look at the BRUTAL Executions of Hitler’s House of the Dead, Plotzensee
Prison.
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Plotzensee Prison was built in the 19th century, and was named after the manor and lake nearby
in Berlin.
During the Weimar Republic before Hitler seized control in 1933, there were 36 executions
that occurred in Plotzensee.
All of these took place using beheading by axe which was common during the Medieval and
Tudor Period, and there were some German executioners that were considered skilled with the axe.
This was usually a handaxe, but later Hitler saw this as even too brutal and he had the
law changed to use the fallbeil or the German guillotine.
After the Nazis took control, the prison housed regular criminals and those people who were
considered political prisoners.
Hitler quickly Nazified the prison system and housed many people who were considered
enemies of his politics, and communists all up and down Germany were imprisoned.
Plotzensee saw many communists held there, and it was one of 11 selected execution sites
established by Hitler’s government and the Nazi Minister of Justice Franz Gurtner within
Germany.
Plotzensee had a full time executioner who’s job was to take the lives of anyone who was
sentenced to death.
These dealt with a large amount of condemned individuals during the time period, and they
had an increased work load.
With the new laws that were brought in and how oppressive German society became, more
people rose up and many of these were sentenced to death.
The condemned people of Plotzensee were either executed by a stationary fallbeil or a guillotine
device.
Many prisons had devices which were based within their walls, but hangings were also
carried out inside of the execution chamber.
During Hitler’s time in power and the Nazi Regime, officially on record 2891 people were
convicted by the Berlin state court, and the people’s court.
Many of these were executed in Plotzensee, some by axe but the majority by guillotine.
From 1937, these condemned individuals were beheaded using a guillotine taken from Bruchsal
prison, which was installed in a workshed near to the prison walls.
The condemned victims would have to walk from their cells into the ground level building
where the guillotine was found, and then there they were faced by the device that would take
their lives.
In 1942 in that same building, a beam was placed which worked as a gallows where many
people could be hanged at one time.
Up to 8 victims at the same time could be hanged on this wooden beam, and what was even
more shocking was that the condemned individual’s family had to pay for the privilege of their
loved one’s execution.
Each day on death row in a sense cost 1 and a half Reichsmarks, and the execution charge
was 300 Reichmarks.
Around half of those who were executed at Plotzensee were sentenced to death as they
were condemned for carrying out acts of resistance against the Nazis.
Some who were condemned included the Red Orchestra.
These were a group of anti Nazi workers who printed anti nazi leaflets and distributed
them to try and encourage people to rise up against the Nazis.
It was said of some of their executions, ‘When the day of execution was determined, the person
convicted for a day or several days was placed in a special cell: a death cell.
In the prisons of Plötzensee and Brandenburg, there were cells downstairs that had been
turned into death cells.
The very fact of being transferred to this cell let the convict know even before the
official notification that his hour had come.’
On the 13th May 1943 13 members of the group were executed at Plotzensee.
Other members of resistance groups such as the Kreisau Circle were executed there, and
677 prisoners from Czechoslovakia were guillotined or hanged at Plotzensee.
A number of these were members of the Czech resistance when the Germans occupied their
lands, and over 200 death sentences were carried out against polish members of resistance.
245 death sentences were also carried out against French citizens.
Around 300 people who were executed there were women, and following their executions
their bodies were sent for dissection at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
One man who was executed there was Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.
He was the older brother of Claus von Stauffenberg, the man who planted the bomb inside of Hitler’s
Wolf’s Lair.
Following the failure of the plot, he was arrested and was questioned on his views about
the Final solution.
He told the Gestapo that he and his brother had approved initially, but that they considered
the final solution to be too aggressive and excessive.
He later stated that, ‘The racial idea has been grossly betrayed in this war in that
the best German blood is being irrevocably sacrificed, while simultaneously Germany is
populated by millions of foreign workers, who certainly cannot be described as of high
racial quality.’
However as he was involved inside of the Stauffenberg Plot, he along with 8 other conspirators was
hanged inside of Plotzensee Prison.
To prolong his death and to make it more painful, Berthold von Stuaffenberg was cut down a number
of times from the beam after he was hanged, and then was hanged yet again after being
revived a number of times.
This made him suffer longer.
His execution was even filmed and then hitler watched this back at his leisure to see that
in his eyes justice was administered against the people who tried to take his life.
Another person to succumb to the execution chamber was Ilse Stobe.
She joined the communist party of Germany and was a member of the underground resistance.
She was arrested by the Gestapo for allegedly spying for the Soviet Union in 1942, and she
was then tortured for 7 weeks where she was forced to confess.
She was then sentenced to death for treason and was executed on the 22nd December 1942
and faced the guillotine, whilst a accomplice was hanged from a meathook there.
It was also a place where criminals and murderers were killed, as Paul Ogorzow the S-Bahn Murderer
and serial killer who killed 8 women inside of Berlin between 1940 and 1941 was killed.
He used the blackouts to kill his victims and following his trial he was sentenced to
death.
He too faced the guillotine after being declared an enemy of the people.
The youngest victim of the Nazi Guillotine was executed at Plotzensee and he was Helmuth
Hubener.
He was the youngest person to be sentenced to death for resistance to the Nazis and was
just 17 when he was executed.
It was unusual for an underage defendant to be condemned, but the court stated that he
had displayed an adult level of intelligence in his crimes and because of this he would
be killed and be punished as an adult.
Appeals for clemency were ignored and at 8:13pm on the 27th October he was beheaded by the
guillotine inside of the execution room.
Helmut Hirsch was also executed there, and he was sentenced to death for his involvement
inside of a bombing plot.
It’s believed his targets were the Nazi HQ in nuremberg and also the plant where the
antisemitic Der Sturmer was printed, but he was arrested by the Gestapo.
He was interrogated and was transferred to Berlin’s prison and was charged with committing
high treason and he was indicted for possessing explosives with the intent to commit a crime.
He was held in solitary confinement, and the newspapers claimed he tried to assassinate
Hitler.
There were calls for clemency, however he was condemned to death and was executed by
the guillotine at 6am on the 4th June 1937.
In the evening of the 3rd September 1943, an RAF raid damaged the guillotine beyond
repair and parts of Plotzensee.
But because of this, the Reich Ministry of Justice ordered the immediate execution of
the condemned people at the prison.
Because of this, around 250 people were waiting in rows of eight where they were hanged on
the beam inside the execution cell.
The Plotzensee Bloody Nights from the 7th to the 12th September 1943 executed them,
and the killings kept coming until the 20th April 1945.
But inside of Plotzensee Prison, during Hitler’s time in power, around 3000 inmates and prisoners
were executed.
It became a large execution site, and a place which was incredibly feared.
Many of the executions were carried out quickly and swiftly, but others were carried out to
prolong the suffering of a victim.
It was a brutal place which deserved the nickname as the House of The Dead.
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