The Plötzensee Memorial Center in Berlin, Berlin, Germany | Memorial

The Plötzensee Memorial Center commemorating the victims of National Socialism is a site of quiet remembrance in Berlin, Germany. From 1933 to 1945, nearly three thousand people unjustly sentenced to death by the National Socialist judiciary were executed here. Today, the execution chamber at The Plotzensee Memorial Center is a Memorial. The exhibition in the room adjoining it documents the practice of the National Socialist judicial and penal system.
More than 2500 political prisoners were killed at this prison site. From 1933 to 1942, those who resisted or objected to Hitler and Nazi ideals were either hung or guillotined inside the walls. An urn, with soil gathered from all of World War II's German concentration camps, sits at the front of the penitentiary at The Plotzensee Memorial Center to honor the victims of this period in history.
Shortly after the National Socialist takeover in 1933, prison discipline became harsher in Plötzensee. The goals of the penal system are now retribution, deterrence, and the â?eliminationâ? of persons regarded as inferior. Plötzensee now serves as a facility for pretrial confinement for persons arraigned on political charges. Increasing numbers of such cases are prosecuted before the National Socialist Special Courts (Sondergerichte) created in 1933, before the political criminal tribunals of the appellate court, and before the â?Peopleâ??s Court,â? established in 1934.
During the war increasing numbers of foreigners are incarcerated who had been deported to Germany as forced laborers. They form a fourth group of inmates in Plötzensee in addition to the German prisoners who are generally serving shorter sentences, political suspects in pretrial confinement, and convicts awaiting execution. â??Repeat offendersâ? sentenced to more than a year in National Socialist prison have hardly any chance of ever regaining their freedom. Once they have served their sentence, they are turned over to the criminal investigation division of the police, which generally arranges for them to be sent to concentration camps for â?protective custody.â?
Visitors to The Plotzensee Memorial Center in Berlin, will find the information available interesting and informative.