Our first weekend in Berlin, we were invited by a friend of Luci´s to an event at Musik-Club SO 36. This Musik-Club has been around since the 1970s, and is an important part of the Kreuzberg community, particularly for traditionally underrepresented groups such as queers and im/migrants. Kreuzberg is a part of the city where residents and visitors can interact with different subcultures in a well-integrated atmosphere, as opposed to other parts of the city where some of these groups are viewed as a representation of the decline of German culture.
The name of the club, SO 36, is the old postal code for Kreuzberg. This is no coincidence as the club and its varying events reflect the diversity of the area. As a music venue, SO 36 naturally hosts all kinds of bands. Originally a venue for predominantly punk bands, it now also hosts metal, techno and pop, jazz, hip-hop, and many more genres, the club intentionally does not cater to just one demographic or subculture.
The venue is run cooperatively as the non-profit Sub Opus 63 e.V. So, in addition to music the venue also hosts many community-based events such as book and poetry readings, karaoke and bingo nights, flea markets and clothing swaps, dance competitions, drag shows, panel discussions, and so on. The club has recently been especially growing as a center for the queer community to hold events of all kinds.
The event we attended that night, Kuirfest, was not at all what we expected. Instead of a band onstage and a rowdy crowd, we found ourselves at the opening night gala for the 3-day film and culture festival. Kuirfest is organized in part by the Pink Life Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans (LGBT) Solidarity Association in Ankara, Turkey. It features films and events meant to support and make visible the LGBTQ Turkish community in Berlin. That night, we had time for only one part of the opening night- Korospular, a radical queer choir. It is a queer/feminist choir started by activists and feminists in Istanbul. They reinterpret traditional Turkish songs through a queer lens and seek to create an atmosphere of solidarity through humorous (and well-done) music and singing performances that include audience participation.
Photographs are not allowed in the venue in order to protect privacy, but we don´t need photos to remember that night! It was a very fun experience and even though we are not citizens of Germany, Berlin, or Kreuzberg, we briefly witnessed the impact that intentional spaces such as SO 36 can have on the communities they serve.
Memorial space to the people executed (sacrifices) there during Hitler’s dictatorship from 1933-1945
Plötzensee prison memorial is a space dedicated to political prisoners (and others) who were executed there by the National Socialists. It is a still-functioning prison in the Charlottenburg-Nord area of Berlin. Though it was constructed outside city limits in 1868, the area has since expanded to include sprawling residential and industrial areas. In the United States, prisons tend to be built in secluded areas, so I was struck by the proximity of prisoners and the free people living their busy lives directly outside the windows of the complex.
When the National Socialists took power in 1933 the prison system became an institution of violent deterrence, intended for the “eradication of inferior elements of the population”. Over half of the prisoners executed at Plötzensee were political dissidents who opposed the Nazi regime, most of whom were found guilty by the fraudulent Volksgerichtshof (People’s Court) under the jurisdiction of Roland Freisler, who was also a participant in the discussions about the “Final Solution” at the Wannsee Conference house. Unfortunately, violent repression was the response to those who opposed the National Socialists in any way. Punishable crimes were intentionally worded vaguely, and included ‘defeatism’, treason, owning banned literature, printing unsanctioned materials, etc. The regime used sadistic brutality to punish– and to deter– resisters, and that’s where the memorial is most affective.
The memorial, a bit of specific and obscure history, was completely empty of people except two construction workers fixing a pathway. The space is rimmed in high walls with razor wire, presumably to keep current prisoners from attempting escape (as an aside: it seemed rather cruel/ironic/absurd to allow modern prisoners to see the memorial from their cells). I walked into the “execution shed”, the tiny two-roomed building used to carry out the majority of executions. On the far wall were 8 meat-hooks, where thousands of people were murdered by increasingly barbarous means, including hanging a person from the hook using thin metal wire with their toes able to touch the floor, slowly and eventually causing death by asphyxiation or decapitation. In the adjacent room would have been where the guillotine was located (personally requested as a form of execution by Hitler in 1936 to replace the axe that had been used until then). Today there is only an ominous porcelain-tiled slab where the guillotine once stood, the ugly yellowish tiles contrasted against the rudimentary wooden shed walls created an effect that made it easy to imagine the horrific scenes that happened there.
To put the number of executions into perspective, during the 42 years between 1890 and 1932, approximately 36 convicts were executed at Plötzensee. Alternatively, during the 12 years of National Socialist rule, 2,891 people were executed, over half of whom were Germans. After air raids on Berlin destroyed the guillotine in June of 1943, the “Bloody Nights of Plötzensee” took place on June 7th-12th. Over 250 prisoners were hanged (using only the 8 meat hooks) without clemency proceedings. Six of them had not even been sentenced to death.
I have wanted to see the memorial at Plötzensee Prison since becoming interested in the minutiae of resistance to Nazis in Europe over a decade ago. At Plötzensee I sat for a very long time on the concrete floor thinking about the history of the place, and imagining/appreciating the risk and personal sacrifice it takes to oppose wrong in this world. These places of violence are sad, terrifying, and grotesque but they are also hopeful and inspiring. I wish this memorial was visited more often, because it seems to be slipping into an unfortunate obscurity.
Though I have written a rather long post already, I think it is important to portray these people as humans of varying beliefs and backgrounds, rather than only statistics. They all risked (and lost) their lives so that the world they lived in might be different and/or better. So, here are but a few examples of the thousands of political prisoners who were murdered by the Nazis at Plötzensee Prison.
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke Executed as one of the leaders of the resistance group “Kraisau Circle”, along with several others involved in the group’s non-violent opposition to Nazis. Graf von Moltke was able to write letters from a sub-prison of Plötzensee while he awaited his execution. Written to his wife, Freya and two sons, the letters were compiled and published by Freya after the war as the book “Letzte Briefe aus dem Gefängnis Tegel” (Last Letters from Tegel Prison”).
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, defending himself in front of Roland Freisler’s People’s Court, to deaf ears. His guilt was predetermined and no defendants had access to attorneys.
Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra) and Harro Schulze-Boysen Schulze-Boysen and his wife, Libertas, were well-positioned and influential in the Nazi party. They risked their lives by collecting photos and documents for the Allies about the atrocities of the Final Solution, distributing leaflets about Nazi crimes on the Eastern Front, and passing information on German troop movements to leaders in Moscow. The Gestapo discovered the resistance group by intercepting one of these communications. The meat hook method was imagined and developed specifically as an especially torturous death for Schulze-Boysen and seven of his friends. Over 50 members of the group, ranging in age from 16 to 70, were murdered on December 22, 1942 by hanging or guillotine for “conspiracy to commit high treason”.
Schulze-Boysen and wife Libertas. Their wedding was attended by HermannGöring.
Schulze-Boysen in his Wehrmacht uniform after arrest.
Liselotte Herrmann Liselotte was a member of the German Communist Party (KPD), and was expelled from Berlin University as a communist in 1933. During 1934 she worked at a munitions factory and passed sensitive and crucial information about arms manufacturing to the KPD central committee in Switzerland. She was murdered at Plötzensee in 1938 at age 28 for “treason and preparation for high treason”.
Karlrobert Kreiten Kreiten was one of the most influential and important German pianists of the time period. While on tour in March 1943, after the defeat of the German army at Stalingrad, he commented to a friend that the war was lost and that Hitler was “a madman”. He was overheard by an attendee, who turned him into the authorities. Roland Freisler sentenced him to death for “demoralizing the troops, aiding the enemy, and defeatist statements”, he was murdered in the execution shed at age 27.
The Wannsee Conference house is the site of the January, 1942 meeting between 15 top-ranking Nazi representatives of various segments of the NSDAP. At this meeting the men deliberated about the details of enacting the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question”. In this house, the original plans for the Holocaust (Shoah) were drafted and finalized.
Wannsee is a wealthy suburb west of Berlin. In the 1600’s, the Hohenzollers used the area as a hunting grounds, with the Jagdschloss Glienicke as their base. This area has long held a place in German tradition as a leisure retreat from the bustle of the city of Berlin. Wannsee lake has one of the longest inland beaches in Europe, Strandband Wannsee. In 1907 the beach was opened for frequent swimming, yachting, sunbathing, and other recreation. Presently, the lake and accompanying structures are protected monuments that receive over 30,000 visitors per day during peak summer months.
After World War One, the city of Berlin took ownership over the lake area from the royal government. Because of its location in the Grunewald, the area became part of the municipal forest service. The area was then revitalized to include new permanent structures and sanitary facilities to accommodate an influx of visitors.
With the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, National Socialist organizations inundated the villas and country houses of the area. Host to the 1936 Summer Olympic games, Berlin officials removed existing placards that forbade Jews entrance to specified locations. One such location being the aforementioned Greater Wannsee beach and resort, where a large shooting range constructed in 1928 would be used for the shooting events of the 1936 Olympic Games.
On the banks of Wannsee Lake was a villa owned by a significantly wealthy German industrialist, Friedrich Minoux. Already choking on success, Minoux reaped the benefits of Jewish wealth distribution under Nazi policy in a final business endeavor– aquiring a Jewish owned paper mill– for the Sicherheitsdient (SD) that solidified his influential position in the Nazi Party. In 1940, his villa was bought by the “Nordhav Foundation” a purportedly charitable foundation that was actually processing transactions of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA). This villa would be the location of the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942.
Leaving from the heavily trafficked Schloss Charlottenburg, the route we took to Wannsee was progressively less populated by tourists. Along the course of the eighteen stops, there was a noticeable change in topography- relieved of our concrete surroundings, we were enveloped in the preserved Grunewald. As we approached our final stop of the Wannsee Conference House, we saw several villas and estates, Montessori schools, and other indicators of upper class living. It was clear that this memorial site differed from other sites of remembrance because it was preserved among current residential areas, as opposed to the statues and monuments of more cosmopolitan spaces.
Luci: From my perspective, approaching the house carried a weight that I had anticipated for over a decade. It is a site of remembrance that informed a vast majority of the history and research I find most fascinating. The Wannsee Conference House was where the 15 members of the conference gathered to solidify the details of the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’, it was where they sat around an unassuming dining table and discussed in detail how they could most efficiently murder an entire race of people. I was fascinated and disgusted at the general atmosphere of the place; a juxtaposition of beauty and elegance with horror and evil in a banal setting. We learned in the small museum housed in the building that the gardens and grounds were tended by Jewish prisoners, and later Polish prisoners when the Jews were sent to camps. It was beautiful, but the stark contrast between beauty and violence, banality and evil, clashed in a way that left me feeling exhausted.
I imagine these men sitting around the long dining table in the elaborate Edwardian estate, perhaps smoking a cigarette or cigar, drinking a whiskey, and causally debating and figuring out the details of how to best eliminate 11,000,000 people. They had a break for lunch, then continued, the entire process taking less than a few hours. These men weren’t cackling cartoon characters of evil incarnate, they were not devils or demonically possessed, they were just men. Nothing has ever made Hannah Arendt’s argument on the banality of evil more clear to me than our visit to this utterly contradictory and baffling place of remembrance.
The original German invitation (and English translation) to the Wannsee Conference, sent to all participants. Includes an assurance of lunch being served during a break in the meeting.
Sean: I was surprised to see the nonchalant manner in which all of the invitations and minutes of the meeting were presented. There was a powerful contrast bonding the magnitude of the material discussed and the ease of discourse. I was especially moved by the mention of how to handle the mixed blood children and mixed relationships in their quest to solidify an analogous race within the General Government. It was clear that the one drop rule (a social and legal principal of racial classification) was not a precedence given their consideration of exclusion based solely on looks. As we emotionally trudged into the main dining room, a large table displayed the original documents and their English translations. The casual tone of the setting forced a reflection on exactly how these dignitaries discussed the fate of European Jews.
After our rather taxing visit to the museum and grounds, we sat on the back steps of the Wannsee House. We discussed human nature and the cyclical patterns of behavior in relation to genocide, war, and general violence. While looking out at the pristine and gentle environment of the Wannsee Lake, we pondered the ways modern global citizens might resist or confront continuing issues of political importance.
Luci asked, “When are we ever going to learn from our mistakes? Or will we always be visiting these monuments?” Which left us with the unanswerable question of how we might all contribute to the betterment of humanity, resist the present rise of nationalism, and take into consideration varying perspectives on universal values.
World History on the German Stage 