Ландсберг түрмесі: Тарих және нацилік қылмыскерлер тұтқынында болған орын

Historic prison in Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, Germany

Landsberg Prison is a penal facility in the town of Landsberg am Lech in the southwest of the German state of Bavaria, about west southwest of Munich and south of Augsburg. It is best known as the prison where Adolf Hitler was held in 1924, after the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, and where he dictated his memoirs Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess. The prison was used by the Allied powers during the Occupation of Germany for holding Nazi War Criminals. In 1946, General Joseph T. McNarney, commander in chief of U. S. Forces of Occupation in Germany, renamed Landsberg War Criminal Prison No. 1. The Americans closed the war crimes facility in 1958. Full control of the prison was then handed over to the Federal Republic of Germany. Landsberg is now maintained by the Prison Service of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice.

Landsberg Prison, which is in the town's western outskirts, was completed in 1910. The facility was designed with an Art Nouveau frontage by Hugo von Höfl. Within its walls, the four brick built cell blocks were constructed in a cross shape orientation. This allowed guards to watch all wings simultaneously from a central location (based on the Panopticon style). Landsberg, which was used for holding convicted criminals and those awaiting sentencing, was also designated a Festungshaft (meaning fortress confinement) prison. facilities were similar to a modern protective custody unit. Prisoners were excluded from forced labor and had reasonably comfortable cells. They were also allowed to receive visitors. Anton Graf von Arco Valley, who shot Bavarian prime minister Kurt Eisner, was given a Festungshaft sentence in February 1919. In 1924 Adolf Hitler spent 264 days incarcerated in Landsberg after being convicted of treason following the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich the previous year. During his imprisonment, Hitler dictated and then wrote his book Mein Kampf with assistance from his deputy, Rudolf Hess. Numerous foreign political prisoners of the Nazis were deported to Germany and imprisoned in Landsberg. Between early 1944 and the end of the war, at least 210 prisoners died in Landsberg as a result of mistreatment or execution.

During the occupation of Germany by the Allies after World War II, the US Army designated the prison as War Criminal Prison No. 1 to hold convicted Nazi war criminals. It was run and guarded by personnel from the United States Army's Military Police (MPs). The first condemned prisoners arrived at Landsberg prison in December 1945. These war criminals had been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity at the Dachau Trials which had begun a month earlier. Between 1945 and 1946, the prison housed a total of 110 prisoners convicted at the subsequent Nuremberg trials, a further 1416 war criminals from the Dachau trials and 21 prisoners convicted in the Shanghai trials. (These were military tribunals conducted by the American forces in Japan between August 1946 and January 1947 to prosecute 23 German officials who had continued to assist the Japanese military in Shanghai after the surrender of Nazi Germany.) In five and half years, Landsberg Prison was the place of execution of 252 condemned war criminals, all of them by hanging. Executions were carried out expeditiously. In May 1946, 28 former SS guards from Dachau were hanged within a four day period. Bodies that were not claimed were buried in unmarked graves in the cemetery next to the Spöttingen chapel. The prison was also used for the executions of common criminals. Thirty three common criminals, including one U. S. soldier who had been court martialed for murdering a civilian, were executed between 1947 and 1949, 29 of them by firing squad. In the last half of 1950 and the first half of 1951, thousands of Germans took part in demonstrations outside Landsberg prison to demand pardons for all the war criminals while the German media coverage was overwhelmingly on the side of the condemned, who were depicted as the innocent victims of American "lynch law". In May 1958, the United States Army relinquished full control of Landsberg Prison when the last four prisoners were released from custody. Three of them were former SS officers who had been convicted during the Einsatzgruppen Trials between 1947 and 1948. They had originally been sentenced to death, but were spared by the partial amnesty in 1951. Management of the facility was transferred to the civilian Bavarian Ministry of Justice.

The prison is now run as a progressive correctional facility and provides training, skills and medical help for the prisoners. There are 36 courses in the central training centre, which provide training for occupations such as bakers, electricians, painters, butchers, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, heating and ventilation workers and bricklayers. Uli Hoeneß served his sentence for tax fraud in Landsberg Prison.