Hohenasperg
Encyclopedia
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
near Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, of which it is administratively part, is an ancient fortress and prison overlooking the town of Asperg
Asperg
Asperg is a town in the district of Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated 15 km north of Stuttgart, and 4 km west of Ludwigsburg. The Hohenasperg fortress is situated in Asperg....
. It was an active fortification between 1535 and 1593.
Geography
Hohenasperg is located on a 90 meter high Late TriassicLate Triassic
The Late Triassic is in the geologic timescale the third and final of three epochs of the Triassic period. The corresponding series is known as the Upper Triassic. In the past it was sometimes called the Keuper, after a German lithostratigraphic group that has a roughly corresponding age...
mountain. The mountain is located in a hilly area, but because of its steep overhangs and wide plateau, it is visible from a long distance and offers an ideal location for a fortification
Fortification
Fortifications are military constructions and buildings designed for defence in warfare and military bases. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs...
.
History
Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave
The Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave is a richly-furnished Celtic burial chamber dating from 530 BC. An amateur archaeologist discovered it in 1977 near Hochdorf an der Enz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany...
or the Gravesite on the Katharinenlinde by Schwieberdingen
Schwieberdingen
Schwieberdingen is a town of about 10,700 inhabitants located in Southwest Germany. The city founded in 1304 is 10 km away from Ludwigsburg and 14 km away from Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg....
. The Kleinaspergle, which has been well-known since an excavation in 1839, is a burial mound lying 1000 meters south of Hohenasperg, which offers an exceptionally good view of the Hohenasperg.
Around 500BC, after the victory of the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
over the Alamanni
Alamanni
The Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic tribes located around the upper Rhine river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Roman Emperor Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211 to 217 and claimed thereby to be...
, Hohenasperg became the seat of the Frankish Lord and the Frankish Thing
Thing (assembly)
A thing was the governing assembly in Germanic and introduced into some Celtic societies, made up of the free people of the community and presided by lawspeakers, meeting in a place called a thingstead...
, the legislative assembly. At this time Hohenasperg was called "Ascicberg."
The first time Asperg was referred to was in the year 819, as the Shire Gozberg gave over his local ownership to the Kloster Weißenburg in Elsass. The location however achieved more importance in the 13th century with the founding of the independent city Hohenasperg, which lasted until 1909. Hohenasperg was officially chartered in 1510. In 1519, forces of the Swabian League
Swabian League
The Swabian League was an association of Imperial States - cities, prelates, principalities and knights - principally in the territory of the Early medieval stem duchy of Swabia, established in 1488 at the behest of Emperor Frederick III of Habsburg and supported as well by Bertold von...
under George von Frundsberg laid siege to Hohenasperg where Duke Ulrich of Württemberg
Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg
Herzog Ulrich von Württemberg succeeded his kinsman Eberhard II as Duke of Württemberg in 1498, being declared of age in 1503.-Early life:...
was holding himself.
On May 12, 1525 the leader of the countrymen, Jäcklein Rohrbach, was taken prisoner by the governor of Asperg. He was held there until the surrender of the Steward
Steward (office)
A steward is an official who is appointed by the legal ruling monarch to represent him or her in a country, and may have a mandate to govern it in his or her name; in the latter case, it roughly corresponds with the position of governor or deputy...
of Waldburg-Zeil
Waldburg-Zeil
Waldburg-Zeil was a County located in southeastern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, located around Zeil. Waldburg-Zeil was a partition of Waldburg-Wolfegg-Zeil...
. After 1535 the mountain was reinforced and expanded and turned into a fortress. The residents were resettled at the foot of the mountain.
Between 1634 and 1635, during the Thirty Years War, the Castle was defended against imperial troops by a garrison of Protestants from Württemberg, strengthened by Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
forces. The siege ended finally with the surrender to the imperial troops, who occupied the fortress until 1649.
After the Thirty Years War, the fortress was returned to the rule of Württemberg. In 1688 and 1693, the fortress was occupied by French troops, afterwords it lost its importance as a defensive fortress and became a garrison and a state prison. in 1718 Asperg was integrated into the district Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar. It is the largest and primary city of the Ludwigsburg urban district with about 87,000 inhabitants...
, but 17 years later became its own district. In 1781, Asperg was permanently incorporated into the district of Ludwigsburg.
Prisoners
The use of the fortress as a prison is responsible for the fact that Hohenasperg is jokingly called "Württemberg's highest mountain" as they say "it takes only five minutes to come to the top, but years to come back down again."During the Old Empire
In 1737, Joseph Süß OppenheimerJoseph Süß Oppenheimer
Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was a Jewish banker and financial planner for Duke Karl Alexander of Württemberg in Stuttgart...
, a Jew and the financial adviser to the Duke of Württemberg, was arrested and, in a dubious political trial, was sentenced to death. The poet C. F. D. Schubart
Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart
Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart , was a German poet, born at Obersontheim in Swabia.He entered the university of Erlangen in 1758 as a student of theology. He led a dissolute life, and after two years' stay was summoned home by his parents...
was held prisoner there between 1777 and 1787. Schubart's fate became the subject of Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
's Drama "The Robber." Schiller himself had escaped the confinement of the Hohenasperg by fleeing to Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
in the neighboring Electoral Palatinate.
In the 19th Century
During the rule of King Frederick of Württemberg, deserters, military prisoners, and separatists from the Radical Pietist group from RottenackerRottenacker
Rottenacker is a town in the district of Alb-Donau in Baden-Württemberg in Germany....
were kept in Fort Hohenasperg. When his son, king Wilhelm I became ruler in 1817, Corporal Punishment
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...
, such as running the gauntlet
Running the gauntlet
Running the gauntlet is a form of physical punishment wherein a captive is compelled to run between two rows—a gauntlet—of soldiers who strike him as he passes.-Etymology:...
, was abolished.
Further inmates in Fort Hohenasperg included the writer Berthold Auerbach
Berthold Auerbach
Berthold Auerbach was a German-Jewish poet and author. He was the founder of the German “tendency novel,” in which fiction is used as a means of influencing public opinion on social, political, moral, and religious questions.-Biography:Moses Baruch Auerbach was born in Nordstetten in the Kingdom...
, who was kept here between 1837 and 1838, Friedrich Kammerer (1833), the Doctor and Poet Theobald Kerner (1850–1851), the theologian Karl Hase
Karl Hase
Karl August von Hase , German Protestant theologian and Church historian, was born at Steinbach in Saxony. He studied at Leipzig and Erlangen, and in 1829 was called to Jena as professor of theology. He retired in 1883 and was made a baron...
, the Satirist Johannes Nefflen, the Poet Leo von Seckendorff, the Writer Theodor Griesinger and many more, most political dissidents, who, in general were held prisoner because of their anti monarchistic views.
In 1887 and 1888 a water tower
Water tower
A water tower or elevated water tower is a large elevated drinking water storage container constructed to hold a water supply at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system....
http://www.wasserturm-bw.de/ludwigsburg/bilder/hoaspergII1.jpg , http://www.wasserturm-bw.de/ludwigsburg/hohenasperg1.html, was constructed, which also holds police radio antennas.
Since 1894, a prison for the civil penal system has been located on Mount Hohenasperg. In the meantime the central hospital for the Baden-Württemberg penal system was placed on the Hohenasperg.
Early Years of the Nazi Times
During spring and summer of 1933, numerous members of the Hitlers opposition, the Social DemocratsSocial democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
and Communists
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, were imprisoned on Hohenasperg. Included in the prisoners was the Governor of Württemberg, Eugen Bolz
Eugen Bolz
Eugen Anton Bolz was a German politician and a member of the resistance to the Nazi régime.- Life :Born in Rottenburg am Neckar, Eugen Bolz was his parents' twelfth child. His father, Joseph Bolz, was a salesman. His mother was Maria Theresia Bolz . Bolz studied law in Tübingen and there became a...
, who was murdered during the Aktion Gitter in Berlin in 1945. At least 101 prisoners died in Hohenasperg in the hard penal system, and 20 of their names have been identified by the Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar. It is the largest and primary city of the Ludwigsburg urban district with about 87,000 inhabitants...
VVN, an antifascist organization. These names are remembered with a plaque at the Prisoner's Graveyard.
Transit Camp for Deportation to Concentration Camps (1940 - 1943)
Penal transportation
Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...
of Sinti
Sinti
Sinti or Sinta or Sinte is the name of a Romani or Gypsy population in Europe. Traditionally nomadic, today only a small percentage of the group remains unsettled...
and Roma out of southwest Germany, west of the Rhine River (Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
, Ingelheim
Ingelheim am Rhein
Ingelheim am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany on the Rhine’s west bank. The town calls itself the Rotweinstadt and since 1996 it has been Mainz-Bingen’s district seat....
, Worms
Worms, Germany
Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River. At the end of 2004, it had 85,829 inhabitants.Established by the Celts, who called it Borbetomagus, Worms today remains embattled with the cities Trier and Cologne over the title of "Oldest City in Germany." Worms is the only...
). The deportation was carried out with a special train, families were escorted through the village by foot, with police surveillance. In the Prison, examinations were conducted by the Ritter Research Institute, which decided the fate of the inmates. The institute was named for the "Scientific Racist," Robert Ritter
Robert Ritter
Robert Ritter, Ph. D. was a German psychologist and physician best known for his work related to the Roma people, that contributed to repressive measures against them....
. Further deportations were sent to the General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
, the area of Germany-occupied Poland. Nongypsies were sent back.
At least until the beginning of 1943, the prison was used as a way station for Sinti families who were being sent to concentration camps. Later deportations lead to the Gypsy Family Camp, the Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, where prisoners were murdered.
Present Day
The prison later became a civil prison for the detention of non-political prisoners and now also houses the central hospital of the prison service in Baden-Württemberg. In this capacity it held Peter Graf, father of the tennis-player Steffi GrafSteffi Graf
Steffi Graf is a former World No. 1 German tennis player.In total, Graf won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, second among male and female players only to Margaret Court's 24...
, in 1995. The serial killer Heinrich Pommerenke, died in Hohenasperg in the central hospital on December 27, 2008.
There is a small museum detailing the lives of some of the prison's notable inmates ("Hohenasperg. Ein deutsches Gefängnis").
External links
Patrick Nowak & Daniel Behrmann: Asberg - Auschwitz. Der NS-Völkermord an den Sinti und Roma am Beispiel der Pfalz. - Auschwitz.pdfLiterature
- M. Biffart: Geschichte der württembergischen Feste Hohenasperg und ihrer merkwürdigen Gefangenen. Stuttgart, 1858
- Theodor Bolay: Der Hohenasperg - Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Bietigheim, 1972
- Horst Brandstätter: Asperg - Ein deutsches Gefängnis, Berlin: Wagenbachs Taschenbücherei 1978. ISBN 3-8031-2045-4
- Erwin Haas: Die sieben württembergischen Landesfestungen Hohenasperg, Hohenneufen, Hohentübingen, Hohenurach, Hohentwiel, Kirchheim/Teck, Schorndorf. Reutlingen, 1996
- Paul Sauer: Der Hohenasperg - Fürstensitz, Höhenburg, Bollwerk der Landesverteidigung. Leinfelden-Echterdingen, 2004. ISBN 3-87181-009-6
- Theodor Schön: Die Staatsgefangenen auf Hohenasperg. Stuttgart, 1899