Köpenick Blood Week of June 1933

The courthouse prison in the Berlin Köpenick district is no longer in service. Today it is place of remembrance .

The courthouse prison was constructed in 1901 and served as a local prison for prisoners convicted for minor crimes. The prison is today remembered because of the events around the 21st of June 1933.

The results of the elections to the German Reichstag in March 1933 had shown, that in Köpenick the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was strong, collecting 20,3 % of the votes. The Communist Party gained 23,6%. The Nazis gained 38,3 %. Following the elections the SA of the NSDAP had been cracking down harsh on the leaders of the opposition parties as well as jewish citizens, beating them up in public. This was possible, as the SA, even though a party organization, was authorized to arrest people and set up prisons.

On June 21, 1933, the SA appropriated the courthouse prison in Berlin’s Köpenick district and set up its central prison and torture site there. In the days that followed, members of the SA, assisted by SS and Gestapo groups, haphazardly arrested several hundred people from Berlin-Köpenick and neighbouring districts. They were accused of political activities against the new leadership. Many of the prisoners were brought to hastily set up SA »storm premises« and to the former courthouse prison. Members of the SA interrogated and tortured men and women in the former chapel of the courthouse prison. 23 of them did not survive the tortures.

After the war the East German Government collected evidence and put the responsible members of the SA involved in the Bloodweek of June 1933 on trial in 1947 and 1950. Most of them were convicted, some received death penalty. The trials documented the events of June 1933 on 350 pages.
At the same time, the GDR used the prison for juvenile deliquents until 1954 and afterwards until 1960 as a military prison. I was told by the organisation who organized to photo tour that people who try to flee the GDR were detained here while waiting for their trial.

In 1964 the state TV of GDR used the prison for commercial purposes. In May 1980, the first memorial to the victims of the »Köpenick Week of Blood« was set up in a basement cell of the former prison. It was significantly extended in September 1987, and presented to the public as a »showcase of the tradition of anti-fascist struggle in Berlin-Köpenick 1933-1945«. Since June 1993, the »Köpenick Week of Blood June 1933« Memorial hat been located here. It is administered by the district authority of Treptow-Köpenick and is subordinate to the Treptow-Köpenick museum of local history department, which is aided by a support association.

Walking through the prison gives an impression of the harsh conditions the prisoners had to endure. A photo team was taking a shoot out in the prison with a “muscle man”. Whatever the purpose was I found this — to put in mild words — very insensitive to the horrors which occurred at this prison during the Nazi-Regime. I recommend a visit to this site of remembrance.