Munich-Stadelheim Prison

The prison located in Munich-Giesing (Stadelheimer Str. 12) was built from 1892 to 1901 and still serves as a correctional facility today. During World War I, Ernst Pöhner became its Director. He later became Chief of the Munich Police from 1919 until 1921 and actively promoted the rise of the nascent Nazi Party. After the suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic, hundreds of activists were jailed here before their sentencing by summary courts and people’s courts. Some of them, including Gustav Landauer were murdered in the courtyard of the prison without a ruling. Eugen Leviné, the leader of the communist soviet government was executed here.

After the Nazis seized power, Stadelheim Prison overfilled so quickly with political opponents under so-called ‘protective custody’ that new barracks had to be built. The justice system was an important component of the Nazi terrorization apparatus, and its crackdown on political dissidents, ‘habitual offenders’, and those deemed ‘foreign to the community’ ensured that the number of prisoners remained consistently high. In connection with the murders of June 30, 1934, members of the SS shot several Storm Battalion (SA) leaders imprisoned in Stadelheim, including Ernst Röhm and August Schneidhuber, Chief of the Munich Police.

However, Stadelheim Prison primarily served all Bavarian jurisdictions and even some jurisdictions outside of Bavaria as a central place of execution: 1,118 people were executed here during Nazi rule, from 1936 generally by means of the guillotine housed in a wing of the prison. Today, its most known victims are the siblings Sophie and Hans Scholl. The overwhelming number of executions took place between the years 1942 and 1944. Death sentences were issued by the Nazi courts for resistance against the regime, but also due to ’undermining military morale’, and minor offenses such as theft. In January 1943, according to an agreement between Minister of Justice Thierack and Heinrich Himmler, the prison administration turned over imprisoned Jews, Sinti/Sintize and Roma/Romnja, Poles, and forced laborers from the Soviet Union to the Gestapo, which meant the death penalty for many of them.