Krems Regional Court - Krems macht Geschichte

Introduction

KremsMachtGeschichte invites you to learn about and engage with the history of National Socialism in Krems. As you move through the city you connect various historical sites with each other. A simple stroll creates a personal narrative that brings the places, themes and histories into the present and enables you to keep the past alive in your critical memory.

What does it mean to “make history”? In 1938 Krems became the capital of the Gau, or Nazi administrative district, of “Lower Danube”. This was a time when Krems was making history, but history of a kind many would like to forget today. Today, when we remember, when we name perpetrators and tell the stories of victims, when we make resistance visible and point out continuities, we’re participating in the writing of history in our society. History isn’t just written in schoolbooks and by historians and at universities; it’s continually being produced by our everyday actions. History happens in the here and now.

24 historical sites, marked by green pennants, form the stations of the KremsMachtGeschichte tours. Every site stands for a different event that has something to tell us about destruction, persecution and crime, as well as about responsibility, solidarity and resistance. Some roads lead to memorials that glorify the past and that today need some historical correction. Prominent positions in the cityscape are taken up by the court and the prison, places where Nazi violence was once inflicted but that today contribute to the functioning of democracy. Many sites of past events are unrecognisable as such today; only through your imagination can they come back to life.

The information about each place can be called up with any smartphone by using the QR codes on the pennants. Texts and images can also be found in the catalogue which is displayed at various places in the city. By taking a walk through the city, you’re already making some history. En route from site to site, the historical picture gradually becomes more intricate. Common themes emerge, each of which groups the sites in a new way and connects them with our contemporary world. The themes include “on Jewish life”, “on resistance”, “on persecution and punishment” and “on remembering”. The short texts under these titles give some initial ideas that you can question and add your own stories to on the empty pages of the catalogue.

In February 1928 the Social Democrat National Council member of parliament Adolf Laser called for the construction of an official building for the Krems District Court. His intention was for the building to house not just the District Court and the Borough Court but also a prison, gendarmerie, tax office and the surveyor’s office. The architect commissioned for the project, Franz Sturm, would later rise through the Nazi hierarchy and become “Gau office leader” for Lower Danube. The designated construction site was the former parade ground in front of the Steiner Gate, an area of 10,000 square metres. The building – at the time the tallest in Austria – was completed in October 1933. One special feature was the murals by Leopold Schmid, Herbert Dimmel and Gustav Steinschorn in the foyer in front of the Jury Court hall and in the hall itself. In 1938 these were condemned as “degenerate art” and painted over. Almost 50 years later, Leopold Schmid uncovered and restored his own painting.

After the February Uprising of 1934, in which leftist groups fought the Austrofascist regime, the cells were filled with social democrats and communists. Over the following years, up to 200 prisoners would be incarcerated here. They came from across the whole spectrum of political opposition to Nazism: revolutionary socialists, communists and even monarchists. Around half of the prisoners were women. Some were set to work in the prison’s workshops: the sewing, shoemaking, knitting and joinery workshops and the laundry. Most of the prisoners worked in various businesses in the city.