Plötzensee memorial

Plötzensee memorial, Berlin - darkometer rating : 3 - The memorial at the main site in Berlin for executions of (mainly) political prisoners and resistance fighters during the Nazi era in Germany 1933 to 1945, next to a still working prison. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: The prison complex at Berlin Plötzensee, then on the edge of the city, was built in the second half of the 19th century. It had already sporadically served as an execution site too, with 36 convicted murderers executed here in total up to 1932. After the Nazis ' rise to power, the place entered an altogether different league. The prison now served as a main detention centre for political prisoners that the Nazis saw as enemies. Execution numbers increased (the method employed was first "by axe", as in the pre-Nazi period, then, from 1936, on Hitler 's orders, by guillotine), but it wasn't until the beginning of WWII that the number of killings went through the roof. Now not only Germans and Austrians who were found to be political enemies of the Nazis but also prisoners from the newly occupied countries (especially from the Czech Republic , Poland and France ), including deported forced labourers, were interned here – and living conditions deteriorated. The number of executions escalated too, and no more than in the year of 1943, in which 1180 of the total of nearly 3000 executions took place. The worst killing spree occurred in the "Bloody Nights of Plötzensee" between 7 and 12 September, when ca. 250 inmates were murdered, some of whom hadn't even been sentenced yet. Just before the prison had been partly damaged in an Allied bombing raid – which probably triggered the almost panicked acceleration of the killings.