New book sheds light on the Nazi prison system using the example of Stein prison

🧭 During the Nazi era, the Stein an der Donau prison was the largest penal institution in the former ‘Ostmark’. The book provides insights into the prison population for the first time and also shows the effects of the further radicalisation of German justice at the beginning of the Second World War on the penal system and the use of prisoners as a labour force. A merciless sentencing practice, even for minor offences, ensured a constant ‘influx’ into the prison system, the distinction between which and the SS concentration camp system increasingly crumbled.

🧭 The work also deals with the ‘massacre at Stein prison’ and the murder of prisoners in the Krems an der Donau area in April 1945. Up to 500 inmates lost their lives on the threshold of freedom. The question of how these crimes were dealt with in the Second Republic, both by the judiciary and by society in the form of remembrance, complements this study of a long-repressed chapter of recent history.

 

Tod an der Schwelle zur Freiheit
Das Zuchthaus Stein an der Donau während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus und die Ermordung von Häftlingen im April 1945

by Karl Reder

Only available in German language version.
Hardcover edition: 544 pages with numerous illustrations
CLIO Verlag, Graz 2024
ISBN: 978-3-903425-20-0

Available now for €35 plus free shipping (within Austria). Can be ordered directly from the publisher by email (verlag@clio-graz.net) or from bookstores.