Plötzensee is a Lake Clearwater, Ontario, Canada A lake is a large body of water, usually fresh water, surrounded by land. ...lake in Berlin ( pronounced: , German ) is the capital of Germany and its largest city, with 3,387,404 inhabitants (as of September 2004); down from 4. ...Berlin with an area of 7.7 ha and a depth of 5.5 m. It is to be found in the Rehberge public park in the former A borough is a political division originally used in England. ...borough of Wedding (German der Wedding) is a district in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany and was a separate borough in northwestern Berlin until it was fused with Tiergarten and Mitte in 2001. ...Wedding (now part of Berlin_Mitte).

The Lake

Plötzensee is named after the Binomial name Rutilus rutilus The Roach (Rutilus rutilus, family Cyprinidae) is a freshwater and brackish water fish native to most of Europe and western Asia. ...roach, Plötze being one name for this Fish might refer to: Fish _ vertebrates with gills which live in water Fish (sometimes FISH) _ the British code_word for World War II German stream cipher teleprinter secure communications devices The FISH (FIbonacci SHrinking) stream cipher published in 1993 Fish _ the former lead singer of progressive rock band Marillion fluorescent...fish in German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ...German. The lake teems with roach. The lake is part of a chain of lakes stretching from the northeast to the River Spree in Berlin at the eastern harbour (Osthafen) with the Badeschiff bath The Spree (Slavic Špreva) is a river in Saxony, Brandenburg and Berlin, Germany. ...Spree valley, formed in the last Variations in CO2, temperature and dust from the Vostok ice core over the last 400 000 years For the animated movie, see Ice Age (movie). ...ice age. Until Events Albanians, under Turks John Hunyadi defeats Turks at the Battle of Nis Vlad II Dracul begins his second term as ruler of Wallachia, succeeding Basarab II. Births May 31 _ Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry VII of England) December 5 _ Pope Julius II Marriages Deaths August 16 _ Ashikaga Yoshikatsu, Ashikaga...1443 the St. Marien This article is about an abbey as a religious building. ...convent in Spandau is the westernmost borough (Bezirk) of Berlin, situated at the confluence of the Havel and Spree rivers and along the western bank of the Havel. ...Spandau had the rights to the lake, but these were eventually assumed by the The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, 1701_1918 The word Prussia ( German: Preußen or Preussen, Polish: Prusy, Lithuanian: Prūsai, Latin: Borussia) has had various (often contradictory) meanings: The land of the Baltic Prussians (in what is now parts of southern Lithuania, the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia and...Prussian For the U.S. government securities, see Treasury security A treasury is the part of a government which manages all money and revenue. ...treasury. In Events March 4 _ James Monroe succeeds James Madison as the President of the United States of America April – Earthquake in Palermo, Italy April 3 – Princess Caraboo appears in Almondsbury in Gloucestershire, England May _ The General Convention of the Episcopal Church founded General Theological Seminary while meeting in New York City. ...1817, the City of Berlin bought the lake and leased the rights to the shoreline and fishing.

Over the years, there have been an army sporting ground, a 50 meter indoor swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, or wading pool is an artificially enclosed body of water intended for recreational or competitive swimming, or for other bathing activities that do not involve swimming, i. ...swimming pool, a man_made beach, an For the river named Inn, check Inn River Inns are establishments where travellers can procure food, drink, and lodging. ...inn, and conversion into a public park, but Plötzensee is probably best known for its old A prison is a place in which people are confined and deprived of a range of liberties. ...prison, a notorious place built in the Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801_1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...19th century which reached its height of notoriety in the time of the Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...Third Reich.

Plötzensee Prison

Aerial view of Plötzensee Prison. The low building at the left is the execution shed.

The prison, an old Prussian institution built between 1869 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...1869 and 1879 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...1879, lay near the lake, but in the neighbouring borough of Charlottenburg is an area in Berlin, formerly a borough now part of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. ...Charlottenburg. During Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ...Hitler's time in power from 1933 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...1933 to 1945 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...1945, more than 2,500 people met their ends at Plötzensee Prison. Among them were members of the Red Orchestra was a Soviet espionage ring in Nazi_occupied Europe during the first years of World War II. The name reputedly came from their German enemies; German counter_intelligence learned Moscow NKVD center referred to the radio transmitters of their spies as music boxes and called their agents musicians...Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle), members of the The Kreisau Circle (German: Kreisauer Kreis) was the name the Gestapo gave to a group of Germans centering around the Kreisau estate of Helmuth James Graf von Moltke in order to envision an alternative to Nazism. ...Kreisau Circle (those accused of The July 20 Plot was a failed coup détat which involved an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. ...the plot against Hitler's life on July 20 is the 201st day (202nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 164 days remaining. ...20 July 1944 was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...1944 at the One of larger bunkers in Wolfsschanze complex. ...Wolf's Lair), Czechoslovakia ( Czech: Československo, Slovak: Česko_Slovensko/before 1990 Československo) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1992 (except for the World War II period). ...Czechoslovakian resistance fighters, and various others deemed by the Volksgerichtshof ("People's Court") to be enemies of the state. To memorialize the dead, Plötzensee Prison has been turned into a memorial. It was dedicated on September 14 is the 257th day of the year (258th in leap years). ...14 September 1952 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...1952.

The prison itself is gone now. Indeed, much of it was heavily damaged in Strategic bombing is a military strategem used in a total war style campaign that attempts to destroy the economic ability of a nation_state to wage war. ...air raids during the Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km (60,000 ft) into the air. ...Second World War. All that remains now is the execution shed, a small brick building with two rooms, where the victims were either Hanging to Music. ...hanged or Beheading. ...beheaded. Onto this has been built a memorial wall "To the Victims of Hitler's Dictatorship of the Years 1933_1945".

On the nights from September 7 is the 250th day of the year (251st in leap years). ...7 to September 12 is the 255th day of the year (256th in leap years). ...12 September 1943 is a common year starting on Friday. ...1943, a series of mass executions took place, during which, owing to inevitable mistakes that occurred by the matter being handled not by printed documents but by telephone calls, several inmates whose clemency appeals were still pending were put to death along with the others. The Evangelical chaplain, Harald Poelchau, had this to say about that time:

"As darkness fell on September 7, the mass murders began. The night was cold. Every now and then, the darkness was lit up by exploding bombs. The searchlight beams danced across the sky. The men were assembled in several columns one behind the other. They stood there, at first uncertain about what was going to happen to them. Then they realized. Eight men at a time were called by name and led away. Those remaining hardly moved at all. Only an occasional whisper between my Catholic colleague and myself [...] Once the hangmen interrupted their work because bombs were thundering down nearby. The five rows of eight men already lined up had to be confined to their cells again for a while. Then the murdering continued. All these men were hanged. [...] The executions had to be carried out by candlelight because the electric light had failed. It was only in the early morning at about eight o'clock that the exhausted hangmen paused in their work, only to continue with renewed strength in the evening."

Part of the reason for these mass executions was that a few days earlier, Plötzensee Prison had been heavily damaged in an Allied air raid on Berlin, and a few prisoners had actually escaped (but been caught again soon afterwards). The general idea was to carry out death penalties before the condemned could escape.

Prominent Victims

The death room at Plötzensee - The guillotine can be seen in the foreground, and the gallows in the background.

• Cato Bontjes van Beek
• Liane Berkowitz
• Eugen Bolz
• Eva-Maria Buch
• Hans Coppi
• Hilde Coppi
• Alfred Delp was born on September 15, 1907 in Mannheim in Germany. ...Alfred Delp
• Julius Fučík (February 23, 1903 _ September 8, 1943) was a Czechoslovakian journalist, Czech communist party leader, and a leader in the forefront of the anti_Nazi resistance. ...Julius Fučík
• Carl Friedrich Goerdeler Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (July 31, 1884 - February 2, 1945) was a conservative German politician and opponent of the Nazi regime. ...Carl Friedrich Goerdeler
• Arvid Harnack
• Ulrich von Hassell
• Albert Hensel
• Liselotte Herrmann
• Caesar von Hofacker
• Helmuth Hübener (youngest victim, only 17 years old)
• Johanna Kirchner
• Adam Kuckhoff
• Julius Leber
• Wilhelm Leuschner
• Helmuth James Graf von Moltke (1907-1945). ...Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
• Johannes Popitz
• Adolf Reichwein
• Harro Schulze-Boysen
• Libertas Schulze-Boysen
• Elisabeth Schumacher
• Robert Stamm
• Maria Terwiel
• Adam von Trott zu Solz (born August 9, 1909 in Potsdam, Germany - died August 26, 1944 in Berlin, Germany) was a lawyer and diplomat who opposed the Nazi regime. ...Adam von Trott zu Solz
• Erwin von Witzleben (December 4, 1881 - August 8, 1944) was a German Generalfeldmarschall. ...Erwin von Witzleben

Literature

• Brigitte Oleschinski: Gedenkstätte Plötzensee. Berlin: Gedenkstätte Dt. Widerstand, 1997 (3. Auflage), ISBN 3926082054

Weblink

• Gedenkstätte Plötzensee (http://www.gedenkstaette-ploetzensee.de/)