#Museum
Memorial Site Torgau
The Torgau Memorial Site (formerly the Torgau Documentation and Information Centre (DIZ)) is a historical learning site of the Saxon Memorials Foundation. It deals with Nazi military justice during the Second World War as an instrument for the brutal persecution of resistance and war weariness among soldiers and the civilian population. Torgau played a central role in this military justice. In addition, the Torgau memorial site documents the history of the prisoners in the Soviet special camps in Torgau after 1945 and in the GDR (German Democratic Republic) prison with a youth detention centre. Civil courage and human rights, independence of the judiciary and human dignity in the penal system - these topics are at the centre of the work of the Torgau Memorial Site.
With the Reich Court Martial and two large military prisons, Torgau was the most important centre of military justice during the Second World War. Among the tens of thousands of Wehrmacht prisoners in Torgau were German soldiers, many of them sentenced as deserters. Members of the resistance in Germany and Europe were also among the prisoners. Hundreds of convicts were executed, including directly in Torgau.
The meeting of American and Soviet soldiers on the Elbe on 25 April 1945 put an end to the injustice of military justice in Torgau during the Second World War. After 1945, two Soviet occupation internment camps were set up in Torgau one after the other. One of the two was a collection camp from which German and Soviet convicts were deported to the penal and labour camps in the Soviet Union (Gulag). Finally, in 1950, the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, German: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) dictatorship set up a prison for men in Fort Zinna. There was also a youth prison for 25 years.
In Torgau's Hartenfels Castle, the Torgau Memorial tells the story of how military justice and the penal system were used during National Socialism, the Soviet occupation and the communist dictatorship in East Germany to silence political opponents and establish the dictatorship by force. The exhibition ‘Courage and Powerlessness’ provides information in particular about the fates of those persecuted and imprisoned in prisons and camps in Torgau during the Second World War and after 1945. It shows the conditions of imprisonment, sheds light on the perpetrators and spans the arc to the present day. The exhibition includes moving interviews with former prisoners and family members, impressive objects, media stations, photos and documents.
The Torgau Memorial Centre offers guided tours of the exhibition and Fort Zinna as well as project days and training courses. At Fort Zinna, the most important historical place of detention in Torgau, a memorial by the Saxon Memorials Foundation commemorates those who were persecuted.
Schloßstraße 27, Torgau, Germany
Hartenfels Castle, Wing B, Tel. +49 3421 713468, E-mail: erinnerungsort.torgau@stsg.de