Detail

Due to their surviving building structure and their historical links, the Gestapokeller and Augustaschacht Memorials form a unique ensemble in the German memorial landscape.

The Gestapokeller (“Gestapo Cellar”) Memorial is located in the former Gestapo cells in the cellars of the west wing of the Osnabrück Palace. The same building also housed the Osnabrück Gestapo headquarters. It was from here that the Gestapo surveilled the population of the Osnabrück region. During the war, foreigners who were deported to Germany for forced labour were particularly targeted by the Gestapo. Persecuted people were often subjected to violence by the Gestapo in the cells and during interrogations. The Gestapo often punished foreign forced labourers in their Ohrbeck “work education camp” (AEL Ohrbeck) nine kilometres away in Hasbergen. This building, known as the Augustaschacht, has survived and today houses the Augustaschacht Memorial.

Built in 1874 as part of the Klöckner Georgsmarienhütte steelworks, the Augustaschacht was originally home to a large steam-driven pump and, after conversion work by the company during the Second World War, was used as a prisoner of war camp and later for Soviet civilian forced labourers. From 1944, the Osnabrück Gestapo set up AEL Ohrbeck in the building. People who tried to escape forced labour, or who were accused of not working hard enough, were punished with imprisonment in the “work education camp”. Prisoners were treated so badly during their eight-week detention that they were expected to perform forced labour without resistance and serve as a deterrent to others. Violence by the guards, deliberate malnutrition and lack of medical care repeatedly led to the deaths of prisoners.

The two memorials and their exhibitions, which opened in 2020, deal with the subject of police violence and forced labour. The Gestapokeller Memorial focuses on the power and personnel of the Osnabrück Gestapo and its actions against persecuted people, especially foreign forced labourers. The Augustaschacht Memorial focuses on the Ohrbeck work education camp and the foreign forced labourers imprisoned there.

The Gestapokeller and Augustaschacht Memorials offer guided tours and site-specific workshops lasting several hours on the topics of police violence and forced labour, which aim to convey democratic values through biographical approaches and self-reflection. The educational programme is continuously being expanded. There are group-specific workshops for professional groups, such as police officers, as well as content for out-of-school groups, such as groups of confirmands. The memorials also offer special educational projects with an international focus in cooperation with partner organisations.

Other workshops are planned for the future, looking at issues such as antisemitism and antiziganism in their regional context.