Green Energy
A commemorative plaque at today's Werdau high school says:
In memoriam of the 19 young people who were sentenced by the GDR-judiciary on October 3, 1951 to altogether 130 years of Zuchthaus*.
In self-made flyers they stood up for Germany's unity and protested against Stalinist terror.
*i.e. an aggravated prison sentence.
The Werdauer Oberschülerprozess, the case of the high school students from Werdau, was a court trial of 19 young people, most of them students at the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Oberschule in Werdau, a small town in West Saxony, in 1951. They were accused of "boycott-baiting of democratic institutions and organisations", Boykotthetze gegen demokratische Einrichtungen und Organisationen.
The first two arrests were made in the night of Friday, May 18, 1951. Many chairs remained empty in Werdau high school on Monday.
Almost half a year, the boys and girls waited for their trial, isolated from each other and without any communication with their parents. Some of them were supposed to pass their final secondary-school examinations to go to university during that time. Instead, they were subjected to one of the most memorable political trials in the former GDR.
Not long ago, Sovjet military tribunals had made short work of comparable cases. Roughly 1,200 high school students are said to have been trialled in Berlin, Mittweida, Güstrow, Jüterbog, Schwerin, Weimar, Wittenberge and other places.
In Altenburg, two students and two teachers were sentenced to death and executed. They had interfered with a radio transmission of President Wilhelm Pieck's speech to celebrate Stalin's birthday. In Werder, Brandenburg, 20 young people were trialled. 9 death sentences were imposed, including two against women, eight were executed. Some of the other convicts ended up in Sovjet camps.
On October 3, 1951 the 19 students were sentenced to long-term Zuchthaus imprisonment by the Landgericht Zwickau. Only "politically reliable" people were allowed to attend. The students' parents and family were excluded, newspaper reports were not allowed. When the (West Berlin) radio station covered the trial, Werdau was cut off the electricity network. Parents who tried to see their children were beaten out of the court building.
The names of the convicts were:
There had never been a fair chance of defense, however, the young people remained unfaltering. 18-year-old Joachim Gäbler closed his plea, saying: "I am proud to have fought for freedom."
They served up to five and a half years of their sentences, were sharing cells with murderers and sex offenders and were deployed to clean the excrement buckets. However, they were comparatively lucky. Without the XX. party convention of the Sovjet Communists and Chruschtschow's reckoning with Stalinism in 1956, they wouldn't have been released so relatively soon.
Fifteen of the students left the GDR after the last one of their fellow convicts was released so as not to compromise him. In West Germany they were recognised as political prisoners.
Was justice done after re-unification?
Read the entire article at Roncesvalles.
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Green Energy
Happy Reunification Day Germany!
A commemorative plaque at today's Werdau high school says:In memoriam of the 19 young people who were sentenced by the GDR-judiciary on October 3, 1951 to altogether 130 years of Zuchthaus*.
In self-made flyers they stood up for Germany's unity and protested against Stalinist terror.
*i.e. an aggravated prison sentence.
The Werdauer Oberschülerprozess, the case of the high school students from Werdau, was a court trial of 19 young people, most of them students at the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Oberschule in Werdau, a small town in West Saxony, in 1951. They were accused of "boycott-baiting of democratic institutions and organisations", Boykotthetze gegen demokratische Einrichtungen und Organisationen.
The first two arrests were made in the night of Friday, May 18, 1951. Many chairs remained empty in Werdau high school on Monday.
Almost half a year, the boys and girls waited for their trial, isolated from each other and without any communication with their parents. Some of them were supposed to pass their final secondary-school examinations to go to university during that time. Instead, they were subjected to one of the most memorable political trials in the former GDR.
Not long ago, Sovjet military tribunals had made short work of comparable cases. Roughly 1,200 high school students are said to have been trialled in Berlin, Mittweida, Güstrow, Jüterbog, Schwerin, Weimar, Wittenberge and other places.
In Altenburg, two students and two teachers were sentenced to death and executed. They had interfered with a radio transmission of President Wilhelm Pieck's speech to celebrate Stalin's birthday. In Werder, Brandenburg, 20 young people were trialled. 9 death sentences were imposed, including two against women, eight were executed. Some of the other convicts ended up in Sovjet camps.
On October 3, 1951 the 19 students were sentenced to long-term Zuchthaus imprisonment by the Landgericht Zwickau. Only "politically reliable" people were allowed to attend. The students' parents and family were excluded, newspaper reports were not allowed. When the (West Berlin) radio station covered the trial, Werdau was cut off the electricity network. Parents who tried to see their children were beaten out of the court building.
The names of the convicts were:
| Name | Age | Sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Joachim Gäbler | 18 Years | 15 Years |
| Karl-Heinz Eckardt | 16 Years | 14 Years |
| Gerhard Schneider | 19 Years | 13 Years |
| Sigrid Roth | 17 Years | 12 Years |
| Theobald Körner | 18 Years | 10 Years |
| Heinz Rasch | 19 Years | 10 Years |
| Achim Beyer | 19 Years | 8 Years |
| Günter Fritzsche | 17 Years | 7 Years |
| Gerhard Büttner | 17 Years | 6 Years |
| Hermann Krauß | 18 Years | 6 Years |
| Gottfried Karg | 19 Years | 5 Years |
| Siegfried Müller | 19 Years | 5 Years |
| Walter Daßler | 31 Years | 5 Years |
| Manfred Stets | 24 Years | 3 Years |
| Günther Kahler | 19 Years | 3 Years |
| Gudrun Pleier | 18 Years | 2 Years |
| Edgar Göldner | 17 Years | 2 Years |
| Wolfram Schürer | 18 Years | 2 Years |
| Anneliese Stets | 16 Years | 2.5 Years |
There had never been a fair chance of defense, however, the young people remained unfaltering. 18-year-old Joachim Gäbler closed his plea, saying: "I am proud to have fought for freedom."
They served up to five and a half years of their sentences, were sharing cells with murderers and sex offenders and were deployed to clean the excrement buckets. However, they were comparatively lucky. Without the XX. party convention of the Sovjet Communists and Chruschtschow's reckoning with Stalinism in 1956, they wouldn't have been released so relatively soon.
Fifteen of the students left the GDR after the last one of their fellow convicts was released so as not to compromise him. In West Germany they were recognised as political prisoners.
Was justice done after re-unification?
Read the entire article at Roncesvalles.
- What Will "america" Look Like?
We have posted on the topic a lot, I know. Much of the time, we've posted with anger and hyperbole. Still, I ask the questions below in all seriousness. 1. What will "America" look like in one year? 2. In two years? 3. In four years? 4. In ten years?...
- Islam Kills
From The Religion of Peace: Put the Numbers in Perspective More people are killed by Islamists each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined. Islamic terrorists murder more people every day than the Ku Klux Klan has in the last...
- Saudi Court Sentences Rape Victim To 90 Lashes
(Jpost) A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married. The sentence was passed at the end of a trial in which the al- Qateef high criminal court convicted...
- Where Are We?
Five years later american politics are fractured, divisive and partisan. Five years later world views are that america is more of a threat to 'peace' than anyone else? Five years later Bin Laden is the prime beneficiary of Pakistan's surrender...
- Verdicts In Danish 'honour'killing Case
Today the sentences were given in danish 'honour'-killing case, where the family killed their daughter and seriously injured her self-chosen husband. The father, who planned the killing got life in prison. Her brother - the killer got 16 years....