NS Documentation Center

Red Baron dedicates this blog to a friend who indefatigably digs into Freiburg's Nazi past. The city owes him several commemorative plaques - he partly financed himself - located at sites of shame. For example, a photo of the plaque put up on his persisting demand inside the Basler Hof, a historical building on Freiburg's Kaiser-Joseph-Straße.

Built in 1496 by Emperor Maximilian's treasurer Konrad Stürtzel, the building housed Basel's cathedral chapter from 1587 to 1678 when they fled their city due to the turmoils caused by the Reformation. Later the Habsburg governors of the Vorlande (forelands, i.e., far away from Vienna) resided in the Basler Hof until, in 1806, the administration of the Grand Duchy of Baden took over and moved into the premises. As its last resort, Baden's revolutionary government worked in the building from June 24 to July 7, 1849.

Stürtzel's city palace continued to accommodate governmental institutions. From 1933 to 1941, the Gestapo (Nazi Secret State Police) carried out inhumane acts of mistreatment and torture in the basement. While Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) remind passing people outside the building, the commemorative plaque informs the visitor inside about the Nazi past.

Basler Hof in the 1930s (©Stadtarchiv)

The Basler Hof following the disastrous air raid on November 27, 1944 (©Stadtarchiv)

The Basler Hof rebuilt

My friend has been struggling to create a Nazi documentation center in Freiburg for a long time. I will never forget when a couple of years ago, my friend approached Mayor Salomon at a New Year's reception for our part of town, asking him to support such a center. The mayor's answer was abrupt, "I have no money."

My friend never gives up. Constant dripping wears the stone, and the exhibition Nationalsozialismus (NS) in Freiburg became a tremendous popular success (Red Baron reported) and turned the tide. Following a lecture by my friend explaining his ideas for an NS documentation center, all parties presented at the municipal council eventually sent a letter to Mayor Salomon writing, "We know about the great challenge for a documentation center to be up to its mission, i.e., acquainting future generations with Freiburg's NS past." The mayor said, "The municipal council gave us a mandate, and we will start working on some ideas we had already developed. "

Note: The other "we," the citizens of Freiburg, shall elect a new mayor or re-elect the old one on April 22, 2018. Let's face it, Dr. Salomon is starting his election campaign early.

Money shall be earmarked for the center in the municipal budget of 2018/19. As for the future site, some people proposed the basement of the Basler Hof; others regard the former Gestapo basement used for torturing people as inappropriate for the future NS documentation center.

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