Can prisons be beautiful? It is the Rennelberg. The brown-red bricks of the stepped gables radiate warmth against the gray winter sky. Glazed black ornaments adorn the front of the multi-story brick building, from which the wings branch off to the north and south.
We have been here since May 2024 no more prisoners were housedbut there is still safety wire hanging everywhere. The hands of the clock above the white barred windows stand still at just after nine. Almost one and a half kilometers from Braunschweig city center, the district and remand prison has had space for almost 150 inmates since it was opened in 1885. At the end of the Second World War, 900 men and women were imprisoned, according to a stele at the entrance.
The man from the Lower Saxony property management company says we have double-digit interest in the property as we enter the gatehouse. The state wants to sell the Rennelberg for 3.6 million euros.
Arrested by the Nazis without a verdict
“The Rennelberg is a place of resistance, opposition and the enforcement of the Nazi regime,” says historian Martina Staats. It leads through the basement to the first floor of the south wing. “Here were the people who were arrested in 33, 34, 35 without a verdict.” Cell doors branch off a long corridor to the right and left, made of wood, a hand’s breadth thick. Inside, a narrow window, too high up to see out. The cistern and water pipe for the toilet and sink are located outside the cell. Behind one of the pipes is a yellowed copy of Jostein Gaarder’s “Through a mirror, in a dark word“.
The peculiarity
A deliberately beautifully designed prison that shows Braunschweig’s history as if under a magnifying glass: built on the site of a 13th century monastery, next to the final resting place of soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars, the place where the Nazis crushed opposition. And a place where the need for housing and the need for memory happen at the same time.
The target group
History buffs, real estate agents, people looking for an apartment.
Obstacles on the way
The several meter high wall made of sturdy bricks around the site, security wire that has not yet been removed and later probably high prices per square meter.
“The entire opposition was eliminated here,” says Staats. Ernst Böhme, SPD politician and Braunschweig’s mayor until 1933, was imprisoned in Rennelberg. Party colleague and newspaper editor Otto Thielemann waited nine months for his indictment and ultimately spent three years here. Otto Grotewohl, later the first Prime Minister of the GDR, was imprisoned in Rennelberg. Just like the SPD politician and Prime Minister of the Free State of Braunschweig Heinrich Jasper. After torture and mistreatment in Rennelberg, he finally died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
“Due to the monument protection, it may not be so easy for prospective buyers to bear the future costs,” says the man from the property management. The city wants to integrate the Rennelberg into the surrounding residential area. The extent to which apartments can be built in the existing buildings can only be determined after a detailed examination, according to the short exposé.
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Although the city is aiming to convert it into a residential area, at the same time a proposal from the SPD parliamentary group to set up a memorial site passed unanimously through the council. The administration informs that a concept for subsequent use should take appropriate account of the historical significance of the place. But the man from property management is skeptical. “Obliging someone to set up something like that will probably be difficult under private law.”
Expressions of interest and usage concepts can still be submitted to the state until the end of February. First the country makes a preselection, then the city. The Rennelberg will then be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
For preservation as a place of remembrance
“We were here with around 100 relatives of those imprisoned during the Nazi era. I still get a lot of letters,” says Martina Staats. We enter the gallery in the north wing. “You wouldn’t understand if this wasn’t preserved.” It’s about making the fight for democracy and freedom visible. If there was a place of remembrance, “then you can make as much profit as possible from the outdoor area.”
A door in the top row of the gallery stands out. Behind her there are two cells on either side, secured with steel doors, the white of which shows dark signs of wear. Frosted glass in front of the window grilles blocks the view outside – and inside.
“My guess is that those sentenced to death were here,” says Martina Staats. “This is where they wrote their last letters.” Like Gaarder’s novel, Rennelberg demonstrates the fragility of human life. Who will build here, live here? The stele will remain. It is in an urban area.
People from 17 different nations were imprisoned in Rennelberg, including the French resistance fighter Fernande Mathieu. In her last letter to her mother before her execution, she wrote: “I believe that a happy life will begin after this war. I ask you to make good use of it, all of you.”