Hotel Stadt Hameln

The, four star, Stadt Hameln Hotel was constructed from the remaining buildings of the Hameln Prison, which was also known as the Stockhof. The institution had a gruesome history from before, during and after WW2. The history of the prison in Hameln goes back to 1698 when a previous prison, the Stockhof, was used to house prisoners sentenced to forced labour and employed on building a fortress. The name , apparently, came from the practice of securing the inmates in the stocks at night to prevent escape. Because the original Stockhof became overcrowded, in 1827, a new prison was built directly on the site of the fortress that the original prisoners had built. When the Electorate of Hanover was annexed the prison came under Prussian control in 1866 and eventually under German control after the state was unified in 1871. The, Stockhof, name stuck.

In 1933 it entered one of it's two most infamous periods as a prison, used by the Nazis to house mainly political prisoners  and, later, prisoners from occupied Europe captured under the Nacht und Nebel regime. At least three were deported from the tiny population of the British Channel Islands.

Prisoners were required to do 72 hours of forced labour per week on a meagre diet.

At least 305 prisoners died in the prison between 1933 and 1945 (including those who died, from illness and malnutrition, immediately after the liberation of the prison by American forces).

From December 1945 it was used by the British occupying power as a place of execution mainly for those convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Amongst the 156 hanged here for war crimes were some of the most notorious perpetrators of the holocaust and members of the German armed forces who had carried out crimes against British POWs. Notably this included 13 individuals convicted of murdering 50 of the prisoners who got out of Sagen POW camp during the "Great Escape "< (Stalag Luft III)./p> In addition some 44 people were executed for capital crimes ( under the laws of the occupation) between 1945 and 1949. In 1955 the prison was closed and converted to a youth detention centre until 1980. It was eventually converted to a four star hotel ( except for two buildings which were demolished). The interior of the hotel gives few clues about its origins but externally the building still looks remarkably prison-like. Whilst a plaque commemorating those who died under Nazi rule is just outside the Hotel (on City owned land)there is little public information about the site's use during the British occupation. The bodies of those executed by the British were, in the British penal tradition (and to prevent the creation of Nazi shrines), buried in unmarked graves within the prison yard. After the British handed over the prison in the late 1950s the bodies were exhumed and buried in Am Wehl cemetery to the north of the city.