The Schorndorf Gatehouse, built in 1760, is located in the immediate vicinity of the office and archive building of the Ludwigsburg location of the Federal Archives. This and five other gatehouses, which Duke Carl Eugen had built in the 18th century around the former garrison town of Ludwigsburg as guard and customs houses, were extensively renovated to mark the city's 300th anniversary.
In one of the gatehouses, the Schorndorf Gatehouse, the Federal Archives is presenting the exhibition "The Investigators of Ludwigsburg". The focus is on the work of the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations, which was set up in Ludwigsburg in 1958 to investigate National Socialist crimes. This is an internationally known authority that plays an outstanding role in the prosecution of Nazi crimes by the German judiciary.
Photos and documents as well as case documentation not only illustrate the special character of Nazi crimes, which denied the human value of existence, legal norms and moral concepts. They also represent the challenges of dealing with the unprecedented breach of civilization and state terrorism in accordance with the principles and procedures of our constitutional state. In the central exhibition room, a walk-in workplace on a glass floor gives an impression of the working conditions of the "Ludwigsburg investigators" after 1959. The exhibition also explains the transformation of investigation files into archive material.
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