Graz-Karlau Prison
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Graz-Karlau Prison (german: Justizanstalt Graz-Karlau) is located in Gries, the 5th district of the city of
Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...
, capital of the Austrian state of
Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...
. With a capacity of 552 inmates, Graz-Karlau is the third-largest prison in Austria.


History

Built between 1584 and 1590 in late
Renaissance style Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Ancient Greece, ancient Greek and ...
to designs by Antonio Tade and Antonio Marmoro, it was used as a summer hunting residence for Archduke Karl II of Austria. Originally, it was called "Dobel Castle". The German word "Dobel" is also written "Tobel", a deep, ravine-like valley or can also be a place and field-name. Because the castle's name was similar to the nearby "Tobel hunting-lodge" situated in
Haselsdorf-Tobelbad Haselsdorf-Tobelbad is a municipality in the district of Graz-Umgebung in the Austrian state of Styria. It was the birthplace of Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. Geography Haselsdorf-Tobelbad lies about 10 km southwest of Graz in western Styria. R ...
, it was renamed as "Karlau", after the archduke. From 1769 it was used as a
workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' ...
and in 1794 started to keep French
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...
. In 1803, it became a provincial prison for inmates who had sentences of up to 10 years of imprisonment. In 1847 to 1848 and from 1869 to 1872, it was greatly enlarged. Toward the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
the prison was bombed twice, which killed 14 guards and 107 prisoners. In 1946, the British executioner
Albert Pierrepoint Albert Pierrepoint (; 30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992) was an English hangman who executed between 435 and 600 people in a 25-year career that ended in 1956. His father Henry and uncle Thomas were official hangmen before him. Pierrepoint ...
travelled to Karlau to train an Austrian executioner and two assistants in the British method of long drop executions. Until then, condemned prisoners were hanged with short drops, effectively strangling them to death. Under the British method, Pierrepoint, the Austrian executioner and the two assistants hanged eight young men on September 24, 1946. A method which was continued until Austria abolished
capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
on June 30, 1950. The prison was renamed Graz-Karlau on November 1, 1993.


Notable inmates

Among the prison's inmates, it houses or housed prisoners such as the serial killer
Jack Unterweger Johann "Jack" Unterweger (16 August 1950  – 29 June 1994) was an Austrian serial killer who committed murder in several countries – Austria, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the United States. Initially convicted in 1974 of a sin ...
; the letter and pipe bomb terrorist
Franz Fuchs Franz Fuchs (12 December 1949 – 26 February 2000) was an Austrian domestic terrorist who killed four people and injured 15, some seriously, using three improvised explosive devices and 24 mail bombs, which he sent in five waves between 1993 an ...
; the six-time murderer
Udo Proksch Udo Proksch (29 May 1934 in Rostock, Germany – 27 June 2001 in Graz, Austria) was an Austrian businessman and industrialist. In 1991, he was convicted of the murder of six people as part of a major insurance fraud. Proksch died in prison. ' ...
; the suspected serial killer Wolfgang Ott; and the terrorist Tawfik Ben Chaovali, who was involved in the
Rome and Vienna airport attacks The Rome and Vienna airport attacks were two major terrorist attacks carried out on 27 December 1985. Seven Arab terrorists attacked two airports in Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria with assault rifles and hand grenades. Nineteen civilians were ...
.


References

Prisons in Austria Buildings and structures in Graz {{Prison-stub