Stumbling stone Alfred-Kästner-Straße 20

A stumbling stone (Stolperstein) commemorates:

* Alfred Kästner, born 1882, in the resistance / German Communist Party, detained from 1933-1939 in several concentration camps, arrested 11 March 1945 by the Gestapo, shot 12 April 1945 in Leipzig-Lindenthal.

Alfred Kästner, a wood merchant, was a German communist and resistance fighter from before WW2. He was arrested in 1933 for illegal activity and was held first in Zuchthause prison and then in Sachsenburg, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald concentration camps. After being released in 1939, he joined another group resisting national socialism and he met with still other groups throughout the war as he travelled around Germany, providing information and pamphlets. On 11 March 1945, the Gestapo detained him. Just one week before the invasion of the American troops in Leipzig, the SS shot Kästner and 52 other German and foreign anti-fascists in a gravel pit near Lindenthal on 12 April 1945. There is a memorial to the 53 in Lindenthal, on Straße der 53.

After the war, both the street on which he had lived (Moltkestraße) and a school in Lindenthal are now named for him.

Stolpersteine are small brass plaques placed in the pavement in front of the last voluntary residence of (mostly Jewish) victims who were murdered by the Nazis. Each is engraved with the victim’s name, date of birth and place (mostly a concentration camp) and date of death.

Stolpersteine memorials also can be found in many other German cities. There are already many thousands of these plaques and their number is still growing. Almost all Stolpersteine are laid by the German artist himself, Gunter Demnig.

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