Prison in Stauferkaserne barracks

During the German occupation, the complex of buildings of the Main Staff of the Polish Army, located at 4 Rakowiecka Street in Warsaw's Mokotów, was transformed into SS barracks - the so-called SS-Stauferkaserne.

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, it housed the 3rd SS Grenadier Reserve Battalion,[1] which consisted of about 600 soldiers supported by a company of tanks.

In the morning of August 2, the SS from the Stauferkaserne garrison started to suppress the quarters of Mokotów located closest to the barracks.

The inhabitants of Rakowiecka, Puławska, Kazimierzowska, Rejtana, Wiśniowa, Niepodległości, Asfaltowa, Opoczyńska and Fałata Streets were expelled from their homes, and then among beatings and screams they were rushed to Stauferkaserne.

The SS men fired a series of shots from machine guns over their heads, thus intensifying the mood of panic.

After a longer or shorter stay in Stauferkaserne, the prisoners were usually sent to the transit camp in Pruszków or other assembly points set up by the Germans for the expelled population of Warsaw.

[9][10] Zbigniew Bujnowicz, imprisoned in Stauferkaserne, recalled that the life of Poles detained in the barracks resembled the conditions prevailing in concentration camps.

On the other hand, health care personnel was strictly forbidden to help injured Poles who were suspected of taking part in the uprising.

[14] On August 4 a group of about 40 men from a house located at the corner of Narbutta and Niepodległości Streets was brought to Stauferkaserne.

[18] Patz once ordered to shoot a man with an unpleasant face grimace (resulting from health reasons) that he considered to be a mockery.

[19] When the prisoners started to rebel against the destructive manner of work, the SS hanged one of them in front of their companions for punishment.

[17] On August 8 Patz sent a delegation of 100 women to Colonel "Daniel", commander of the Home Army in Mokotów, with a categorical demand for capitulation, threatening to shoot all Poles imprisoned in Stauferkaserne in case of refusal.

[20] After the war, the buildings of the former Stauferkaserne still served as the seat of the General Staff of the Polish Army (it is located there to this day).