A behind the scenes look at one of the German Democratic Republic's formidable Stasi run secret prisons.
When the Berlin wall fell and East German government buildings were being ransacked and torn down, no demonstrators stormed the state prison at Hohenshonhausen. It was one of the Stasi's most powerful weapons for political persecution, but the newly liberated East Berliners did not march on the prison for the simple fact that they did not know it existed. Located in a quiet East Berlin suburb, the secret political prison did not feature on any maps of the city. It was surrounded by a military base, so that even local residents didn't know what happened within its 200 cells and interrogation rooms.
Today it is a permanent memorial staffed by ex-prisoners. My tour guide was a medical student who was arrested for protesting during the Prague Spring in 1968. It's estimated that one out of every 10 East Germans worked as an informant for the Stasi, and my tour guide was arrested the night he was handing out leaflets in the street. He was taken to a regular police station and then transported in a windowless van disguised as belonging to a fruit and vegetable market. He was driven around the city for over two hours until he arrived in an underground garage, located in the basement of the prison. It was only after he was released 6 years later, that he realized that the original police station where he was arrested was only five minutes away from the secret prison.
The main interrogation methods of the Stasi were psychological rather than physical. Sleep deprivation, and complete isolation were used. Inmates were forbidden from talking to each other. The only human being my tour guide had conversations with was his interrogator. He told of how he came to look forward to their daily conversations, just so he could have contact with another person. Which was how he came to eventually confess to the fabricated crime of being a spy for the west.
The tour guides take you inside their prison cells and the rooms where they were interrogated. It is one of the most moving and humbling walking tours available, and a remarkable first person insight into the secret world of the former GDR.
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