Museumsportal Berlin

It would be hard to find another site in Germany so intricately linked with the 44-year history of political persecution in the Soviet Occupation Zone and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial. In June 1945, the Soviet Secret Police took over a former canteen block and food store in the north-east of Berlin and turned it into a detainment and transit camp called ´Special Camp No. 3´. After the camp was closed in October 1946, the cellar was converted into underground cells that served as the main Soviet Secret Police prison for detention and interrogation in Germany. In 1951 the East German Ministry for State Security (MfSS) took over the prison, added a new prison building and until 1989, used the site as its main remand centre. Thousands of political prisoners passed through this jail, including nearly all the prominent figures opposing the GDR regime.

The site of the main remand prison for people detained by the former East German Ministry of State Security (MfSS), or ´Stasi´, has been a Memorial since 1994 and from 2000, has been an independent Trust under public law. The Foundation´s work is supported by an annual contribution from the Federal Government and the Berlin state government.