Leistikowstrasse prison
The prison in the Leistikowstraße 1 in Potsdam was a detention center of the secret military counterintelligence of the Soviet occupying forces in the Soviet Zone and GDR .
building
The building was originally built between 1916 and 1918 by the Evangelical Church Aid Association (EKH). After the Potsdam Conference in August 1945, around 100 houses in the Nauen suburb , which borders the New Garden , were cordoned off by the Soviet occupying forces and renamed "Military Town No. 7". In the secret service town was the headquarters of the military counterintelligence, which from 1954 as an independent III. Main department belonged to the KGB . The headquarters were in the former boarding school for girls, Kaiserin-Augusta-Stift . The building next to it served the counterintelligence as the seat of the interrogation department. Right next door in Leistikowstrasse 1 (until 1945 Mirbachstrasse 1) he used the EKH's residential and commercial building, in which the Evangelical Reich Women's Aid was based, as a central transit and remand prison for the Soviet Zone and GDR.
history
Until 1955, people of different nationalities, including mainly Soviet citizens, but also Germans, were detained there, treated with identification services, often interrogated for months without any legal counsel, sometimes mistreated and sentenced to disproportionately high prison terms (in Soviet special camps in the Soviet Zone or in the Gulag ) or sentenced to death. The basis of the convictions by Soviet military tribunals were mostly extorted confessions. From 1955 the Soviet secret service held only Soviet military or civilian employees of the Soviet troops there. How many people were affected in total is still unknown. The secret service had around 80 prisoners from the Leistikowstrasse prison shot at an unknown location in Potsdam or Moscow after they had been sentenced to death. Research on this is still ongoing. The prison was in operation until the KGB was dissolved in 1991. After that it was used as a warehouse. When the Soviet / Russian troops withdrew from Germany, it was returned to the Evangelical Church Aid Association in 1994 .
memorial
After the restoration in 2007/2008, the Leistikowstrasse Potsdam memorial and meeting place, which was financed by the state of Brandenburg and the federal government and founded at the end of December 2008, opened on March 29, 2009. It is administered as a trust foundation by the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation . Since 2009, a permanent exhibition on the history of the pre-trial detention center and the fate of the detainees has been drawn up, which has been open to visitors since April 2012. The federal state of Brandenburg , the Federal Republic of Germany and private donors have made 2.2 million euros available for the establishment of the memorial. The Leistikowstraße Potsdam memorial and meeting place (Leistikowstraße 1, 14469 Potsdam) can be visited Tuesday to Sunday between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. A permanent exhibition as well as changing special exhibitions can be seen. Admission is free. Group tours are possible by appointment.
literature
- Ines Reich, Maria Schultz (Ed.): Soviet remand prison Leistikowstrasse (series of publications by the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation , Volume 33). Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-072-1
Web links
- Entry in the monument database of the State of Brandenburg
- Memorial site
- Website of the memorial's association
- Website of the memorial association (victims' association)
- From Potsdam to Vorkuta . (PDF; 1.48 MB) Brandenburg State Center for Political Education, 2002
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 '59.3 " N , 13 ° 3' 51.9" E