Keibelstrasse learning location

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View into the former detention center from the fourth floor.

The Keibelstraße learning location is an educational facility in the former Pretrial Detention Center II (UHA II) in the building complex of the Berlin Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family . In addition to an educational facility, the place of learning sees itself as a documentation center in which the history of the UHA II is processed and exhibited. Between 1951 and 1990, thousands of people were imprisoned in East Berlin's UHA II for various reasons. Under the name Keibelstrasse, the prison within the Presidium of the People's Police was known and feared by the population of the GDR. The underground detention center was under the Ministry of the Interior . As the only East Berlin remand prison, women were also imprisoned there.

The Keibelstrasse learning facility opened in February 2019 and offers media-supported and interactive learning workshops for school classes and regular public tours to provide insights into the legal and rulership system of the GDR at the historic site . The historical prison wing is not open to general visitors, but can only be visited within the framework of the educational offers of the learning location or during public and registered group tours.

history

1928–1951 Prehistory of the place

In 1928 Karstadt AG bought the site between Neue Königsstraße (now: Bernhard-Weiß-Straße), Keibelstraße and Wadzeckstraße to build the company's new administrative headquarters. After the construction period between spring 1930 and December 1931, the headquarters and the central purchasing department moved into the building complex in January 1932. However, the office building was oversized for the needs of Karstadt AG . When the group ran into economic difficulties at the beginning of the 1930s, Karstadt AG sold the entire complex to the Reich Ministry of Finance in 1934 . Karstadt remained the tenant of the house until it moved out completely in 1936. After renovation work, the Reich Statistical Office began using the premises in 1935 and, in the course of the censuses of 1933 and 1939, provided the data for the expropriation and persecution of German Jews. During the Second World War, part of the building complex was significantly destroyed by bombs in May 1944 and in the battle for Berlin in 1945. The reconstruction of the building complex began in 1947 and on October 16, 1948 the Presidium of the Berlin People's Police, the Berlin-Mitte People's Police Inspection and the fire department moved there. The prison was built between 1949 and October 1951 on the site of a destroyed wing inside the East Berlin Presidium of the People's Police. Access was via the entrance to the police headquarters at Keibelstrasse 32.

1951–1990 remand prison of the People's Police

Today's exterior view of UHA II from the courtyard of the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family.

In October 1951, the remand prison was opened in the building of the Presidium of the People's Police. In East Berlin , in addition to the regular prisons, there were two remand prisons: Remand Detention Center I (UHA I) in Rummelsburg and Remand Detention Center II (UHA II) in Keibelstrasse. Like the regular prisons in the GDR, the underground detention centers were also subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior and thus to the organs of the penal system and the People's Police . Other remand prisons were operated by the Ministry of State Security . The abbreviated name of the prison was UHA Berlin-Mitte and was later renamed UHA II. Between the years 1951 and 1988 the prison was repeatedly changed, renovated and modernized.

Construction of the underground detention center

The UHA Keibelstrasse has nine floors including the basement. It consisted of stations 1-7, each of which was spread over seven floors, and station 0, which was on the ground floor. Access was mostly from Keibelstrasse via station 0, which consisted of the waiting cells, bathrooms and the effects room. In addition, the prison kitchen, storage rooms and three person-sized calming cells were on the ground floor. On the roof there was a glass construction through which daylight penetrated the cell hall. The detainees completed their 30-minute release there.

Men and women were accommodated in UHA II. For most of the years of use, women were incarcerated on floors 6 and 7. In 1977 the official capacity was 260 prisoners with an actual occupancy of about 298 people. A year later, the official number is 209 detainees, which is probably due to the reorganization of storage rooms. It can be assumed that the pre-trial detention center was permanently overcrowded, so that two inmates were housed in the custody rooms instead of the intended individual. The storage rooms were equipped with a water closet, a washbasin, a bunk bed, a folding table with one or two stools and, from the 1970s, a wall cupboard. The heating controller and light switch could only be operated from outside, from the detention hall. The prisoners were interrogated in the Presidium of the People's Police or in the People's Police Inspection. Official and unofficial employees of the Ministry of State Security were also active in the People's Police and in the UHA . To what extent is still unclear today. The detainees at UHA Keibelstrasse were transported to the various district and military courts for the trial . After a prison sentence, they were sent to the regular prison system a few days or a few weeks later or were released if they were acquitted.

Grounds for detention

People were held in the pre-trial detention center for all offenses under the GDR's penal code . Most people were remanded in custody for so-called classic crime such as theft, fraud, robbery or bodily harm. There were also imprisonments for " unlawful border crossing " (§ 213), "endangering public order through anti-social behavior" (§ 249), "impairment of state or social activity" (§ 214) and until 1985 for "evasion of military service and conscientious objection" (§ 256). The number and frequency of the accused offenses varied over time and were often dependent on the SED's domestic policy. In addition, there were larger additions for certain events, such as B. on October 7, 1969. On the occasion of the rumor about a concert by the Rolling Stones on the roof of the Springer building, hundreds of young people gathered, some of whom the People's Police arrested and brought to Keibelstrasse, among other places.

In the case of a small remaining sentence, some people also served their prison sentence here and remained in UHA II. For most prisoners, however, UHA II was a transit point, where they were locked up for a few hours to several months until they were convicted or released. People without GDR citizenship were also detained in Keibelstrasse for the purpose of pre-trial detention or deportation custody.

Everyday detention and conditions

The day began with waking up at 6:00 a.m. and ended at 8:00 p.m. with sleep. Since the light switches were outside the storage rooms, the inmates sat in the dark from that point on. That is, a day with lights amounted to 14 hours, of which they spent 13.5 hours in the locked storage rooms and half an hour outdoors on the roof. Boredom, monotony and military discipline shaped everyday life, which was interrupted by interrogations, especially in the early days. During the day the inmates were not allowed to use the bed, so that only the two stools and the remaining space in the approximately 6 m² storage room were available. If the guards opened the cell door, the prisoners usually had to stand with their backs to the window and report. The security personnel attached great importance to the correct rank designation. The same applied to order and cleanliness in the storage room. The bed and the clothes in the cupboard had to be neatly folded and the storage room kept clean.

A longer-term change from the monotony of the custody room offered the detainees on remand prison work. While convicts were obliged to work, detainees on remand could only be engaged in activities that were available. In 1977 this was 31% of the prisoners on remand who worked in the kitchen work details for the remand prison or for the Presidium of the People's Police , VEB Leuchtenbau (VEB Narva), VEB Münze (for the Mint East Berlin) and in the external cleaning command in the Ministry of the Interior as well as the People's Police Headquarters were employed. The freely disposable “wages” amounted to between 10 and 18% of the usual net salary and could be spent in the HO store on the 5th floor for cigarettes, soaps, sweets or other groceries.

There were different job opportunities for those who spent the day in the custody room. There was a library in the detention center. The prisoners could not freely choose the books, however, but a so-called calf factor (house workers and prisoners) arbitrarily distributed the reading, most of which was socialist literature. From the 1980s onwards, a small number of prisoners were able to use a TV room on Sundays.

The prisoners were allowed to receive visitors and write letters on a monthly basis, but the guards repeatedly revoked this right. The detainees did not always have the right to a defense in the event of a trial; in many cases there was only brief contact with a lawyer or they did not see them until the day of the trial. Lawyers in the GDR did not have the right to inspect files. Judgments were repeatedly made before the start of the trial or, in some cases, were given by the SED.

Hardly any reliable evidence is available to date on the violence committed by the security personnel. Some contemporary witnesses remember screams that echoed through the prison hall during the night. They concluded that these were violent acts. Others report harassment or undercover beating on a daily basis, depending on the personality of the guards. The prisoners were able to officially complain to the management of the pre-trial detention center. In most cases, attacks were not prosecuted or they were only regulated “internally”.

1990–2018 re-use

The remaining prisoners were on 21./22. June 1990 transferred to the detention centers in Rummelsburg , Lichtenberg and Pankow . In October, the transport from these prisons to the West Berlin prisons followed. The detention wing was empty until July 1, 1992, when the Berlin police used the 6th floor, separated by two false ceilings and with modernized interior fittings, as a police custody and deportation prison . This floor offered itself for further use, as it was connected to the adjacent police building by a passage. The temporary use ended four years later. This was followed by vacancy until the Keibelstrasse learning location was opened in February 2019. In the meantime, however, film productions were able to rent the premises, which made various changes. The underground detention center was used as a film set for men's pension (D 1996), 14 days life sentence (D 1997), half dead - Half Past Dead (D / USA 2002), Good Bye, Lenin! (D 2003), The Lives of Others (D 2006) and Fack ju Göhte (D 2013). Some music videos were also shot in the detention area. The biggest changes were made by the production of the film Halbtot - Half Past Dead : The original wall color of light green and light yellow was painted over in a dark shade of gray, the stair gate was removed, etc. The last commercial film was shot shortly before the opening for the music video Germany by the band Rammstein . The property has been managed by Berliner Immobilienmanagement GmbH (BIM) on behalf of the State of Berlin since January 2007. The BIM administration and the Berlin police also use parts of the building. In spring 2010, the Senate Department for Education, Science and Research moved into the complex on today's Otto-Braun-Straße as the largest user.

Educational facility Keibelstrasse as a learning location

View into the former detention hall and today's learning location (1st floor / station 1)

After a public tender, the Agency for Education - History, Politics and Media eV was commissioned by the Berlin Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family to set up and operate the learning location in August 2018 . On February 18, 2019, the Keibelstrasse learning location was opened on the first floor of the former UHA II. With its content orientation and pedagogical work, the educational institution promises a new focus within the Berlin memorial and educational institutions on GDR history . The focus of the work at the Keibelstrasse learning location is historical and political education, which is based on scientific research in archives, collections and memorials as well as on videographed interviews with former prisoners. Furthermore, the place of learning documents the history of the former remand prison and exhibits it. The visitors to the learning site learn the reasons why people were imprisoned in UHA II, how the daily routine in the UHA was structured, the conditions under which the inmates were incarcerated, and the theory, goals and framework conditions of the prison system. This is intended to provide important insights into the legal and rule system of the GDR.

The educational offer is aimed at school classes of all school types from the 9th grade and learning groups with young people from 14 years. In the different formats of the learning workshops, the young people get to know the history of the place and work on various topics such as reasons for imprisonment etc. with the help of a media-supported learning application. A conversation with contemporary witnesses is also possible as part of a learning workshop. In addition, public tours, training courses and events are regularly offered at the learning location. For this, different facets of the history of the place are taken up. The place of learning is not open to the public beyond these offers. There is a cooperation with the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Potsdam and the Department of Didactics of History at Freie Universität Berlin for quality assurance and further development of the learning location .

See also

literature

(The majority of this article is based on unpublished secondary texts and archive sources, as no specialist publications on the history of the historical site have yet been published.)

  • Jan Haverkamp: Keibelstrasse remand prison , in: LAG-Magazin 11/19, Berlin 2019.
  • Birgit Marzinka: Keibelstrasse as a place of learning - from the structure to the current educational concept, in: LAG-Magazin 11/19, Berlin 2019.
  • Tom Sello: Historical place of learning - Presidium of the People's Police and Remand Prison II Berlin, Berlin20. September 2012.
  • Christian Walther: Historical overview of the complex Neue König- (Hans-Beimler-, Otto-Braun-) Strasse, Wadzeckstrasse and Keibelstrasse, Berlin December 2012.
  • Monument Preservation Office: Prison wing of Pretrial Detention Center II in the former police headquarters of the People's Police, Berlin December 2017.

Web links

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '28.3 "  N , 13 ° 24' 59.2"  E