Military Station No.7 Potsdam

Up until this point in the day we had seen beautiful and interesting places around Potsdam. This next stop was anything but pleasant or beautiful. This was a remand prison of the Soviet secret service (KGB), located in Potsdam amongst houses. What was most disturbing about this place was that it was operational until the early 1990’s, and Folke had been in the town while it was still operational, and had no idea of its existence. The building that was the prison had previously been a vicarage. Initially both Soviet and German citizens (mainly Nazis accused of war crimes) were imprisoned and interrogated here. In military tribunals some were sentenced to death, while many others were sent either directly to gulags in the USSR, or to so called ‘special camps’ that the Soviets had set up after WWII. In 2004 it was officially listed as an historical monument.

Reading the stories of some of the people incarcerated there was heartbreaking, and so sad. There are very few records on most of the inmates of this prison- only a few cases could be clarified through extensive research, and these make up part of the memorial.Read more