Selective Abolitionism: Germany’s Socialist Prisons and “Coming-to-Terms” with One Side of History
Figure 1. "Forgetting is treason." Graffiti on the exterior of the Neubrandenburg prison's enclosing wall. Author’s photo, 2022.
On June 28, 2022, a prison in Neubrandenburg, Germany—a town northeast of Berlin—was opened to the general public for the first time in its thirty-one-year long history and for a special viewing of only four hours. The “open house” (Tag der offenen Tür) was a momentous occasion for various German publics. It attracted hundreds of locals of all ages, as well as researchers and the national press, who came by to catch a glimpse of the carceral regime of the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) notorious Ministry of State Security or, as it is commonly known, the Stasi. The prison was designed and constructed under the auspices of the Stasi and, from 1987 to 1989, had served as a remand prison for the politically persecuted under Soviet socialism. In 1990, with the dissolution of the GDR and the subsequent German Reunification, it resumed its use as a general penitentiary (Justizvollzugsanstalt – JVA) until its closure in 2018. Yet, even though the prison had a much longer history under the Federal Republic and incarcerated incomparably more people under its liberal democracy than it did under Soviet-style totalitarianism, the event was framed exclusively around the violence and political subjugation committed by the East German state and the Stasi.
Figure 2. Inside the Neubrandenburg prison complex. Entrance portico in the background on the far left; administrative wing extends on the left, prisoner cell block is in the middle and workshops on the right. Author's photo, 2022.
Figure 3. Visitors lined up to enter the former Neubrandenburg remand prison (1987-1989) and general penitentiary (1990-2018) during the June 28, 2022 “open house.” Author’s photo, 2022.
Two tents outside invited period witnesses (Zeitzeugen) of the GDR to help them access their “Stasi-files”—police records produced by the East German state security apparatus—and to include them in an oral history project. Approaching the main gate, one saw the inner walls of the tall entrance portico covered with texts and images on the East German mass surveillance and political incarceration regime. Once inside the compound, visitors were welcomed with an introduction to the building’s pre-1989 biography. The dark corridors of the second floor were illuminated by a camera crew: a local TV station was filming a former political prisoner recounting his experiences. It was his first time seeing the prison from the inside since his release back in the late 1980s. “It all looks different now,” I heard him surmise.
Figure 4. Visitors exploring the second floor of the Neubrandenburg prison’s cell block. Author’s photo, 2022.
While the prison’s early, socialist history was told from the vantage point of the formerly imprisoned, its recent liberal democratic history was solely narrated by prison guards serving as guides for the day. The guards had been transferred to other regional correctional facilities since the Neubrandenburg prison’s closure, but were asked to come back for the event as they knew the space intimately. Their primary task was to keep the orderliness of visiting crowds, ensuring that no one sneaked to the upper floors where administrative staff was still working in-house. They were also instructed to interact with visitors if prompted and answer any questions they might have, which turned them into exclusive narrators of prison life after 1989.
How do we understand this carefully curated spin on the subject of carcerality? What are the asymmetries between contemporary Germany’s reconciliation with its carceral pasts and its recognition of its carceral present? In this essay, I will briefly examine the architecture of Stasi remand prisons, specifically as a political instrument of repression and coercion that was refined over the GDR’s forty-year existence. Yet, instead of solely focusing on the violence and injustice these structures facilitated under Soviet-style socialism—topics extensively covered in existing scholarship—I will discuss certain continuities in carceral logic made evident by the prisons’ afterlives under the Federal German Republic.
Figure 5. Inscriptions hidden along the now removed bedbunk frames, left behind by those imprisoned in the Neubrandenburg general penitentiary. Author’s photo, 2022.
“The percentage of imprisoned non-citizens has been on the rise even though imprisonment rates overall have been in decline. Since at least 2017, one in every three people imprisoned in Germany has been a non-German citizen, though non-Germans comprise only about 13% of the country’s population. ”
The Stasi and Political Remand Prisons
Founded in 1950, with the broad task of fighting “Western imperialist enemy forces,” the East German secret police undertook an amalgam of functions. It was a foreign intelligence agency; a state security apparatus with branches controlling the party, state, and the economy; and a domestic surveillance organization that infiltrated East German society. The Stasi also acted as an investigative branch of the East German criminal justice system, specifically to “investigate crimes against the sovereignty of the GDR, peace, humanity, and human rights, and crimes against the GDR state,” or so the legal definition went. [1] In reality, the Stasi was to detect and suppress any form of resistance against the Soviet-socialist regime. Thus, the so-called “state security justice” (Staatssicherheitsjustiz) was a form and means of injustice and fostered human rights violations instead of thwarting them, and it became one of the most effective instruments the GDR had in suppressing free speech, religious rights, and freedom of mobility.
To this end, the Stasi established a pseudo-legal prison enterprise for political prosecution, with a network of seventeen so-called “investigation prisons” (in German These were remand prisons where those captured/arrested for alleged illegal political activity were held awaiting trial. Persons of interest were first systematically surveilled and pursued, and ultimately seized and detained so that the Stasi could continue harvesting incriminating evidence and compose a criminal file.
In the early years of Soviet rule and in line with the violent political means sanctioned under Stalinism, the Stasi employed physical torture to wring confessions out of the politically persecuted. By the mid-1950s, specifically with Khrushchev’s Thaw, overt corporal punishment was abandoned and replaced by methods of psychological torment, particularly through spatial and temporal disorientation, physical isolation, sensorial and social deprivation, and ubiquitous monitoring. [2] These so-called “principles of detention,” which continued to aim forcing confessions and harvesting evidence incriminating others, were enacted architecturally across the Stasi’s remand prisons.
Figure 6. The Suhl remand prison construction nearing completion, designed and built under the auspices of the Stasi, circa 1989. BArch MfS BV Suhl Abt XIV Fo 1378 Bild 45.
After its founding, the Stasi took over prisons and courthouses located in the capitals of each East German region. While these buildings, most of which dated to late 19th century, were gradually renovated and remodeled, from 1954 to 1989, the secret police also designed and built six new remand prisons: namely, in Dresden (1954), Rostock (1960), Berlin (1960), Frankfurt (Oder) (1969), Neubrandenburg (1987), and Suhl (1989). The last two of these new carceral structures were developed on the basis of the widely implemented prefabricated mass housing types known as Plattenbauten. What is more, both remodeling and new design and construction allowed the Stasi to refine the architectural measures taken to enforce its “principles of detention,” with each iteration informing the development of the next.
Figure 7. Model of a Stasi remand prison cell accommodating two, on display at the Gedenkstätte Bautzner Straße in Dresden. The prison, built in 1954, became a memorial and research & learning center in 2001. Author’s photo, 2022.
As a tactic of spatial disorientation, for example, the Stasi transported apprehended persons in windowless vans, and by driving them in circles, sometimes for hours, induced confusion regarding their whereabouts [3]. This tactic was architecturally enhanced by building windowless, reinforced concrete carports adjoining the screening area of Stasi-prisons. “Unloading” detainees inside these concrete boxes, the Stasi ensured that they could not see and hence recognize the building they were brought into. At least since 1954, the Stasi designed prison cells with glass bricks in lieu of windows as the early architectural drawings of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen prison addition shows [4]. The secret police reported this to be a suicide-prevention measure and rapidly replaced window frames with glass bricks across its carceral building stock. Of course, this exacerbated the experience of spatial disorientation, cutting off all visual access to the outside over the duration of imprisonment, while the resulting the lack of ventilation became a common grievance amongst prisoners on remand.
Figure 8. Solitary courtyard structure erected at the Stasi's former Dresden remand prison, preserved and displayed at the Gedenkstätte Bautzner Straße. Photograph taken from one of the two platforms delineating the so-called “free boxes.” Author’s photo, 2022.
Figure 9. Looking down from the watchguard platform onto the free-time cells (Freizeitzelle) at the former Stasi remand prison in Dresden. Author’s photo, 2022.
Such architectural technologies of subjugation and coercion also intensified the carefully curated effects of continuous isolation. The 1954 drawings of the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen prison expansion illustrate early considerations for panoptically laid-out yard cells, following the 19th century precedents of Pentonville prison in London and Moabit prison in Berlin [5]. While this plan was left unexecuted, the logic of solitary confinement was extended to yard time with the building of linearly organized “free-time cells” (Freizeitzelle). Over the 1950s and early 1960s, the Stasi implemented what came be called “free boxes” or “tiger cages” across its regional remand prisons, some of which experimented with radial organization and central supervision. It was not until the 1987 completion of the first Plattenbau-prison in Neubrandenburg, however, that the panoptic plan was perfected. While earlier iterations left blind spots from the platform used by watchguards, Neubrandenburg prison’s standalone, circular courtyard structure divided into eleven individual cells facilitated continuous monitoring and hence exacted social and sensorial deprivation.
Figure 10. Interior of the prisoner cell block at the Stasi’s former Dresden remand prison. Lights installed above each cell belong to the prison's stoplight system. Author’s photo, 2022.
In addition to solitary units, yard cells, and “standing-only cells” (Stehzellen), social deprivation was heightened by the implementation of a standardized stoplight system installed across all prison corridors. Informing guards on whether a prisoner was in transit, the system enabled the preclusion of detainees from seeing one another on the move. The objective behind extended physical isolation and social deprivation was to coerce political prisoners into feeling relieved and happy to see their case officers, making them potentially more lenient to confess and share information [6].
East German Remand Prisons After Reunification
The exact number of persons incarcerated by the East German secret police is still unknown but, according to the most recent research, just between 1963 and 1989, over fifty thousand people were forced into Stasi custody. Consequently, political persecution was one of the main issues that mobilized East Germans, and by Fall 1989, the dissolution of the Stasi and release of political prisoners on remand became a central ask of the crowds marching for sweeping state reforms.
After German Reunification, the preservation of the Stasi’s architectural legacy became a contentious topic. Civil rights groups at the forefront of the peaceful revolution, which included many former political prisoners, petitioned for the transformation of remand prisons to sites of public history and memory. From the 1990s into the 2010s, eleven prisons—amongst them the three Wilhelmine-era prisons which the Stasi moved out of—were reclaimed as memorials, archives, and research and learning institutions thanks to these efforts. Yet, another eight, including the new prisons built by the Stasi in Frankfurt (Oder), Neubrandenburg, and Suhl, continued to serve confinement.
Figure 11. Now empty prisoner cells of the former Neubrandenburg penitentiary. Glass bricks have been replaced with window frames that can be opened from the inside. Author's photo, 2022.
This requires us to ask: if we consider prisons as evidence of the penal system they enable, how do we understand the ongoing use of these structures as spaces of punishment and unfreedom under the Federal German Republic—a democratic state that was built on the premise of freedom and equality for all? This is certainly a highly charged question, not least because the carceral structures dating to the colonial Wilhelmine empire subsequently served the fascist NS regime, the Soviet military administration, and the GDR: notably the 1842 “Rote Ochse” prison in Halle (currently used in part as a general penitentiary) and the 1907 prison in Berlin-Pankow (today, a women’s correctional facility). In this essay, however, I will focus on prisons designed by the Stasi by looking at their post-1989 architectural-spatial composition, contemporary demographics of incarcerated persons, and common reasons for imprisonment in Germany today.
Soon after German Reunification, disciplinary technologies equipping Stasi-prisons, such as the stoplight system or the impermeable carports, were removed, and glass bricks were replaced with windowpanes. Other coercive methods, such as sensorial deprivation by denying the imprisoned the opportunity to write, draw, or read, or temporal disorientation through constant illumination of cells were also abandoned. Solitary yard cells were demolished, as well, including the panoptic structure of the Neubrandenburg prison. Yet, the continued practice of solitary confinement remains in tension with these efforts towards prison reform.
Figure 12. A small remnant of the panoptic solitary yard structure at the Neubrandenburg prison has been preserved. The green metal watchpod overlooking the prison courtyard is a post-1989 addition. Author's photo, 2022.
As of 2022, 82% of incarcerated persons in Germany were reportedly held in single occupancy cells. The German parliament claims individual confinement to be a necessity for providing incarcerated persons a private sphere and for increasing their protection and safety. Across former Stasi prisons and elsewhere in Germany, however, the incarcerated reportedly can spend months, even years trapped in these single cells, up to 23 hours a day. [7] The state of Thuringia’s prison system, to which the Stasi-built Suhl prison belongs, has the lowest percentage of single occupancy cells in the country. Regardless, the ongoing, harsh conditions of solitary confinement at the Suhl penitentiary are being met with hunger strikes, self-mutilation, and suicide, as recent reports from civil rights organizations suggest, evoking similar reports from the GDR era.
Such issues are not eliminated with multiple occupancy cells, either. According to a case brought to the European Court of Human Rights in 2007, an individual incarcerated in Suhl was confined with two others between 21 to 23 hours a day, for more than a year. Per the plaintiff’s testimony, this led to severe physical and mental health problems, including eating and sleep disorders, not least because they shared a toilet unit inside a cell with permanently shut windows. In its defense, the state of Thuringia contested the alleged length of isolation, but not the lack of ventilation in the cell or its occupancy. The 13.87 sqm cells of the Suhl prison were originally designed for only two inmates and hailed as a step towards prison reform back in the late 1980s. [8]
Individuals subjected to the conditions described above come from the most vulnerable communities/segments of the German society: those living in poverty, with addiction and disabilities, and from immigrant backgrounds. Almost 75% of Germany’s prison population today consists of people convicted of property crimes, mostly petty theft, destruction of public property, fare violations, and unpaid fines. These crimes are usually penalized with fines at court but, for those already living in poverty and, hence, unable to pay, fines are converted to prison sentences. Thus, most individuals serving prison terms are in government welfare programs: 40% are unhoused, two thirds have a history of unemployment, and one third suffers from addiction disorders. [9]
The percentage of imprisoned non-citizens has also been on the rise even though imprisonment rates overall have been in decline. Since at least 2017, one in every three people imprisoned in Germany has been a non-German citizen, though non-Germans comprise only about 13% of the country’s population. In the state of Thuringia, too, the percentage of non-citizens incarcerated is disproportionately high—twice as much as their proportion in the state’s population. These statistics corroborate what I learned from my conversations with prison guards back in 2022 in Neubrandenburg. It was mostly the poor and the disabled, and many with Polish, Turkish, and Arab identities who were confined here until 2018, as per the guards’ testimony.
“…the Suhl prison continues to bear witness to the transition from the Soviet-socialist “injustice state” (Unrechtsstaat) to the neoliberal capitalist state of “class justice” (Klassenjustiz). ”
Figure 13. Now empty courtyard of the former Neubrandenburg penitentiary. Author's photo, 2022.
Figure 14. Ennumareted prisoner cell windows behind bars as viewed from the courtyard. Author's photo, 2022.
Figure 15. Where previously the carport for prisoner transport vans was attached. Author's photo, 2022.
Figure 16. Reinforced concrete wall structure behind barbed wired fencing with spotlights and security cameras enclose the Neubrandenburg prison compound. Author's photo, 2022.
The recent closures of Neubrandenburg and Frankfurt (Oder) penitentiaries due to low admittance rates ignited public discussions on the future of these carceral complexes. In Neubrandenburg, locals are advocating for the building’s demolition to make room for residential development, with politicians and state administrators debating whether it can be adaptively reused as public housing. Scholars and activists are asking for its transformation into a memorial and research institution, highlighting its status as “the last Stasi prison.” Curiously, the Suhl prison, built in 1989, does not enter these debates while it continues to serve as a correctional facility. This is ostensibly because it never became operational under the GDR. Yet, again, if we take architecture as the physical evidence of the penal system it enables, the Suhl prison must be read as yet another joint document of punishment, marginalization, and disenfranchisement under both the GDR and the contemporary German republic: one that embodies both continuities and divergences in their carceral logic.
Even though the Federal Republic of Germany is not known for political persecution, we must remember that criminalization of poverty, ethnic background, and disability, and their pipelining to prison are equally political. In this regard, the Suhl prison continues to bear witness to the transition from the Soviet-socialist “injustice state” (Unrechtsstaat) to the neoliberal capitalist state of “class justice” (Klassenjustiz). As historians, looking at prisoners’ acts of resistance alongside the architectural evidence would allow us to see their similarities rather than merely focusing on their differences. If the Neubrandenburg prison, since 2022 under a five-year moratorium that suspended its redevelopment, indeed becomes a “Center for Democracy” as proposed by activists and historians, the pressing task will be about how it publicly understands and discusses freedom and democracy in contemporary Germany.
Citation
Emine Seda Kayim, “Selective Abolitionism: Germany’s Socialist Prisons and “Coming-to-Terms” with One Side of History”, PLATFORM, August 12, 2024.
Notes
[1] Katrin Passens, MfS-Untersuchungshaft: Funktionen und Entwicklung von 1971 bis 1989 (Berlin: Lukas Verlag, 2012), 25.
[2] Passens, MfS-Untersuchungshaft, 56–58.
[3] Franziska Vu, Inhaftiert - Detained: Fotografien und Berichte aus der Untersuchungshaftanstalt der Staatssicherheit (Berlin: Kulturring in Berlin, 2006), 14, 57–58, 80.
[4] HSH2007/06122, 1-2, Bauarchiv Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen, Berlin.
[5] HSH2007/06145, 1.01, Bauarchiv Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen, Berlin.
[6] Passens, MfS-Untersuchungshaft, 57.
[7] Ronen Steinke, Vor dem Gesetz sind nicht alle gleich: Die neue Klassenjustiz (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 2022), 117.
[8] BArch MfS BV Suhl RD 107, 1-2.
[9] Steinke, Vor dem Gesetz sind nicht alle gleich, 13, 96, 100.
