To a history buff like me, few places rival the lure of Berlin. The city is packed with under-the-radar experiences that transport you to the past. In this post, I focus on the once secret Stasi prison in what used to be East Berlin. And I pay tribute to a grandfatherly psychologist who taught us some valuable history lessons.
Post-War Partition of Berlin
At the end of WWII, Berlin was partitioned into British, French, American, and Soviet sectors and jointly administered by the Allies. But tensions quickly developed between the Soviets and the Western powers. In 1949, Germany split into West Germany and East Germany.
The city of Berlin— still partitioned among the former Allies— found itself entirely within the borders of the new East Germany. The city, too, split into East and West. The Communist Soviets took charge of East Germany and East Berlin. West Berlin and West Germany aligned— you guessed it— with the Western democracies. The Cold War was underway.
The East German Stasi
The Ministry for State Security, or Stasi, was East Germany’s secret police force and intelligence service. They subjected their citizens to massive amounts of surveillance and control to “protect” East Germany from Western influences. They also wanted to stop the steady flow of people fleeing Communism. West Berlin’s presence in the heart of East Germany therefore became a major thorn in the Stasi’s side.
Hans-Eberhard Zahn
In the early 1950s, a college student named Hans-Eberhard Zahn crossed the checkpoint from West to East Berlin. (The wall was still a decade away.) He carried a large amount of cash collected by him and his classmates for their struggling relatives on the Communist side. Hans-Eberhard went to East Berlin that day to distribute it.
The Stasi was watching one of the houses Hans-Eberhard visited. They arrested him, found the money, and incorrectly assumed he was a Western spy. The East German government sentenced Hans-Eberhard to 7 years in prison and subjected him to harsh interrogation and torture. He spent a considerable amount of time in a cramped isolation cell at what was then called Camp X— a dismal prison in the borough of East Berlin known at the time as Hohenschönhausen.
The Stasi Prison “Camp X”
Camp X, today known as the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial, was just one of many secret Stasi prisons. As far as I know, it’s the only one you can visit today. It stood in an off-limits area that didn’t appear on any map. Box trucks drove blindfolded prisoners in circles for hours to prevent them from deducing the prison’s location. Today, you can take public transportation to the end of the street and walk straight through the main gate.
The prison was a brutal place where physical and psychological torture were mainstays of daily life. The authorities took great care to ensure no two prisoners ever saw or came in contact with one another. The isolation was absolute.
Collapse of East Germany
The prison closed with the fall of Communism and became a memorial to persecuted Germans. Hans-Eberhard and many of his fellow inmates, in a remarkable show of strength, began to lead tours of the place. I took a group of American high school students there, and Hans-Eberhard was our guide.
It must have been chilling for him to walk those dank corridors again, recall the horrible mistreatment, and recount for us the grim details of his life there. I got chills when he stopped outside his tiny former cell and described the effects of his isolation.
A Lesson in Resilience
There was zero contact with the outside world, apart from the cruel, false stories guards told him about his loved ones. Hans-Eberhard said he kept himself sane by reciting Shakespeare and doing math calculations in his head. He eventually became a psychologist and married another former prisoner of the Stasi.
Hans-Eberhard has since passed away, but I remember the calm, grandfatherly way he shared his story with us. There was no detectable bitterness. Just a valuable lesson about the importance of standing up to political oppression— and being resilient. It’s a rare privilege to actually talk with someone who experienced significant historical events first-hand.
The Berlin Wall
By the time Hans-Eberhard’s prison term drew to a close, East Germany was in a near-panic about its loss of skilled labor via West Berlin. Few people wanted to stay on the Communist side. Without warning and with surprising speed, the Communists on August 13, 1961, encircled West Berlin with a 96-mile barrier that ultimately became the heavily fortified Berlin Wall.
The wall purportedly protected East Germans from the West— it also cut off their escape route. The wall remained in place until 1989 and became an inextricable part of Berlin’s historical identity— but more on that later.
Tours of Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial
Today, Hans-Eberhard’s fellow inmates still give tours of the prison, lest people forget what happened there or take their present freedoms for granted. Tours are given in German and English and may be reserved up to two months in advance. There’s also a permanent exhibition where visitors can learn more about the larger political context in which Communism, the Stasi, and the prison existed.
For more information and to book a spot, click here. And check out the other places on my list of five unusual things to do in Berlin.
While in Germany, consider a visit to the Eagle’s Nest in Bavaria. Or click here to see what Budapest did with more than 40 Soviet statues and other relics of the Communist era.
Affiliate Advertising: If you use these links to buy something, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you .
