Between 1945 and 1990, numerous prominent figures were held in the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen prison, including the actor Heinrich George; Georg Dertinger, first Minister of Foreign Affairs in the GDR; Karl Hamann, GDR Trade Minister; Walter Linse, the lawyer kidnapped in West Berlin; former SED Politburo member Paul Merker; Kurt Müller, second Chairman of the West German KPD communist party; Max Fechner, GDR Minister of Justice; Walter Janka, head of the Aufbau publishing house; the philosopher Wolfgang Harich; Karl Wilhelm Fricke, a journalist kidnapped in West Berlin; SPD party functionary Heinz Brandt, who was similarly kidnapped; writer Thomas Brasch; SED Party critic Rudolf Bahro; writer Jürgen Fuchs; musicians Christina Kunert and Gerulf Pannach; civil rights activists Ulrike Poppe, Bärbel Bohley, Vera Lengsfeld, and Freya Klier; and the singer Stephan Krawzcyk. But many of the less well-known figures imprisoned in Hohenschönhausen had similarly dramatic fates. Here, we present some individual prisoners' stories. We are in the process of adding more biographies.
Special Camp 3
Biographical case studies
  
Heinrich George, Helmut Kind, Karl Heinrich (from left to right)
Soviet Prison
Biographical case studies
   
Ewald Ernst, Kurt Müller, Alfred Weiland, Arno Wend (from left to right)
Remand Prison
Biographical case studies of the 1950s
       
Helmut Brandt, Georg Dertinger, Max Fechner, Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Wolfgang Harich, Walter Janka, Walter Linse, Paul Merker (from top left to bottom right)
Biographical case studies of the 1960s and 1970s
      
Sigrid Paul, Rudolf Bahro, Heinz Brandt, Jürgen Fuchs, Gerulf Pannach, Michael Sallmann, Hans-Joachim Helwig-Wilson (from top left to bottom right)
Biographical case studies of the 1980s
    
Bärbel Bohley, Freya Klier, Stephan Krawczyk, Vera Lengsfeld, Ulrike Poppe (from left to right) |
