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MfS Main Investigation Department (HA IX) Headquarters
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Interrogation cell in the new prison building at the former
Ministry of State Security (MfS) remand prison.
The Main Investigation Department (HA IX), under the Ministry of State Security (MfS) umbrella, was responsible for investigations and interrogation. Until 1989, their headquarters were also in the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen restricted military area. The Main Investigation Department (HA IX) was the MfS investigative body for those pending trial. Consequently, it not only had an intelligence service and police powers but also prosecuting jurisdiction. All of the pre-trial investigations initiated by the Ministry of State Security (MfS) against political prisoners in the GDR were under their direction and control. The Main Investigation Department (HA IX) also directly carried out investigations in those criminal law cases which the Ministry of State Security (MfS) regarded as crucial in their own work.
Before the Berlin Wall fell, the Main Investigation Department (HA IX) had 484 full-time staff. From 1973 on, it was headed by Rolf Fister, reporting directly to Erich Mielke, Minister of State Security. Fister obtained a doctorate in law from the Ministry of State Security (MfS) Law School in Potsdam in 1975. In 1978, he was promoted to Major General. His signature is on numerous arrest warrants, including the warrant for the arrest of the writer Jürgen Fuchs.
From 1973 on, the Main Investigation Department's headquarters were in a six-storey pre-fabricated concrete-slab office block constructed behind the remand prison. Half-way up the block was an enclosed walkway linking it directly to the prison's interrogation section with its 120 interrogation rooms. The rooms all had padded double-doors to ensure proper sound-proofing. In the early years, the prisoner had to sit on a wooden stool in a corner next to the door. The cellar of the Main Investigation Department's headquarters contained a listening station for all the prison cells and interrogation rooms.
Interrogators primarily employed psychological methods and put pressure on the prisoners, for example, by threatening them with long prison terms. They were also empowered to impose disciplinary punishments or tougher arrest conditions, to grant access to medical care, exercise in the yard, and visits, and decide whether prisoners were allowed pens and paper and reading material. In the early years, prisoners had to keep their hands on their thighs and had to sit upright during the entire interrogation period. The interrogator's work, just like the entire prison regime, set out to destabilise the prisoner and generate a feeling of total powerlessness.
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