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MfS Prison Department Headquarters
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Former Ministry of State Security (MfS)
remand prison administrative offices.
The Berlin-Hohenschönhausen remand prison site housed the Central Prison Department Headquarters (Dept. XIV), which was also responsible for the Ministry of State Security's prisons. Their primary task was to guard the main Ministry of State Security (MfS) remand prisons (UHAs) in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen (UHA I) and Lichtenberg (UHA II); they also guarded the prison hospital. The Department's uniformed personnel took charge of the prisoners on arrival, carried out the mandatory body search and then locked them in their cells. They observed the prisoners through a spy-hole in the cell door, passed them their meals through a door hatch, and accompanied prisoners to the interrogation rooms. When the cell doors were opened, the prisoners were required to stand back and say their prison number.
Department XIV was also responsible for instruction and surveillance of the guards in the 15 MfS remand prisons in each local authority district, surveillance of the prisoners in the Special Prison at Bautzen II, and the prisoners who had to work for the Ministry of State Security (MfS). For a time, the neighbouring labour camp "X" was also under Department XIV.
In 1989, 225 staff were working in the Prison Department headquarters. The Department head was Siegfried Rataizick, who took over in 1963, and obtained a doctorate in law in 1984 from the Ministry of State Security (MfS) Law School in Potsdam. In 1975, he was given the rank of Colonel. His office was in a side-wing of the red-brick building originally housing the canteen and food store and, later, used by the Soviet internment camp. In 1966/67, prisoners supplied the labour for an addition by building two storeys to the front section of the building, and creating the space for Department XIV offices, conference rooms, changing rooms, and even a sauna for prison staff, installed in rooms once a part of the former "Submarine" cellar prison. After the communist dictatorship fell, the State Security Service was disbanded in early 1990 and the prison was placed under the GDR Ministry of the Interior.
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