Bautzner Straße Stasi prison, Dresden

Bautzner Straße Stasi prison ( if you can read German ) - darkometer rating : 7 - A former Stasi remand prison (and before that an NKVD/ KGB prison) in the city of Dresden that has been preserved in its almost original state since the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism . Still under development this is already one of the prime dark sites in the region related to those comparatively recent historical phases. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: For some general information about the infamous Stasi secret police in the GDR and their repression and imprisonment of political opponents see under Stasi , Hohenschönhausen , Stasi Museum , Stasi Exhibition and Bautzen . The Stasi had many special remand prisons all over the country. This was one of the larger ones and served not only as a prison for the region of Dresden but also as the regional administrative centre of the MfS (Ministry for State Security). In the early years after WWII when East Germany was a Soviet occupied zone, the NKVD, the predecessor organization of the better known KGB , first had a prison here. Not only actual Nazi war criminals were incarcerated here, also political prisoners as well as many a young victim who, after first being taken to Bautzner Straße prison, was then sentenced to hard labour in some gulag on often ludicrous charges (typically of being part of the Werwolf post-Nazi resistance group – which scarcely existed). See also the "Speziallager" (special camps) that the former concentration camps of Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen were turned into in the immediate post-war period. When the Soviets moved out of the prison in the early 1950s, the site became home of the newly founded Stasi .