Memorial and Meeting Place Leistikowstraße Potsdam

From the summer of 1945 until the 1980s, the central detention center of Soviet military counterespionage was in Leistikow Street 1. There is hardly another detention center preserved with such authetic oppressiveness like this former rectory of the protestant church’s benevolent society which was turned into a prison. The emphasis of the permanent exhibition which opened in spring 2012 is on the history of the building and the fate of prisoners there.

It is not known how many people were kept prisoner by the secret service in this place. Today preserved prison cells with original wooden pallets, detention rooms, bricked-up gangways and windows, massive gratings and screens as well as the rest of the barriers and foundation are evidence of repression and injustice. On the cell walls in the basement you can find numerous inscriptions in German and Russian which dramatically reflect  the disfranchisement and isolation of the prisoners.

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