“A Special Kind Of Police Custody”

In the summer of 1933, the Gestapo set up its own prison in the newly created Secret State Police Office. Many of the prisoners detained in the house prison were politically persecuted persons, from whose interrogation the Gestapo hoped to gain special insight. Among these individuals were numerous figures of the German resistance, as well as foreign opponents of the Nazi regime. It is estimated that several thousand prisoners were held in the house prison between 1933 and 1945.