Leistikowstrasse Memorial Site in Potsdam

The Soviet remand prison in Leistikowstraße has been preserved authentically. The collection cells and sanitary facilities on the upper floors show everyday life in detention in the 1970s, barren basement cells with simple wooden plank beds illustrate the deprivation of life in prison up until the 1950s.
Numerous prisoner inscriptions on the walls bear witness to isolation and despair. In the extensive permanent exhibition, numerous photographs, rare original artefacts and media stations encourage visitors to examine prison history in the context of the Cold War.
Fifty biographies convey the heterogeneous composition of the prisoners - Nazi perpetrators, actual and alleged spies, Soviet deserters, but also those who were completely uninvolved. Former inmates talk about their fates in interviews with contemporary witnesses.
The remand prison was located in the centre of the Soviet secret service city ‘Military City No. 7’. As the German headquarters of counterintelligence, the ‘forbidden city’ was one of the most important KGB locations on the border with Western Europe for almost five decades. A history trail points out the many preserved traces and architectural relics of this period. The memorial offers public and group tours of the permanent exhibition in the former prison building and of ‘Military Town No. 7’.