Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there remain Germans who tout the legacy of the German Democratic Republic. The oft-heard claim that "not everything was bad about the GDR" and that the Soviet-allied state had great day care facilities, as some still assert, strikes 68-year-old Manfred Wilhelm as utterly absurd. He was a political prisoner.

In 1981, Wilhelm was sentenced to eight and a half years behind bars for the crime of inciting hatred against the state — just for telling a few political jokes to friends and in bars. He was locked up in Brandenburg-Görden prison, where Erich Honecker, the leader of the GDR, was once jailed by the Nazis.

When Wilhelm's sense of humor offended the Stasi, he was sentenced to eight years

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Honecker was the prison's most infamous inmate. The young communist was jailed there between 1937 and 1945 by the Nazis, and then freed by the Red Army. By 1971, he had become the most powerful man in East Germany.

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The dictator would do to his political enemies what the Nazis had once done to him: throw them in jail. That became a lucrative business for the chronically skint communist state; the GDR jailed its citizens, and West Germany paid to have them freed — as it would for Wilhelm in 1985.

Drews, a Catholic priest, preached to the prisoners once a month

Many inmates held at Brandenburg-Görden prison and elsewhere in the GDR suffered tremendously. At least 500 prisoners took their lives. Starting in 1988, Catholic priest Johannes Drews, who was allowed to hold a monthly sermon at Brandenburg-Görden prison, experienced firsthand what inmates were going through. Though he was not officially allowed to talk to them, he did anyway. Drews says he was "inwardly very motivated" to do this because the Soviet army had incarcerated his grandfather in the former Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp between 1945 and 1948.

It is estimated that at least 170,000 people were incarcerated during the GDR's 40-year existence. Brandenburg-Görden prison, located along the Havel River just west of Berlin, was one of East Germany's biggest jails, and held up to 3,500 inmates. Historian Tobias Wunschik, who researched its history and mistreatment of inmates, has now published a detailed, 1,000-page study on the prison.

Wilhelm's stories and those of other former prisoners greatly helped Wunschik compile his study. Most significantly, though, the historian relied on files kept by East German secret police — the Stasi — which was instrumental in pitting political prisoners against each other and spying on them. Wunschik estimates that up to 12 percent of prisoners were in fact undercover Stasi agents. Political prisoners were treated worse than ordinary inmates "even though they did not behave inappropriately."

Read more: Remembering last Berlin Wall victim Chris Gueffroy

Convicted murderers would physically abuse Wilhelm as inmates to lined up in corridors to be counted. Overall, Wilhelm remembers, there was a lot of distrust among the inmates. He says it was very difficult to talk to other inmates about how he felt. At some stage, he decided to think positively as a way of dealing with the monotony, hostility and pervasive sense of suspicion. He says he would think about his previous experiences and his dreams for the future. The double isolation — from both their East German society and from the world outside it — was extremely difficult to cope with. To get a sense of what was going on in the outside world, inmates even built miniature radios with which they secretly tuned into West German radio programs.

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Compassionate Catholic priest

Drews had a feeling that some of the repressive methods used by the GDR bore similarities to what the Soviets and Nazis did to their prisoners. To combat this, Drews always made an effort to greet inmates with a handshake and to tell them about the goings-on in the country. After all, by autumn 1989, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets, demanding political and societal reforms.

After the Berlin Wall had fallen on November 9, 1989, the prisoners sensed that they, too, would finally be freed. Four weeks after this historic event, they insisted on a press conference. Drews says he will never forget this day. Inmates led him into their cells, in which ten prisoners or more had often been crammed. They showed him the bunk beds, the handful of chairs, and toilets without walls that robbed them of a bare minimum of privacy.

Read more: Stolen children of the GDR

"We tend to forget so fast," Drews said. He added that Germans must continue to "reflect on law and justice" and above all be compassionate to others. Alas, there was very little of this in East German jails.

Wilhelm concurs. GDR leaders, he said, "applied what they themselves once endured under the Nazis to East Germany" — demonstrating how the tormented can become the tormentors.

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic An East German landmark A prestige project of East Germany, the Palace of the Republic opened on April 23, 1976 after a 32-month construction period. The building with its golden brown mirrored front housed not only the former East German Parliament, it also played host to rock concerts, theater productions and fashion shows. With its foyers, restaurants and a large event hall, the building served as a cultural palace.

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic Palazzo Prozzo Thanks to its opulent lighting and pompous décor, the Palace of the Republic earned the nicknames "Palazzo Prozzo" or "Erich's Lighting Shop" — a play on Erich Honecker, the then-general secretary of the ruling party's (SED) central committee. In 1990, the building was closed by East Germany's first democratically elected parliament after just 14 years in use. The reason: toxic asbestos.

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic A new cultural forum at the Schlossplatz On January 19, 2006 the third and final decision for the building's demolition was taken. The German Bundestag called for the establishment of a new cultural forum in the heart of Berlin.

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic Slowly taken apart Although the building should have disappeared from the skyline by the beginning of 2007, asbestos removal proved more difficult than anticipated. In pushing back the original schedule, the demolition went over budget, increasing costs by tens of millions of euros.

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic An empty shell After the palace's closure in 1990, the building was slowly taken apart, leaving an empty shell behind. When the demolition began in spring of 2006, over 500 tons of glass, 20,000 tons of steel, and 56,000 tons of concrete had to be hauled away.

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic Bit by bit With the last section of the building removed at the end of 2008, demolition took longer than the 32 months required for its construction. The concrete hole left behind had to be filled with more than 100,000 cubic meters of sand in order to keep the Berlin Cathedral located opposite from tilting.

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic Controversial debate Whether or not to demolish the Palace of the Republic and reconstruct the historical Berlin City Palace, which had stood at that location from 1443 until 1950, was a topic of hot debate for years. What statement would be made in doing so? Would Germany be erasing a part of its own history? The graffiti on this picture says "The GDR never existed."

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic Humboldt Box Shortly after the Palace of the Republic disappeared, the lot was spruced up with green. In 2011, the temporary Humboldt Box was erected, a small info center with models and interactive exhibitions where Berliners and visitors to the city alike could have a look at plans for the Berlin City Palace and the Humboldt Forum.

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic The new Berlin City Palace And there it is: the unfinished concrete fixture that is the Berlin City Palace. Already, the palace has cost the state €600 million euros. Its baroque facade, which will cost €80 million euros, will be financed entirely via donations. By the end of 2019, it should finally play host to Humboldt Forum exhibitions, theater productions and international conferences.

Berlin's Palace of the Republic becomes an East German relic The new Berlin City Palace And there it is: the unfinished concrete fixture that is the Berlin City Palace. Already, the palace has cost the state 590 million euros. Its baroque facade, which will cost 80 million euros, will be financed entirely via donations. By 2019, it should finally play host to Humboldt Forum exhibitions, theater productions and international conferences. Author: Jan Bruck / cat



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