The "house prison" at Gestapo headquarters in Berlin

On the site of the „Topography of Terror“, immediately adjacent to Berlin's government area, the central institutions of the National Socialist SS and police state had their headquarters between 1933 and 1945. The Secret State Police Office, and during the war also the Reich Security Main Office, the center of operations for Nazi terror throughout Europe, were installed at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8. Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8 was not merely the workplace of the Schreibtischtäter or desk murderers, however. It was also a site of active persecution. Soon after the Gestapo established its headquarters at the former School of Industrial Arts and Crafts, a „house prison“ was set up in the building's south wing. Between 1933 and 1945, up to 15,000 political opponents of the Nazi regime were held and interrogated for days, weeks or months in this „police custody of a very particular kind“ (Heydrich).