Gallery: The Eerie Architecture of East Germany's Secret Police
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs01Potsdam-Fotostuhl
In their *Stasi—Secret Rooms* series, husband-and-wife photography duo Daniel and Geo Fuchs document the buildings and rooms used by the East German secret police. Here, a photo-taking station in an interrogation room in a Potsdam, Germany, prison.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs02HohenschoenhausenVernehmertrakt1
From 1950 to 1989, the Stasi operated one of the most sophisticated and oppressive intelligence networks ever known. Hohenschönhausen, perhaps the most notorious of the Stasi's prisons, is now a memorial. Here, the investigation floor in Hohenschönhausen.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs03hohenschoenhausenMonitorraum
Stasi officers—there were around 100,000, in total—monitored activity from this room in Hohenschönhausen.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs04MarienbornKommandoturm
The photographers grew up in West Germany, which Geo says was a world apart from their oppressive neighbors. This command station was at the Helmstedt-Marienborn crossing, the main checkpoint between East and West Germany.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs05MielkeEtageFlur
Erich Mielke, known as the "Master of Fear," was a a German secret police officer. This is the floor to his office.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs06MielkeEtageVorzimmer
Mielke's actual midcentury office, seen here, is a slick but sterile space. Even the officers weren't exempt from the conformity of the era.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs07bautzenBesucherzimmer
A (very cramped) visitor's room in the Bautzen prison, in Saxony, Germany.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs08PotsdamZelle1(Lappen)
The sterility of the photos, especially the images of prisoner cells, hints at the degree to which the Stasi kept a tight lid on dissenters. None of the rooms—including this one in the Potsdam prison—had graffiti or messaging etched on the walls.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs09BautzenBadezelle
A bath cell for prisoners, in the Bautzen prison.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs10BautzenDirektionszimmer
The director of the Bautzen prison worked from this septic-looking office.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs11HohenschoenhausenErsteAnhoerung
Most of the political prisoners taken in by the Stasi faced interrogation once they were inside. This room in Hohenschönhausen was used for those interviews.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs12MielkeEtageRaumDesPersonenschuetzers
One of the more plush rooms in the series is the office for Miele's chauffeur and bodyguard.
Photo: Daniel & Geo Fuchs13PotsdamBibliothek
Some of the rooms have barely been touched since the fall of the GDR. In the library, there are still newspapers from September 1989.
