After the WWII eastern part of Germany was under Soviet occupation. After Nazi regime collapsed, new vision for the country was required and Stalin decided that another copy of Soviet system would do well and began to build totalitarian system. And what a dictator you are without political prisons?
In Dresden Stasi prison was built in 1953 right across the KGB office on Bautzner street. Now in a building there is a museum I visited last weekend.
A dark, gloom cells were designed to isolate inmates from each other: even during the walk outside they were separated by walls with a guard looking down from his place.
In contrast with soviet prisons, they didn’t torture prisoners physically: exchange with western part of the Germany occasionally happened, and Stasi didn’t want to leave evidence on people bodies. But psychological arsenal was wide and powerful: sleep deprivation, interrogations in the middle of the night, threats to relatives…
On the over side of the street there were a KGB office. Both building were connected with tunnel and underground were also cells for Soviet prisoners. People here after arrest were interrogated, tortured and killed. Some of them were send to working camps of Gulag network. This prison is much more dreadful. You can feel the smell of fear and hopeless in the air.
In this KGB office at Angelikastaße 4 in 1980s was working Putin. He lived nearby and enjoyed his job until soviet system in GDR was dismanteled.
After returning to Russia he played his role as a democrat but since 1999 he is recovering Soviet Union with its ideology, rhethoric and, of course, political prisons.