Gedenkstätte Moritzplatz

Gedenkstätte Moritzplatz in Magdeburg preserves a former detention centre for people persecuted and imprisoned for political reasons. The two-storey brick building stands in the simple round-arch style of its construction between 1873 and 1876.

It first served as the Royal Prussian District Court and city prison, then held political prisoners exclusively from 1945 to 1989. A permanent exhibition across twelve rooms traces political persecution in the Soviet Occupation Zone and the GDR, with five rooms in the cell block covering the institution’s history until the Stasi takeover in 1958. Seven rooms in the front building include a reconstructed interrogation room furnished with original furniture and sections on Stasi repression and Magdeburg’s autumn 1989 events.

The memorial also recalls people detained here under the Nazi regime for political, racial and religious reasons. More than 10,000 people were imprisoned at Moritzplatz between 1945 and 1989.