to Bonn, allowed her to divulge important diplomatic information to
the HVA under the code name nova. Tips provided by a defector led
to her arrest by West German authorities on 15 May 1976. Sentenced
to a five-year prison term by a Düsseldorf court, Berger resumed her
secretarial work in the 1980s.BERLIN-HOHENSCHÖNHAUSEN. The main interrogation head-
quarters of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), Berlin-
Hohenschönhausen was established in a militarily restricted zone
of an East Berlin suburb but not indicated on any public map.
At the conclusion of World War II, the Soviet occupation forces
turned this former Nazi welfare kitchen into its central deten-
tion center, “Special Camp 3,” containing more than 300 cells
and interrogation rooms. Those initially apprehended as “enemy
elements” included alleged spies, terrorists, Nazi activists, and
members of police and intelligence organizations. According to
official Soviet records, 886 persons died between June 1945 to
October 1946 in the overcrowded and ill-maintained facility; other
estimates calculate the total at more than 3,000. During the next
five years, it served as the headquarters for the Central Investiga-
tion Department of Soviet State Security.
In 1951, the Soviets transferred Berlin-Hohenschönhausen to the
newly established MfS. Until its official closing on 3 October 1990,
thousands of prisoners passed through its facilities. Many included
well-known dissidents and disgraced party leaders—Walter Janka,
Rudolf Bahro, Paul Merker, Ibrahim Böhme, Bärbel Bohley, Ul-
rike Poppe, and Jürgen Fuchs—as well as leaders of the Uprising
of 17 June 1953, two kidnapped officials of the Untersuchungsaus-
schuss Freiheitlicher Juristen (Investigative Committee of Free
Jurists), and members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. After the con-
struction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the majority of those interned
consisted of citizens of the German Democratic Republic attempting
to emigrate officially or commit Republikflucht (flight from the re-
public). Highly refined psychological methods increasingly replaced
an earlier emphasis on physical torture. Strictly isolated from one
another and disoriented by a deliberately irregular routine, prisoners
were subjected to months of interrogation by a skilled MfS staff in
order to extract incriminating statements.
30 • BERLIN-HOHENSCHÖNHAUSEN