Victims of the Soviet occupying forces and the East German judiciary at Münchner Platz

Many inmates imprisoned by the Soviet occupying forces at Münchner Platz died as the result of maltreatment during interrogations, disastrous living conditions due to overcrowding, malnutrition and lack of medical care. Prisoners included petty functionaries of the NSDAP and associated organisations, opponents of Soviet occupation policy and persons who had been arrested arbitrarily. Their exact number is not known, nor is the number of those sentenced to death by Soviet military tribunals and shot in the back of the head on the lower floor of the west wing.

Records show that 62 people died between May 1952 and December 1956 under the new guillotine used by the East German judiciary. About half of those killed were clearly victims of a politicised criminal justice system.

The victims of the East German judiciary also included persons who had earlier been persecuted by the National Socialists. One of these was Social Democrat Wilhelm Grothaus (1893 - 1966), who had been active in the National Committee Free Germany in Dresden. In a show trial before the Dresden District Court on 22-23 July 1953, Grothaus was convicted of 'boycott agitation' and 'fascist propaganda' for his participation in the popular uprising of 17 June 1953. He was sentenced to a long prison term.