New book sheds light on infamous Stasi prison

By Carolyn Palmer

LEIPZIG, Germany (Reuters) - When he entered solitary confinement in East Germany's most notorious prison in 1956, Karl Wilhelm Fricke feared he would forget how to speak.

More than five decades later, he is now retelling his story and recounting the secrets of the Stasi prison in a new book, "Bautzen II," named for the detention facility near Dresden.

The prison saw a total of 2,350 prisoners pass through its gates between 1956 and 1989 and Fricke's book reveals it was the only prison in Communist East Germany where the feared secret police had free reign.

When working as a journalist in 1955, 25-year-old West German was lured into a flat in West Berlin and drugged by the Stasi, who suspected he had informants in the East.

He woke up captive in East Berlin, was interrogated sometimes day and night for 15 months and finally sentenced to four years in jail, entering Bautzen II in 1956.

"The interrogation time was definitely the worst, I didn't know what was going to happen to me," Fricke, 78, told Reuters in an interview at the Leipzig Book Fair. He said the Stasi's questions were useless as he had no informants.

When he moved to Bautzen II, letters and newspapers were his only contact with the outside world. During his four years he would see an average of two guards a day, who would bring him food, check his cell and shave him.

"Of course, they didn't let me shave myself," he said with a wry smile. He had to fight hard not to let the prison break his spirit.