Vienna - Morzinplatz
Shortly after Austria was incorporated into Germany in March 1938, SS chief, Heinrich Himmler and his SS arrived in Austria. In Vienna, Gestapo took over the Metropol hotel at Morzinplatz and set up its headquarters. The people who were taken into interrogation were led through the back door down to the interrogation rooms and the cells in the basement. There they were either threatened, beaten or tortured in order to extort confessions and concessions. The hotel was destroyed at the end of the war.
Current status: Demolished with monument (2008).
Address: Morzinplatz 1, 1010 Wien.
Get there: Metro to Schwedenplatz station.
Follow up in books: Höhne, Heinz: The Order of the Death’s Head: The story of Hitler’s SS (1969).
The fact that Gestapo placed its headquarters in central parts of cities was neither a coincidence nor a secret. Headquarters thus became a constant reminder to the population of its presence, but it also served a different purpose. At a time when the car was not as common as it is today, it was easy for informers to go to headquarters and provide information. Information that could lead to arrest, interrogation, torture and death.