About this place
Immediately after the Anschluss of March 1938, the former Styrian state security office in the complex by the Paulustor was turned into a Gestapo station by decree of Heinrich Himmler, with its headquarters registered at Parkring 4 and its prison wing at Paulustorgasse 8. More than one hundred officials worked here in departments that ranged from surveillance and counter-espionage to a section dedicated to religious and Jewish affairs and to the administration of protective custody and concentration camp transfers. Between March 1938 and the end of the war, an estimated 46,730 people passed through the Paulustorgasse facility; roughly half were released after interrogation, while the rest faced the courts, internment, deportation, or worse. In the final weeks of the regime the Gestapo destroyed its records to erase the evidence of its crimes, even as it dispatched prisoners to be murdered at the SS barracks in Wetzelsdorf. The site remains a working police building, and for decades it bore no marker at all. Only in 1995 did the Austrian Interior Minister Caspar Einem plant a cherry tree and unveil a modest memorial plaque in the inner courtyard, the single quiet acknowledgement of the suffering that took place behind these walls.
Key facts
- 100 officials — The Graz Gestapo apparatus by the Paulustor employed more than one hundred staff at its peak
- 46730 people — Were processed through the Paulustorgasse facility between March 1938 and the end of the war
- 1995 year — A memorial plaque and a cherry tree were finally placed in the courtyard fifty years after liberation
📍 Karmeliterplatz, 8010, Graz