Gefängnis, Historical prison in Peitz, Germany

The former Gefängnis is a two-and-a-half-storey brick building with a gabled roof, standing on the grounds of the old Peitz fortress between the market square with the parish church and the fortress tower. Its ground-floor walls on the east and south sides are 1.25 to 1.50 metres thick, laid in Märkisch bond, and the south wall shows a battered base. A continuous string course divides the facade, and the small ground-floor cell windows were once barred.

The building was erected in the second half of the 16th or early 17th century, according to other accounts in 1674, and from that year served as the district prison of the royal Prussian Amt Peitz. Cells lay in the basement, the court servant lived upstairs. A site plan of 1865 still names it a prison; in 1879 it was rebuilt and raised, with four cells on each of the lower two floors and the warden's flat on top. From the 1930s it served only as housing, and after standing empty it was restored between 2000 and 2002.

The building's name, Gefängnis, simply means prison in German, and it kept that name after its cells were converted into flats. The thick brick walls on the east and south sides, up to 1.5 metres, recall its use as the royal Prussian Amt Peitz jail, where the court servant lived above the cells.

The building stands on the former fortress grounds between the market square with the town parish church to the north and the fortress tower to the south. It is now a private dwelling, so visitors see it from the street; the thick east and south walls of the ground floor, 1.25 to 1.50 metres, are visible from outside.

The ground-floor walls on the east and south sides are 1.25 to 1.50 metres thick, built of brick in Märkisch bond, and the south wall has a battered base. The small ground-floor cell windows were once barred; the three dormers were added only during the 2000–2002 renovation.