Gestapo Headquarters

In the years 1942-1945, ARKIVET served as a police station for Sipo, the German security police. The Gestapo was the executive branch of Sipo. Arrested individuals from throughout the region were brought to ARKIVET for interrogation. In total, more than 3,000 people from Agder were held in German captivity.

Occupation of the State Archive

On April 10, 1940, the State Archive was occupied by the Germans. Negotiations were made for the release of the building, but only permission was granted to remove more archival materials and equipment from the building. However, on December 6, 1940, the building was released, and regular operations resumed. At the end of January 1942, the Germans occupied the State Archive again. Until the end of the war, the large brick building at Vesterveien was Gestapo’s headquarters in Southern Norway.

The House of Horror in Kristiansand

ARKIVET was not a prison but a police station for the German security police, Sipo. Cells and torture chambers were set up, and arrested individuals from the entire region were brought here for interrogation. Stays could last from a few hours or a couple of days up to four weeks. A total of 311 prisoners were tortured at ARKIVET. Most of them were aged 20-45 years. The violence was carried out by Sipo, often with Norwegian assistance.

Intensified Interrogation – Torture in the Basement

What was referred to as intensified interrogation often began with physical exercises, such as squats, for extended periods. The prisoner could then be subjected to more brutal methods. The most common forms of torture that prisoners at ARKIVET experienced included hard labor, punches to the face, blows to the buttocks with a rubber baton, wire baton, spring baton, stick, or whip, the use of a bench vise, the “crook” position (where the prisoner lay on their stomach with their feet and hands bound behind their back), the use of a heat lamp, and the “archive rod.”

Normally, the use of intensified interrogation had to be authorized by the commander of the German security police in Stavanger. However, each individual case handler at ARKIVET could also make such a decision if there was not enough time to wait for approval. The Gestapo officer at ARKIVET involved in the most cases of torture was Lipicki (130 times). The next on the list is the Norwegian Ole Wehus. Following them are Hans A. Petersen, Rudolf Kerner, Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer, and Paul Wilhelm Heinze.