The SED proclaimed a health policy that guaranteed all citizens of the GDR a uniform and comprehensive medical care. But did the state leadership also grant this to prisoners, specifically political prisoners? Did the prison doctors and staff adhere to the medical directives? Did the medical professionals deliberately differentiate between criminal and political patients? Did they conduct medical experiments or misuse medicine to harm political prisoners? The study reconstructs for the first time the medical care and treatment of political prisoners in the GDR during the period from 1949 to 1989, based on the prisons of Brandenburg, Hoheneck, Bautzen II, and the prison hospital Klein-Meusdorf.