The French occupation forces took over the prison in July 1945 and returned it to the German administration in October, which immediately put it back into operation.

[13] The priest, Bernhard Lichtenberg, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 23 June 1996,[14] was imprisoned in Tegel from 29 May 1942 to 23 October 1943, for violation of the Pulpit Law and the Treachery Act of 1934.

Austrian conscientious objector Franz Jägerstätter was incarcerated in the prison for refusing to take the Hitler oath and subject to trial in July 1943 when he was sentenced to death.

[17] The founder of the Kreisau Circle, Helmuth James von Moltke, was moved from Ravensbrück concentration camp and imprisoned in the Tegel prison on 29 September 1944, in the Totenhaus wing (house of the dead) where he remained until 23 January 1945, when he was hanged.

SS commander Erich Bauer, who served part of his life sentence for his participation in The Holocaust at Tegel Prison, from 1971 until his death in 1980.

[citation needed] The bohemian Andreas Baader was imprisoned in Tegel Prison[21] during the period from his arrest on 4 April 1970, until his release on 14 May 1970.

In 1999, the left-wing terrorist Dieter Kunzelmann began his ten-month prison sentence in Tegel by knocking on the front door in a media-effective manner.

The vocalist of the right-wing rock bands Landser and Die Lunikoff Verschwörung, Michael Regener, also served his remaining sentence there.

[30] The Russian citizen Vadim Sokolov, charged in the Zelimkhan Khangoshvili murder case[31] by the Federal Prosecutor General, was transferred to the Tegel Prison when his life was in danger.

[32] The essayist Alfred Döblin placed the beginning of his most famous novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) in his literary treatment in Tegel Penitentiary, where the main character, Franz Biberkopf, was imprisoned for four years for the unintentional manslaughter of his partner.

[39][40] The prison newspaper is supported by the Förderverein der Lichtblick e. V. The editor-in-chief in 2012/2013 was Dieter Wurm, a well-known former squatter and bank robber in the city.