As I don’t have Twitter I’m going to be saying this here instead. OP explained that they asked for an attorney but the SS insinuated it would make it look worse.

There is no reason to talk to police. Just say “thank you but I won’t speak without an attorney” to every question. What they’re trying to do is get a reaction out of you because as your Miranda rights say (and even in countries where they don’t read them they’re the same), everything you say may be used against you. They’re recording everything from the time they first see you (in their head or on devices, doesn’t matter, juries will believe them) because their job is to prove your guilt and build a case that will win a trial for the prosecutor. Whatever they do and whatever they say, you can clear it up in court… if it ever goes there. Because if you’re not giving them anything, it will be hard for them to build a case.

As much as we are in a bourgeois dictatorship, if having an attorney present would make you look suspicious they wouldn’t be allowed to speak with you at all. Think about it. The cops are the ones being suspicious when they know everything about you and you don’t know a thing about them. If you weren’t suspicious to them, they wouldn’t be talking to you. By the time you need the attorney we’re way past the point of you being innocent – they think you’re guilty already.

Don’t say anything else than “thank you but I won’t speak without an attorney”. Don’t even answer if they say “nice weather today, huh?”. They’re trying to bait you into saying incriminating stuff. Don’t answer to their mind games – and I know this is hard. They ask you the same questions over and over (apparently a favourite of DDR police) hoping you will slip up (in their case it was more to figure out if you had rehearsed the story or if it was a real memory). If you say “yeah I was alone all night at my apartment” and they ask again and again, and you slip up and say “there was this guy that came over” (even if it was your neighbour who asked for your phone charger), they’ll latch on to this.

They play games with you. Everyone of their question fits into a bigger plan to get you to confess. They will do anything to get you to say something, even humiliating you, lying, or throwing false accusations at you. I wouldn’t put it past them to say “we’ll get you an attorney later” or even “actually you can’t have an attorney for this”. It helps if you know the law.

Now, the SS may be different because they don’t abide by the law the same as cops (not like cops have to either). It doesn’t matter. What they’re doing when they’re saying “it will look bad if you don’t come clean” is hoping to scare you so you will confess to things you didn’t even know were illegal. But the game remains the same; they’re not just asking innocent questions. They’re figuring out if you’ve committed or will commit crimes. The more you talk the easier their job becomes.

Train yourself to do this. Practice it. Think about it, drill it so that when the day comes, you only have one thing to say to curious cops: “thank you but I won’t speak without an attorney”. You should also have one at the ready that you can call. I would even say it doesn’t matter if you’ve never called them. Find one that does criminal law, and save their number in your phone.

Edit: and about being detained, they can only keep you for so long if they don’t have anything on you. Yes, they may trump up a false charge to book you in at the station, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just lost hours. What matters is you don’t talk to them at all, because you may lose not a few hours, but a few years of your life. In OP’s case they escorted her our of her place of employment to question her; at this point when the time is past ask “am I free to go?”, yes -> “thank you have a good day” and just leave. Again, you have to look this up because they will try to coerce you into staying (they don’t have to clearly say yes you are).