Thanks for following along.
From Hanna-Arentstrasse, we walk south on to the narrow Gertrude-Colmarstrasse that runs parallel with Wilhelmstrasse, to this rather innocent looking car park. It is hard to find a more incongruous place for the most notorious megalomaniac in human history to have met his death, but 30 feet below this dusty space are the remains of Hitler's bunker. We are facing south-east, with Wilhelmstrasse running to our left. In 1936, on this spot was located a hall named the Diplomatensaal that was connected to the rear of the old Chancellery on Wilhelmstrasse and below it the first air raid shelter suitable for the Fuhrer was constructed. This was later to be called the Vorbunker once the Fuhrerbunker proper had been constructed in 1944. When Speer ordered the construction of the new Reichs Chancellery on Vossstrasse in 1938, a series of interconnecting tunnels between the new building, the Vorbunker and ministries on Wilhelmstrasse, such as the Propaganda Ministry and the Foreign Ministry were built, but these had proven to be vulnerable to air raid damage during Allied raids in 1943, so a new shelter was planned, to be bigger than the existing one, the Vorbunker and deeper, too. Located 30 feet below the ground, with a roof comprising a concrete slab 2.8 metres thick, the new Fuhrerbunker was not yet complete in its entirety by May 1945 when the Fuhrer took his own life on a sofa in his office in the bunker, next to his wife, Eva Braun, who did the same.
This page gives a very good description of the bunker's layout, accompanied by illustrations:
Führerbunker - Wikipedia
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From this view, we are looking north toward the location of the Fuhrerbunker and if we were here in 1945, this entire area was a building site while the finishing touches were being made to the complex. This was the Chancellery garden, with Vossstrasse and the Reichs Chancellery behind us and Wilhelmstrasse to our right. During DDR times, this entire area was empty, forming part of the Death Strip once the Wall was built. Following WW2's end, the Soviets, having taken everything from within the bunker complex, as well as from the chancellery and squirrelled it all back to Moscow, their attempts at destroying the steel reinforced concrete complex in 1947 was futile and the bunkers resisted destruction, so they flooded the entire complex and and covered the remains with dirt.
In the late 1980s however, the vacant land that bordered Wilhelmstrasse was earmarked for the building of swanky new apartment blocks, which the massive concrete fortfications below ground hindered the construction of, so further efforts were made to destroy the bunkers. Again, this proved too large an undertaking for the DDR workers and the apartments, seen in the background of the photo above went around the bunkers, but it also gave those who were curious and had a lot of nerve, since this was in the Death Zone next to the Wall, the opportunity to enter the bunker complex. Two years later, with German reunification and a total reconstruction of the entire block, work was undertaken to clear the place of unexploded ordnance, of which the city authorities are still discovering to this day - during my visit there was a UXB found at a building site not far from the city centre. This work, more extensive than that carried out by the East Germans, went further to destroy the bunker, owing to the desire to lower the ground level, after the Soviets had just piled dirt on top of the site. After an extensive survey of the bunker, which included brave souls entering the complex with cameras and clip-boards, the lot above floor level was demolished, with the concrete pad on which the bunker sat being buried again, this time, for the last time. Note the groups of people - these are official walking tours, congregating at the site and telling their version of the story. Incidentally, Hitler's lifeless body, his wife's and those of Goebbels and his wife and children were placed in a drainage trench and set alight, about where the clump of people to the left of the picture are.
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In this image, we are looking south along Wilhelmstrasse at the apartment complex that was constructed in 1988 around the bunker. Prior to the site's destruction during the war, we would be looking at the old Chancellery at Wilhelmstrasse Nr 77. Formerly Palais Schulenburg, Bismarck, the new Chanceller of the Greater German Reich from 1870, had the building enlarged for its governmental purpose and after the Great War, a new administrative wing was added at Wilhelmstrasse Nr 73, stretching to the corner of Vossstrasse. It was in this section that Chancellor Paul von Hindenburg had his offices, which then became Hitler's on his 'election' to the role in 1933. It was in front of an office on the first floor, not actually Hitler's as is often misconstrued, owing to the fact that the rooms facing the street got too hot in the summer, that Speer, newly appointed to the role of Inspector of Buildings in 1937, added a balcony for the Fuhrer to greet crowds of adoring fans who gathered outside. Never liking the building, Hitler said of it that it was only 'fit for a soap company' and that from the outside it gave the impression of 'a warehouse or of the city fire brigade building', while the inside was akin to 'a TB sanatorium'.
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We are now standing in a side street off Wilhelmstrasse on the opposite side of the road from where the old Reichs Chancellery stood. This is the Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales, or the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. It occupies a building that the Nazis conveniently left behind for future use; the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, RMVP or Propagandaministerium, the Reichs Ministry for Enlightenment and Propaganda. Within these walls, propaganda minister Josef Goebbels masterminded the Third Reich's image through censorship and governmental control over news media, the arts, and public broadcasting to become one of the most effective marketing tools of all 20th century dictatorships. Central to this ministry's role was the rise of the cult of personality, which promoted Hitler as being little less than a demi-god, as most ruthless dictators favour, and for a time, quite shockingly in retrospect, it worked - that is, until the inevitable world war, when Goebbels' words began to ring rather hollow.
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Back on Wilhelmstrasse, we have crossed the road and are standing in front of the block of flats we saw in the previous image looking down the street. This is the approximate location of the main public entrance to the new chancellery, the Reichskanzlei designed by Speer. Looking west, we would have been facing the courtyard that was known as the Ehrenhof, where vehicles would pull up to a tall double doorway guarded by two members of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler SS Division and flanked by four columns with a Reichsadler above it and sculptures by Arno Brecker of classical male figures depicting Die Partei, and Der Wehrmacht. And if this wasn't intimidating enough, through the 17 foot high doors, up some stairs into the entrance foyer, one walks into the 150 foot long Mosaiksaal, which was predominantly burgundy marble with a sky lit ceiling. After carefully navigating one's way across the slippery floor, the visitor reached the Rundersaal, which was a circular dome capped room that was designed to off-set a kink in the building, the entry door being slightly off-centre at its opposite end. This was the entrance into the main building proper, and the grand passage known as the Marmorgalerie - Speer's attempt to upstage the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. All of this grandiosity gave an impression of might and power. When Speer questioned the bare marble floors that Hitler insisted that he not cover with rugs, as was his original intent, Hitler quipped, 'diplomats should have practise moving on a slippery surface!' How funny that this expression of grandeur has been replaced by Chinese and Mexican eateries!
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We are on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Vossstrasse looking west toward Potsdamer Platz, across at the location of the new Reichs Chancellery; the officious beating heart of German national socialism. At the end of January 1938, the busy Inspector of Buildings was given the instruction by the Fuhrer to construct a new Reichskanzlei to be completed in January 1939; a seemingly impossible task, one that Speer amazingly managed to pull off. Beginning with the air raid shelter work detailed in the previous posts, Speer later commented that he already knew how he wanted the building to look from the inside and worked his way around the existing space the length of Vossstrasse, which the building occupied. Work progressed around the clock, with some 4,500 people beavering away at it on two shifts. After the first ceremonial topping out on 1 August 1938, the building was completed 48 hours ahead of schedule on 7 January 1939. A truly extraordinary effort given the scale of what was achieved; a 1,400 foot long monstrosity that Hitler himself was extremely impressed with, giving great delight in showing people round his new realm.
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We are standing on Vossstrasse's north side facing due north, approximately where the Marmorgalerie stood in the new Reichskanzlei. This enormous length of Nazi grandiosity was 146 metres long at a breadth of 12 metres, at a height of 45 metres. anchored by another slippery marble floor, the side facing the road comprised 19 high windows constructed of burgundy marble known as Deutschesrot. Opposite stood five evenly spaced similarly framed doors, the centre one of which, crowned with a heraldic shield with the initials 'AH' was the entrance to Hitler's office, protected by two more of his personal SS bodyguards. On the top floor above the grand structure was his private apartment. Speer said of the Marmorgalerie that, 'Hitler was particularly impressed by my gallery because it was twice as long as the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles'. The ignominy, that this most impressive architectural symbol of the Third Reich should end up as a non-descript car park.
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From the Marmorgalerie we move through Hitler's office, into the walled Chancellery garden, through which the Fuhrer would sneak out at night to visit his friend, the architect. The underground bunkers were out of the picture to the right. Speer's description of Hitler's arbeitsplatz describes it better than I could:
"The Fuhrer's office looks out to the garden terrace through five French windows 6 metres high and two metres wide. Five similar bays to those formed by the French widdows are repeated on the opposite wall, constructed with fine inlaid panels. In the middle bay on this side is the entrance door leading in from the Marmorgalerie. The office, which is 27 metrers long and 14.5 metres wide, has walls consisting of a dark red marble from Austria known as Limbacher. With a height of 9.75 metres, the room has a panelled ceiling with beams of darker wood that is a splendid feat of joinery. On the floor made of Ruhpolding marble lies a single large carpet." "His study met with his undivided approval. He was particularly pleased by the inlay on his desk representing a sword half drawn from its sheath. 'Good, good. When the diplomats sitting in front of me at this desk see that, they'll learn to shiver and shake'".
This building is the Landesvertretung Saarland, the government department representing the state of Saarland in western Germany.
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Doubling back eastwards along Vossstrasse, we have entered the underground at the Mohrenstrasse U-bahn station. Why? Because it is rumoured that the walls and columns lining the platform were constructed of burgundy marble scavenged from the ruins of the Reichskanzlei. It has been proposed, according to 'new research', that this might not be the case, but I question this, especially since the station was reconstructed by the Soviets/East Germans, who repurposed as much as they could possibly do so from the chancellery ruins - and where else in the rubble of post-war Berlin could you find rich burgundy marble, except the aforementioned spaces? Besides, the same material was used to clad the massive stone columns resembling draped Soviet Red Banners at the second Soviet war memorial at Treptower Park, in the south east of the city (which we'll visit over the coming days), which was done, of course in retribution, as was the first Soviet war memorial on the Tiergarten. I'm sticking with the Reichskanzlei marble theory, especially since Mohrenstrasse U-bahn is literally a marble stone's throw from Vossstrasse; not far at all to drag reconstituted building materiels.
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Our next stop is south along Wilhelmstrasse to the corner of Leipzigerstrasse, and the Platz des Volksaufstandes von 1953. This a memorial corner inlaid into the existing building commemorating the 17 June uprising in East Berlin in 1953, the reason that Strasse des 17 Juni was named. Inside the columned walkway to the left of the picture is a mural by Max Lingner depicting Socialist style scenes of harmony and prosperity, which overlooks the memorial, almost as an affront to the regime responsible for the turmoil caused on that day. Not surprisingly, the East German government would never have allowed such a commemoration, let alone on the grounds of the very building in which the state of the DDR was pronounced on 7 October 1949. Today this building is known as Detlev-Rohwedder Haus, named after politician Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, a Social-Democratic Party member who was tragically assassinated in his home in Dusseldorf on 1 April 1991. It serves as the Bundesministerium der Finanzen, or Federal Ministry of Finance today, but its original purpose was abbreviated into three incongruous letters, of which we on this forum are very familiar. RLM.
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Next, more Nazi naughtiness; the RLM building and the horrors of Prinz Albrechtstrasse.