Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Not bad for a weekend retreat !
Nuuumannn's European Tour of 2019
- Thread starter nuuumannn
- Start date
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Crimea_River
Marshal
Very absorbing pics and narrative Grant. Thanks for allowing me to delay mowing the lawn.
Lovely shots Grant!
- Thread starter
- #64
Hey no worries Andy, glad I could help.
So, my next stop was the Musee Des Arts et Metiers in central Paris. It's the French science museum and is an old school museum set up of objects in cases and no children's play areas, so on the day I visited it was blissfully quiet, despite Paris being packed with tourists. There is an aviation content to the collection of curios, the four full size airframes are historic in their own right, which, for anyone interested in aviation history are a must see, particularly having already been to the Musee de L'Air at Le Bourget and realising that the pioneer and Great War gallery has been in a state of refurbishment limbo for some years now. Yes, that is a miniature statue of Liberty out front. There is another one inside and even one on the Seine.
Europe 203
The first incredible airframe there is Clement Ader's Avion III. It took Ader five years to build this biomechanical beauty, which the wing was based, quite obviously on the skeletal structure of a bat. Uniquely, Ader had a lightweight steam engine designed to power it, which sits near the aircraft. He did attempt to fly it, at a military base at Sartory near Versailles, as the French army funded its construction, but his theory of accelerating the thing to flying condition was frought with mistake. He believed that the best way to get his machine airborne was to run it around a great circular track and allow centrifugal force to do its thing. On 14 October 1897, in front of army officials, his first flight attempt ended in failure, the machine jumping of the rail and collapsing to its side. Not surprisingly, military funding was subsequently canned.
Since, there has been some controversy surrounding this 'flight' attempt. Some time after the Wrights became famous for their first powered flights, Ader, feeling a little put out, made the spurious claim that he had actually flown 100 metres in the Avion III on that day and that one of the army personnel present had written a full report on this flight, which, not surprisingly, no one within the army archives has ever been able to find. Ader maintained until his death in 1925 that he had flown the Avion III on that day and kept an interest in the subject, having penned a book in 1909, which was widely read in which he foresaw the future of military aviation, including the development of aircraft carrying ships at sea. A true visionary.
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Perhaps the greatest legacy Ader had on the world of aviation was that that his last aeroplane's name was subsequently adopted by the French as their word for 'aircraft'. The intricate steam engine that powered the Avion III.
Europe 206
A Sinclair ZX81 computer! This was the very first computer I had as a kid. it was quite basic and you had to learn how to write computer code in order to get it to do anything.
Europe 207
A Foucault pendulum. This was designed to demonstrate by its creator, Leon Foucault, the earth's rotation. His first demonstrations took place in Paris in 1851 and the bob, which he suspended from the ceiling of the Pantheon is on display in the museum. Although a simple means of demontrating the earth's rotation against a set of graded measurements of degrees, setting the pendulum up to get an accurate reading of rotation is a precise undertaking, the starting of the pedulum swinging requires great care. It does work however.
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This describes it better than I could, so go read this: Foucault pendulum - Wikipedia
Take that, flat earthers!
The Conservitoire Des Arts Et Metiers is a wing of the museum within a priory and it is used to house the larger display items.
Europe 210
A Breguet R.U.1 aeroplane of 1911, the ungainly machine designed by notable aviation luminary Louis Breguet was powered by an 80hp Cantonne Unne engine and was not an unequivical success. It's entire tail feather unit swivelled about a joint at the junction with the fuselage and was, apparently considered not the easiest aircraft to fly, at a time when aeroplanes in general were not easy to fly.
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This is a 1908 R.E.P., built by Robert Esnault-Pelterie. This aircraft set a distance and altitude record that year of 3,900 feet in length and reaching an altitude of nearly 100ft. Quite the inventor, Esnault-Pelterie was the first to fit his aeroplanes with pilot restraints and was responsible for the joystick, although Louis Bleriot had designed a similar device. Instead of squabbling over who did it first, they both jointly patented the concept. Aviation owes so much more to the French pioneers than we are often prepared to admit, in light of what the Wrights achieved.
Europe 212
Perhaps the most iconic pre-war aircraft, and by far France's most significant surviving historic airframe, Louis Bleriot's XI in which he crossed the English Channel on 25 July 1909.
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This curious little car is Marcel Leyat's Hélica D.21, which was known as "L'avion sans ailes" - the aircraft without wings.
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Aside from being an aviation enthusiast of some repute, Clement Ader also designed bicycles. This is one of his.
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A model of a Deperdussin A monoplane.
Europe 216
A lovely scale rendering of an Antoinette.
Europe 217
This rotary device was the creation of Swiss brothers Armand and Henri Dufaux, their unpiloted hélicoptère of 1905, which they flew from the Parc de St Cloud near Paris. In front of sizeable crowds, this remotely controlled helicopter was hovered to the amazement of those assembled. It didn't lead to a full scale man carrying version however. Armand did built a successful aeroplane in 1910, which survives in the Swiss Transport Museum.
Europe 218
A diving costume resmbling something alien from a science fiction movie. Developed by brothers Alphonse and Theodore Carmagnolle in the 1880s, it is a deep sea diving suit that was designed for depths below 80 metres, although the seals between the joints were not entirely waterproof!
Europe 219
After my journey through the wonders of the science museum, I went for a walk through the centre of Paris in the rain. One of the ornate Metro signs - simply beautiful.
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Cathedral du Notre Dame standing defiant in the wake of tragedy.
Europe 223
And what would a trip to Paris be without a photo of the Tour de Eiffel.
Europe 224
One last iconic Metro sign...
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...Then it's off to Germany the next day.
Europe 226
See you in Berlin!
So, my next stop was the Musee Des Arts et Metiers in central Paris. It's the French science museum and is an old school museum set up of objects in cases and no children's play areas, so on the day I visited it was blissfully quiet, despite Paris being packed with tourists. There is an aviation content to the collection of curios, the four full size airframes are historic in their own right, which, for anyone interested in aviation history are a must see, particularly having already been to the Musee de L'Air at Le Bourget and realising that the pioneer and Great War gallery has been in a state of refurbishment limbo for some years now. Yes, that is a miniature statue of Liberty out front. There is another one inside and even one on the Seine.
The first incredible airframe there is Clement Ader's Avion III. It took Ader five years to build this biomechanical beauty, which the wing was based, quite obviously on the skeletal structure of a bat. Uniquely, Ader had a lightweight steam engine designed to power it, which sits near the aircraft. He did attempt to fly it, at a military base at Sartory near Versailles, as the French army funded its construction, but his theory of accelerating the thing to flying condition was frought with mistake. He believed that the best way to get his machine airborne was to run it around a great circular track and allow centrifugal force to do its thing. On 14 October 1897, in front of army officials, his first flight attempt ended in failure, the machine jumping of the rail and collapsing to its side. Not surprisingly, military funding was subsequently canned.
Since, there has been some controversy surrounding this 'flight' attempt. Some time after the Wrights became famous for their first powered flights, Ader, feeling a little put out, made the spurious claim that he had actually flown 100 metres in the Avion III on that day and that one of the army personnel present had written a full report on this flight, which, not surprisingly, no one within the army archives has ever been able to find. Ader maintained until his death in 1925 that he had flown the Avion III on that day and kept an interest in the subject, having penned a book in 1909, which was widely read in which he foresaw the future of military aviation, including the development of aircraft carrying ships at sea. A true visionary.
Perhaps the greatest legacy Ader had on the world of aviation was that that his last aeroplane's name was subsequently adopted by the French as their word for 'aircraft'. The intricate steam engine that powered the Avion III.
A Sinclair ZX81 computer! This was the very first computer I had as a kid. it was quite basic and you had to learn how to write computer code in order to get it to do anything.
A Foucault pendulum. This was designed to demonstrate by its creator, Leon Foucault, the earth's rotation. His first demonstrations took place in Paris in 1851 and the bob, which he suspended from the ceiling of the Pantheon is on display in the museum. Although a simple means of demontrating the earth's rotation against a set of graded measurements of degrees, setting the pendulum up to get an accurate reading of rotation is a precise undertaking, the starting of the pedulum swinging requires great care. It does work however.
This describes it better than I could, so go read this: Foucault pendulum - Wikipedia
Take that, flat earthers!
The Conservitoire Des Arts Et Metiers is a wing of the museum within a priory and it is used to house the larger display items.
A Breguet R.U.1 aeroplane of 1911, the ungainly machine designed by notable aviation luminary Louis Breguet was powered by an 80hp Cantonne Unne engine and was not an unequivical success. It's entire tail feather unit swivelled about a joint at the junction with the fuselage and was, apparently considered not the easiest aircraft to fly, at a time when aeroplanes in general were not easy to fly.
This is a 1908 R.E.P., built by Robert Esnault-Pelterie. This aircraft set a distance and altitude record that year of 3,900 feet in length and reaching an altitude of nearly 100ft. Quite the inventor, Esnault-Pelterie was the first to fit his aeroplanes with pilot restraints and was responsible for the joystick, although Louis Bleriot had designed a similar device. Instead of squabbling over who did it first, they both jointly patented the concept. Aviation owes so much more to the French pioneers than we are often prepared to admit, in light of what the Wrights achieved.
Perhaps the most iconic pre-war aircraft, and by far France's most significant surviving historic airframe, Louis Bleriot's XI in which he crossed the English Channel on 25 July 1909.
This curious little car is Marcel Leyat's Hélica D.21, which was known as "L'avion sans ailes" - the aircraft without wings.
Aside from being an aviation enthusiast of some repute, Clement Ader also designed bicycles. This is one of his.
A model of a Deperdussin A monoplane.
A lovely scale rendering of an Antoinette.
This rotary device was the creation of Swiss brothers Armand and Henri Dufaux, their unpiloted hélicoptère of 1905, which they flew from the Parc de St Cloud near Paris. In front of sizeable crowds, this remotely controlled helicopter was hovered to the amazement of those assembled. It didn't lead to a full scale man carrying version however. Armand did built a successful aeroplane in 1910, which survives in the Swiss Transport Museum.
A diving costume resmbling something alien from a science fiction movie. Developed by brothers Alphonse and Theodore Carmagnolle in the 1880s, it is a deep sea diving suit that was designed for depths below 80 metres, although the seals between the joints were not entirely waterproof!
After my journey through the wonders of the science museum, I went for a walk through the centre of Paris in the rain. One of the ornate Metro signs - simply beautiful.
Cathedral du Notre Dame standing defiant in the wake of tragedy.
And what would a trip to Paris be without a photo of the Tour de Eiffel.
One last iconic Metro sign...
...Then it's off to Germany the next day.
See you in Berlin!
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Great shots Grant!
fubar57
General
Really enjoying this
Crimea_River
Marshal
Me too. Looking forward to Berlin.
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
Great thread - saved me driving a long way !
- Thread starter
- #70
I covered a shed load of ground! I'd hate to think just how much.
So, it was a bit of an adventure getting to Berlin. We caught a TGV from Gare de L'Est in Paris to Frankfurt, then an ICE (pronounced Eee Tze Eeh) from Frankfurt to Berlin, with arrival at around 6pm, well, not quite Berlin, as I shall explain! About an hour outside the city, the train stopped and there was an announcement saying that there were mechanical issues on the line ahead and we'd be waiting for half an hour where we were. So, we waited for nearly an hour before the train moved again, before coming to a halt again, around half an hour out from the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. We were told that there was a lightning storm in Berlin and some transformers were down near the city, so we might not get there! We moved very slowly to a small station, can't remember where, been looking for it on maps, and we all got off the train and we were told it will probably not get to Berlin! So, the tour leader called the bus waiting for us at Hauptbanhof to pick us up. We waited for a couple of hours until the bus arrived, but in the mean time the train drivers announced that the train was indeed departing for Berlin! We eventually got to our hotel in Kurfurstendamm at around 10:30 that evening. Long day...
Whew! Anyway, next day we went to the Militärhistorisches Museum Flugplatz Berlin-Gatow, or what is simply known as the Luftwaffenmuseum. I've been before on a few occasions, so it was interesting to see what had been done with the collection. It appears not much. Most of the outdoor aircraft are still rustic and worn, with the display hangar looking good though. I wanted to playt around with contrast and exposure given the rustic nature of the collection, so some images are tinkered with.
Su-22.
MiG-21, MiG-23, Su-22.
MiG-23, Su-22.
F-86.
Mirage III.
Atlantic.
RF-84F.
G-91 and Hunter.
Atlantic.
RF-4E.
Gatow tower and gift Royal Australian Air Force C-47 that took part in the Berlin Airlift.
ZELL F-104G. Zero Length Launch - self explanatory. Look at the giant rocket under its belly.
Wurzburg. Looking closely at the detail of the construction of the dish, you can see this was built by the Zeppelin company.
Halberstadt C VI.
CASA 2.111 impersonating a Heinkel in a scene from the Battle of Britain film, and looking the part.
World War Two weaponry. There used to be a DFS 230 on display that I was hoping to get a look at but it's conspicuous by its absence.
This Chipmunk was based at RAF Gatow and flew the last sortie of an aircraft from the field over what used to be East Berlin, before the airfield permanently closed.
Bf 108 wreckage.
Next, a closer look at the second largest building in the world.
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- Thread starter
- #72
Next, it was off to Flughafen Tempelhof, the other major airfield in use during the Berlin Airlift 70 years earlier. We got a guided tour, which was utterly fascinating and probably the most interesting visit of the Berlin part of the Ian Allan tour.
As mentioned in my last post, Tempelhof's vast semi-circular terminal is the second largest building in the world in terms of floorplan. The Pentagon is the largest. There has been an airfield at Tempelhof since 1923, but the monstrosity that we see here was not completed until after the end of World War Two, despite being started by the Nazis in 1936 - the tour guide said that Berlin has a habit of not finishing airports (! - a not so veiled reference to the lengthy saga of the development of Brandenburg Airport at Schonefeld, whose development has been ongoing for years and was supposed to open in 2011!) The older terminal remained in use throughout WW2, while these buildings were repurposed, until it was destroyed by the Russians. As Tempelhof was in the American sector post-war, the US military finished construction of the building and opened it as an airport in 1950.
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Designed by Ernst Sagebiel (not Hitler's personal architect Albert Speer as people tend to think - we'll see some of his impact on Berlin in the next instalments of the tour), who was also responsible for the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM) building, which we'll see later, Tempelhof's grandiose reconstruction was financed by the RLM and begun in 1936. Its principal structural element was these enormous steel cantilever beams, whose horizontal columns, attached to the concrete outer facade at their after end, anchor the overhanging structure and enable it to remain self-supporting. When originally conceived, the building was designed to support removeable grandstands for flying displays, creating an enormous ampitheatre that could potentially seat thousands. This was never tried out in practise. Note the departure gates. Aircraft were able to shelter completely under the overhang and if need be the entire lot can be covered in with sliding doors.
Europe 248
Closed to air traffic in 2008, control of the airfield was in United States military hands as a serving military base between 1950 and 1993, when the Allied Control Commission relinquished its tenure as governors of West Berlin. From then onwards, Tempelhof was a purely commercial airport. On periodic visits to the city I flew in and out of Tempelhof a few times. I always thought it a neat airport with easy flow between check-in, departures, security and boarding.
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The building and surrounding greenspace's fate is secure thanks to the fact that it's a listed historic site and that government institutions now occupy some of its vast office space - the biggest tenants being the Polizei, but access to the terminal and hard standing immediately in front is restricted to guided tours only. The control tower. At the opposite end of the building is a search radar, which is no longer operable, but it was powerful enough to 'see' far beyond East Berlin into DDR airspace, monitoring communist air traffic.
Europe 250
The C-54 was flown into the airfield by the Candy Bomber himself, Gail Halvorsen, who gained fame for throwing parachutes with sweets tied to them from the window of his aircraft whilst on final approach into Tempelhof. Apocryphally, when his senior officer got wind of it, Halvorsen was hauled over the coals for it, but because the Russians had lodged an official protest - the approach path to Tempelhof flies over the DDR remember, Halvorsen was told under no uncertain terms that he was not to discontinue the act and throughout the airlift, children swarmed around the airfield outer perimeter waiting for Halvorsen to deliver the goods. This aircraft and a C-47 used to sit outside the building on the street side and I remember visiting once and seeing these empty spots with plaques telling what the aircraft were! We'll see the C-47 later.
Europe 251
With World War Two raging outside, construction of the massive new flughalle was halted by the RLM and these enormous hangars were never used for their original purpose by the airlines. Instead, the Junkers aircraft company set up an assembly plant here, putting together Ju 86s and W 47s first, then Ju 87s, as well as anciliary equipment. This was a major assembly plant for Junkers, although components were brought in from elsewhere, rather than built here. There were repair workshops and other facilities housed in these hangars. There are plans for their future in that the Allied Museum located south of the city will be moved in its entirety into this particular hall, with the rest of the space being repurposed. Since the airfield's closure, these hangars have been used to house refugees in temporary shelters before reaccommodating - hopefully not Lebensraum... Please tell me Germany has changed...
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A ghost from the past. Airlines that serviced the airport had their own maintenance facilities in the grounds.
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The main entrance to the flughalle. There was a conference the day we were there, so unfortunately we weren't allowed access to the arrivals hall. Note the enormous vertical windows. The foyer was 15 metres tall, in typical Nazi style, to impress and intimidate visitors with its grandeur.
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Tempelhof's cast iron Reichsadler originally sat on the peak at the very top of the main entrance seen in the previous image. It was forcibly removed from its plinth by the Russians when they stormed the building on 26 April 1945. Badly damaged, it's head was severed and mounted on this concrete post outside the terminal entrance. What happened to the rest of it is unknown.
Europe 255
Being a US military base, its occupants had all the facilities laid out for them within its enormous halls. This basketball court is on the very top floor next to a bowling alley and bar, which now houses an exhibition on the history of the site. There are also squash courts, a swimming pool, a barber shop and everything else American soldiers needed, all conveniently in the same building.
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This is the upper half of the 15 metre tall arrivals foyer. The Americans placed a concrete ceiling over the hall, leaving this above it. It suffered a fire at one point, as can be seen, but it's never been used for anything except storage. The marble and fittings were stripped for use elsewhere in the building during its reconstruction.
Europe 257
Below ground level is a network of air raid shelters - it's so interesting that the Nazis planned ahead; it's almost as if they knew they were naughty and would pay for it later. The rooms have been decorated with German folk tales and during bombing raids in the war housed thousands of people.
Europe 258
Temelhof was largely constructed by forced labour, even in 1936 and what is little known was that there was a labour camp on site. Immigrants were brought in to work there and lived in appalling conditions. There was a prison on Columbiadamm next to the eastern wing of the new building, part of which was demolished to build the terminal, but the buildings on the opposite side of the road became a Gestapo detention centre, the infamous Columbiahaus, a name that struck dread into those that heard it. Demolished after the war, the local Polizei pricinct building built on its foundations has since been named Columbiahaus - without any irony whatsoever!
Europe 259
Lastly for now, adjacent to the terminal is Platz Der Luftbrucke, a green space with this simple sculpture comemmorating the airlift and those who lost their lives flying the routes. The three prongs represent the three corridors that the Allied aircraft had to fly to reach Berlin, two inbound and one outbound. The names of those lost on operations are recorded at the base of the monument.
Europe 260
That afternoon, instead of going back to the hotel, we went into the city for a look around. I took some photos in support of my next day's adventure; my personal Berlin Walking Tour! Stay tuned, folks...
As mentioned in my last post, Tempelhof's vast semi-circular terminal is the second largest building in the world in terms of floorplan. The Pentagon is the largest. There has been an airfield at Tempelhof since 1923, but the monstrosity that we see here was not completed until after the end of World War Two, despite being started by the Nazis in 1936 - the tour guide said that Berlin has a habit of not finishing airports (! - a not so veiled reference to the lengthy saga of the development of Brandenburg Airport at Schonefeld, whose development has been ongoing for years and was supposed to open in 2011!) The older terminal remained in use throughout WW2, while these buildings were repurposed, until it was destroyed by the Russians. As Tempelhof was in the American sector post-war, the US military finished construction of the building and opened it as an airport in 1950.
Designed by Ernst Sagebiel (not Hitler's personal architect Albert Speer as people tend to think - we'll see some of his impact on Berlin in the next instalments of the tour), who was also responsible for the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM) building, which we'll see later, Tempelhof's grandiose reconstruction was financed by the RLM and begun in 1936. Its principal structural element was these enormous steel cantilever beams, whose horizontal columns, attached to the concrete outer facade at their after end, anchor the overhanging structure and enable it to remain self-supporting. When originally conceived, the building was designed to support removeable grandstands for flying displays, creating an enormous ampitheatre that could potentially seat thousands. This was never tried out in practise. Note the departure gates. Aircraft were able to shelter completely under the overhang and if need be the entire lot can be covered in with sliding doors.
Closed to air traffic in 2008, control of the airfield was in United States military hands as a serving military base between 1950 and 1993, when the Allied Control Commission relinquished its tenure as governors of West Berlin. From then onwards, Tempelhof was a purely commercial airport. On periodic visits to the city I flew in and out of Tempelhof a few times. I always thought it a neat airport with easy flow between check-in, departures, security and boarding.
The building and surrounding greenspace's fate is secure thanks to the fact that it's a listed historic site and that government institutions now occupy some of its vast office space - the biggest tenants being the Polizei, but access to the terminal and hard standing immediately in front is restricted to guided tours only. The control tower. At the opposite end of the building is a search radar, which is no longer operable, but it was powerful enough to 'see' far beyond East Berlin into DDR airspace, monitoring communist air traffic.
The C-54 was flown into the airfield by the Candy Bomber himself, Gail Halvorsen, who gained fame for throwing parachutes with sweets tied to them from the window of his aircraft whilst on final approach into Tempelhof. Apocryphally, when his senior officer got wind of it, Halvorsen was hauled over the coals for it, but because the Russians had lodged an official protest - the approach path to Tempelhof flies over the DDR remember, Halvorsen was told under no uncertain terms that he was not to discontinue the act and throughout the airlift, children swarmed around the airfield outer perimeter waiting for Halvorsen to deliver the goods. This aircraft and a C-47 used to sit outside the building on the street side and I remember visiting once and seeing these empty spots with plaques telling what the aircraft were! We'll see the C-47 later.
With World War Two raging outside, construction of the massive new flughalle was halted by the RLM and these enormous hangars were never used for their original purpose by the airlines. Instead, the Junkers aircraft company set up an assembly plant here, putting together Ju 86s and W 47s first, then Ju 87s, as well as anciliary equipment. This was a major assembly plant for Junkers, although components were brought in from elsewhere, rather than built here. There were repair workshops and other facilities housed in these hangars. There are plans for their future in that the Allied Museum located south of the city will be moved in its entirety into this particular hall, with the rest of the space being repurposed. Since the airfield's closure, these hangars have been used to house refugees in temporary shelters before reaccommodating - hopefully not Lebensraum... Please tell me Germany has changed...
A ghost from the past. Airlines that serviced the airport had their own maintenance facilities in the grounds.
The main entrance to the flughalle. There was a conference the day we were there, so unfortunately we weren't allowed access to the arrivals hall. Note the enormous vertical windows. The foyer was 15 metres tall, in typical Nazi style, to impress and intimidate visitors with its grandeur.
Tempelhof's cast iron Reichsadler originally sat on the peak at the very top of the main entrance seen in the previous image. It was forcibly removed from its plinth by the Russians when they stormed the building on 26 April 1945. Badly damaged, it's head was severed and mounted on this concrete post outside the terminal entrance. What happened to the rest of it is unknown.
Being a US military base, its occupants had all the facilities laid out for them within its enormous halls. This basketball court is on the very top floor next to a bowling alley and bar, which now houses an exhibition on the history of the site. There are also squash courts, a swimming pool, a barber shop and everything else American soldiers needed, all conveniently in the same building.
This is the upper half of the 15 metre tall arrivals foyer. The Americans placed a concrete ceiling over the hall, leaving this above it. It suffered a fire at one point, as can be seen, but it's never been used for anything except storage. The marble and fittings were stripped for use elsewhere in the building during its reconstruction.
Below ground level is a network of air raid shelters - it's so interesting that the Nazis planned ahead; it's almost as if they knew they were naughty and would pay for it later. The rooms have been decorated with German folk tales and during bombing raids in the war housed thousands of people.
Temelhof was largely constructed by forced labour, even in 1936 and what is little known was that there was a labour camp on site. Immigrants were brought in to work there and lived in appalling conditions. There was a prison on Columbiadamm next to the eastern wing of the new building, part of which was demolished to build the terminal, but the buildings on the opposite side of the road became a Gestapo detention centre, the infamous Columbiahaus, a name that struck dread into those that heard it. Demolished after the war, the local Polizei pricinct building built on its foundations has since been named Columbiahaus - without any irony whatsoever!
Lastly for now, adjacent to the terminal is Platz Der Luftbrucke, a green space with this simple sculpture comemmorating the airlift and those who lost their lives flying the routes. The three prongs represent the three corridors that the Allied aircraft had to fly to reach Berlin, two inbound and one outbound. The names of those lost on operations are recorded at the base of the monument.
That afternoon, instead of going back to the hotel, we went into the city for a look around. I took some photos in support of my next day's adventure; my personal Berlin Walking Tour! Stay tuned, folks...
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fubar57
General
Amazing. Thank you.
this thread is really excellent Grant
Airframes
Benevolens Magister
I agree, a truly great tour thread.
Lovely shots Grant!
Crimea_River
Marshal
Never made it to Tempelhof when I was in Berlin so thanks for sharing.
- Thread starter
- #79
The next day, I set off with a spring in my stride for the Big City and a self designed walking tour, which I shall present over the following posts. Before I went to Europe I knew I had a free day in the city and having visited the museums I wanted to see, I thought I'd take a city tour of military interest sights, of which there are many tour companies that offer such a thing. I knew what it was I wanted to see and I couldn't find one that offered all I was interested in, so, with my knowledge of the city and of the history, backed by some excellent references, I designed my own. In total it took the better part of 12 hours, with a couple of those hours done the evening before, but I covered what it was I wanted to see, as well as incorporating a major museum. So here goes.
Beginning in the centre of what was West Berlin, near the famous Kurfurstendamm shopping district, the first stop was the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche on the Breitscheidplatz, August-Viktoria Platz at the time of its construction. This church was built in the 1890s and designed by Franz Schwecten, on the instruction of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 'Kaiser Bill', in honour of his grandfather Kaiser Wilhelm I in an attempt to drown out the noise being made by the emerging socialist movement in Germany by bringing traditional values back into society. On the night of 23 November 1943, the church suffered damage during a bombing raid and post-war it was decided to retain what remained and to add new features to it. It is a functioning church to this day. The new spire can be seen behind the ruin being used to advertise that timeless feature of our modern society, a mobile phone. Berliners call this building "der Hohle Zahn", the Hollow Tooth.
Berlin Tour 01
The famous "Zoo Station", Zoologischer Garten, named after the Berlin zoo, naturally, and the Hauptbanhof of West Berlin. If we were standing here during Nazi times, beyond the U-bahn entrance in the foreground would have been a towering flakturm, an enormous concrete bunker several storeys tall with massive hexagonal turrets at each corner, which contained heavy anti-aircraft guns. There were three of these dotted around Berlin and they each took six months to construct; the Zoo bunker, Flakturm Eins was begun in October 1940 and was demolished in 1947, but the roof platform remained in situ until 1955 when its complete demolition was necessitated owing to extensions to the U-bahn network. Remains of Flakturm Drei at Humboldthain still exist surrounded by dirt; attempts at destroying them after the war took months and the Russians gave up at Humboldthain and just buried what they couldn't blow up. The Zoo bunker features in our tale later.
Berlin Tour 02
Next, it's an U-bahn from Zoo Station to Hansaplatz, where on foot to our next stop, I saw these on the ground. Throughout Berlin there are simple markers on the streets like these two, indicating where people who perished in the concentration camps were deported from. Both of these two individuals met their end at the death camp at Treblinka in 1942.
Berlin Tour 03
This is the Bismarck-Nationaldenkmal, the not-at-all grandiose memorial to one of Germany's most famous sons - actually a Prussian, but we won't hold that against him. Clustered at the base of the plinth on which Otto stands are a kneeling Atlas, illustrating Germany's world power at the end of the 19th century, Siegfried forging a sword to show Germany's industrial and military might (not visible), Germania standing on the neck of a panther, symbolising the suppression of discord and rebellion - this should have alerted people sooner, and a sibyl reclining on a Sphinx reading, indicating Germany's intellectual prowess. During the frantic days of the city's invasion by the Soviet army, the statue suffered shrapnel damage, some of which is evident. This wasn't the original location of the statue, as we'll see later.
Berlin Tour 04
Along from Bismarck is the Moltkedenkmal, altogether more subdued in nature. Helmuth von Moltke was a Prussian fieldmarshall who was chief of staff of the Prussian army for thirty years. He is recognised as the originator of modern battlefield tactics and pioneered the use of modern technologies, such as railways for military purposes. He is known as Moltke the Elder to distinguish him from his nephew, also Helmuth von Moltke, who commanded the German army at the outbreak of the Great War. I prefer this monument to the Bismarck one. Moltke leans casually on the pillars behind him, like he's waiting for a train, one of the ones he commissioned for army use.
Berlin Tour 05
The focus of this stop, Die Grosser Stern and the Siegessaule, or Victory Column. Constructed in 1864 to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War, by the time it was inaugurated on 2 September 1873, Prussia had also defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), giving the statue fresh significance. Atop the column is a bronze statue of Viktoria, commonly known as 'Geldelse', or Golden Lizzie to Berliners. Like the previous two monuments, this isn't the original location of the Siegessaule, and it was originally shorter. On the instructions of Albert Speer, General Building Inspector for Berlin from 1937, at the top of the columned rotunda there is a fourth fluted column installed that is exactly the same dimensions as the one above it, increasing the monument's height to 66 metres. There were originally only three. Soviet army troops nicknamed the column, 'The Tall Lady'.
Berlin Tour 06
Moved to its current location in 1939 on Speer's instruction, and installed at the centre of a new roundabout, named Die Grosser Stern, the Siegessaule can be accessed via four underground tunnels from either side of the East-West Axis bisecting the Tiergarten. Speer himself designed these subway entry towers, this one having suffered minor shrapnel damage. These are one of only a few remaining Speer buildings surviving in Berlin, but his influence on Berlin's infrastructure was considerable in remodelling this area.
Berlin Tour 07
The base of the Siegessaule is made of red granite and incorporates bronze reliefs of German victories comemmorated by the column. This one has suffered war damage and is incomplete. In 1946, the French insisted these reliefs, owing to their significance to France be removed and relocated to France as war booty. This was done in retribution for the stealing of the Quadriga that sits on top of the Brandenburg Gate by the Prussians, during the Franco-Prussian War. The French couldn't take the Quadriga since it was in Soviet territory and anyway, the Russians had stuffed it with all their shooting at Germans. And so the Siegessaule reliefs were on display at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris until returned in 1987 for the 750th anniversary of Berlin's founding, on the instruction of French Minister of Defence M Charles Hernu. Brownie points for him. Note ever present shrapnel damage, and the entry to the top of the column.
Berlin Tour 08
Looking due west from the top of the Siegessaule. This is Strasse Des 17 Juni, named after the 17 June 1953 uprising in East Berlin, where East Berliners, in protest against the inequities of the communist regime held a general strike, but it was brutally suppressed by the police. Formally known as Charlottenburger Chausee, to the Nazis it was known simply as the Ost-West Achse, East-West Axis and was widened on Speer's instruction in time for Hitler's 50th birthday in April 1939. Beyond Charlottenburg in the distance the street widens to a saluting base laid for the birthday celebrations, and then becomes Theodore Heuss-Platz, which was formerly renamed Adolf Hitlerplatz. Zoo station can be seen to the right of the cluster of buildings at far left, which is Breitscheidplatz. The Zoo bunker was situated roughly halfway between the Breitscheidplatz and the beginning of the East-West Axis.
Berlin Tour 10
Looking east, we can see the Grosser Stern in the foreground with one of the subterranean tunnel entrances at the base of the Siegessaule. Placed at this point by Speer, the Siegessaule and Bismarck and Moltkedenkmalen were moved from their original location in front of the Reichstag owing to Speer's extraordinary plans for what became known as Welthaupstadt Germania. We'll see its extent by the end of the next post, but a massive north-south axis was to be built, crossing in front of the Reichstag, which by 1939 was an unoccupied ruin, thus the Grosser Stern was positioned exactly one Roman Mile from the location of the intended boulevard. During the last days of the Third Reich, this stretch of the axis became a makeshift airfield, as Soviet troops had captured the rest of Berlin's airports, although few aircraft could successfully land and take-off from the strip. It was here that Hanna Reitsch and her partner (in more ways than one!) Robert Ritter von Greim landed in a Fieseler Storch in a vain attempt to whisk the ailing Fuhrer from his bunker on Wilhelmstrasse away to safety. As a result of his refusal, Reitsch was one of the last people to leave the Fuhrerbunker, where she and von Griem made their way to Gatow, where they commandeered an Fw 190, which von Greim flew - Reitsch was a slip of a thing and was content on snuggling into the small hold behind the pilot's seat in the rear fuselage!
The entry towers designed by Speer are tucked in the trees at the crossing point where the road divides in two around the roundabout. In the distance can be seen the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) - the pride of the DDR visible everywhere from within the city, and the Reichstag to the left of it, with the avenue terminating in the Brandenburgertor (Brandenburg Gate).
Berlin Tour 11
More to come.
Beginning in the centre of what was West Berlin, near the famous Kurfurstendamm shopping district, the first stop was the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche on the Breitscheidplatz, August-Viktoria Platz at the time of its construction. This church was built in the 1890s and designed by Franz Schwecten, on the instruction of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 'Kaiser Bill', in honour of his grandfather Kaiser Wilhelm I in an attempt to drown out the noise being made by the emerging socialist movement in Germany by bringing traditional values back into society. On the night of 23 November 1943, the church suffered damage during a bombing raid and post-war it was decided to retain what remained and to add new features to it. It is a functioning church to this day. The new spire can be seen behind the ruin being used to advertise that timeless feature of our modern society, a mobile phone. Berliners call this building "der Hohle Zahn", the Hollow Tooth.
The famous "Zoo Station", Zoologischer Garten, named after the Berlin zoo, naturally, and the Hauptbanhof of West Berlin. If we were standing here during Nazi times, beyond the U-bahn entrance in the foreground would have been a towering flakturm, an enormous concrete bunker several storeys tall with massive hexagonal turrets at each corner, which contained heavy anti-aircraft guns. There were three of these dotted around Berlin and they each took six months to construct; the Zoo bunker, Flakturm Eins was begun in October 1940 and was demolished in 1947, but the roof platform remained in situ until 1955 when its complete demolition was necessitated owing to extensions to the U-bahn network. Remains of Flakturm Drei at Humboldthain still exist surrounded by dirt; attempts at destroying them after the war took months and the Russians gave up at Humboldthain and just buried what they couldn't blow up. The Zoo bunker features in our tale later.
Next, it's an U-bahn from Zoo Station to Hansaplatz, where on foot to our next stop, I saw these on the ground. Throughout Berlin there are simple markers on the streets like these two, indicating where people who perished in the concentration camps were deported from. Both of these two individuals met their end at the death camp at Treblinka in 1942.
This is the Bismarck-Nationaldenkmal, the not-at-all grandiose memorial to one of Germany's most famous sons - actually a Prussian, but we won't hold that against him. Clustered at the base of the plinth on which Otto stands are a kneeling Atlas, illustrating Germany's world power at the end of the 19th century, Siegfried forging a sword to show Germany's industrial and military might (not visible), Germania standing on the neck of a panther, symbolising the suppression of discord and rebellion - this should have alerted people sooner, and a sibyl reclining on a Sphinx reading, indicating Germany's intellectual prowess. During the frantic days of the city's invasion by the Soviet army, the statue suffered shrapnel damage, some of which is evident. This wasn't the original location of the statue, as we'll see later.
Along from Bismarck is the Moltkedenkmal, altogether more subdued in nature. Helmuth von Moltke was a Prussian fieldmarshall who was chief of staff of the Prussian army for thirty years. He is recognised as the originator of modern battlefield tactics and pioneered the use of modern technologies, such as railways for military purposes. He is known as Moltke the Elder to distinguish him from his nephew, also Helmuth von Moltke, who commanded the German army at the outbreak of the Great War. I prefer this monument to the Bismarck one. Moltke leans casually on the pillars behind him, like he's waiting for a train, one of the ones he commissioned for army use.
The focus of this stop, Die Grosser Stern and the Siegessaule, or Victory Column. Constructed in 1864 to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War, by the time it was inaugurated on 2 September 1873, Prussia had also defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), giving the statue fresh significance. Atop the column is a bronze statue of Viktoria, commonly known as 'Geldelse', or Golden Lizzie to Berliners. Like the previous two monuments, this isn't the original location of the Siegessaule, and it was originally shorter. On the instructions of Albert Speer, General Building Inspector for Berlin from 1937, at the top of the columned rotunda there is a fourth fluted column installed that is exactly the same dimensions as the one above it, increasing the monument's height to 66 metres. There were originally only three. Soviet army troops nicknamed the column, 'The Tall Lady'.
Moved to its current location in 1939 on Speer's instruction, and installed at the centre of a new roundabout, named Die Grosser Stern, the Siegessaule can be accessed via four underground tunnels from either side of the East-West Axis bisecting the Tiergarten. Speer himself designed these subway entry towers, this one having suffered minor shrapnel damage. These are one of only a few remaining Speer buildings surviving in Berlin, but his influence on Berlin's infrastructure was considerable in remodelling this area.
The base of the Siegessaule is made of red granite and incorporates bronze reliefs of German victories comemmorated by the column. This one has suffered war damage and is incomplete. In 1946, the French insisted these reliefs, owing to their significance to France be removed and relocated to France as war booty. This was done in retribution for the stealing of the Quadriga that sits on top of the Brandenburg Gate by the Prussians, during the Franco-Prussian War. The French couldn't take the Quadriga since it was in Soviet territory and anyway, the Russians had stuffed it with all their shooting at Germans. And so the Siegessaule reliefs were on display at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris until returned in 1987 for the 750th anniversary of Berlin's founding, on the instruction of French Minister of Defence M Charles Hernu. Brownie points for him. Note ever present shrapnel damage, and the entry to the top of the column.
Looking due west from the top of the Siegessaule. This is Strasse Des 17 Juni, named after the 17 June 1953 uprising in East Berlin, where East Berliners, in protest against the inequities of the communist regime held a general strike, but it was brutally suppressed by the police. Formally known as Charlottenburger Chausee, to the Nazis it was known simply as the Ost-West Achse, East-West Axis and was widened on Speer's instruction in time for Hitler's 50th birthday in April 1939. Beyond Charlottenburg in the distance the street widens to a saluting base laid for the birthday celebrations, and then becomes Theodore Heuss-Platz, which was formerly renamed Adolf Hitlerplatz. Zoo station can be seen to the right of the cluster of buildings at far left, which is Breitscheidplatz. The Zoo bunker was situated roughly halfway between the Breitscheidplatz and the beginning of the East-West Axis.
Looking east, we can see the Grosser Stern in the foreground with one of the subterranean tunnel entrances at the base of the Siegessaule. Placed at this point by Speer, the Siegessaule and Bismarck and Moltkedenkmalen were moved from their original location in front of the Reichstag owing to Speer's extraordinary plans for what became known as Welthaupstadt Germania. We'll see its extent by the end of the next post, but a massive north-south axis was to be built, crossing in front of the Reichstag, which by 1939 was an unoccupied ruin, thus the Grosser Stern was positioned exactly one Roman Mile from the location of the intended boulevard. During the last days of the Third Reich, this stretch of the axis became a makeshift airfield, as Soviet troops had captured the rest of Berlin's airports, although few aircraft could successfully land and take-off from the strip. It was here that Hanna Reitsch and her partner (in more ways than one!) Robert Ritter von Greim landed in a Fieseler Storch in a vain attempt to whisk the ailing Fuhrer from his bunker on Wilhelmstrasse away to safety. As a result of his refusal, Reitsch was one of the last people to leave the Fuhrerbunker, where she and von Griem made their way to Gatow, where they commandeered an Fw 190, which von Greim flew - Reitsch was a slip of a thing and was content on snuggling into the small hold behind the pilot's seat in the rear fuselage!
The entry towers designed by Speer are tucked in the trees at the crossing point where the road divides in two around the roundabout. In the distance can be seen the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) - the pride of the DDR visible everywhere from within the city, and the Reichstag to the left of it, with the avenue terminating in the Brandenburgertor (Brandenburg Gate).
More to come.
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From the Grosser Stern we walk to the Bellevue S-Bahn and catch a train to Berlin Hauptbanhof, the former Lehrterbahnhof. Taken outside the station, we are looking across Invalidenstrasse, what was the likely location of Hitler's personal secretary and Nazi Party chairman Martin Bormann's death. On 2 May 1945, Bormann and four others left the Fuhrerbunker, where he had been holed up since 16 January and attempted to escape Berlin. Taking a circuitous route to the east, then north, the five ended up at Lehter, where they came under fire from snipers, which caused them to duck down near the station, in the middle of what was Soviet held territory. At this point, they were stopped by Russian troops but were ushered on, the troops thinking they were townsfolk caught in the crossfire, but Bormann and Stumfegger stupidly began running and one of the party was shot. Surrounded, the group, now down to three as another had been injured by sniper fire previously and left, realised their position was hopeless and split further, with one of them, Axmann, escaping for help. He was able in the future to recount his party's movements in those final hours. In a hopeless situation, Bormann and Stumfegger took cyanide tablets. It's likely they died alongside the road near this point outside the station. Their bodies were found around 1973 and identified after dental records were consulted, from their cursory burial location, uncovered by accident not far from this point. It was believed by many that Bormann had escaped to South America, and he was tried in-absentia and sentenced to death during the Nuremburg Trials.
Berlin Tour 13
Taking Elle-Trebe Strasse under the railway bridge visible between the two buildings, in front of which Bormann and Stumfegger sheltered before their deaths, we walk to Alt Moabit and face the location of the Deutshes Luftfahrt Sammlung - the world's largest aviation museum. Originally begun at a hangar at Tempelhof as early as 1924, the body of objects that comprised the collection moved to this purpose built site alongside the Lehterbahnhof in 1936 in time for the XI Olympiade, housed in what was known as the ULAP Exhibition Palace. Financed by the RLM, At the time it was the largest aircraft collection in the world and was continuously added to as the Germans expanded their empire in the late 30s and early 40s. With the war well and truly raging in 1941, the museum was temporarily closed, but did open to the public on occasion. In 1943 however, it caught fire during a bombing attack on the city and was almost completely destroyed, with most of the aircraft inside also burned to cinders. After the war, the site was levelled and aircraft remains were scrapped during the reconstruction of the city, although a few items still survive in museums.
Berlin Tour 14
This is a model of the Deutsches Luftfahrt Sammlung at the Deutsches Technik Museum on Trebbiner Strasse, with the vast array of aircraft contained within its walls also recreated. This is the view that we would see if we stood where the previous photo was taken. At the front of the building's facade was a courtyard with a number of aircraft located outdoors; note the Spitfire at bottom right. Whilst fire ravaged the building, not fearing for their own welfare, allegedly staff members ran into the blaze to recover some of the precious airframes and remarkably, many of those that made it out still survive at the MLP in Cracow, Poland. A few Sammlung airframes have left the Polish museum and exist in other locations; a Fokker Spin survives at the Aviodome at Lelystad and the only Airco DH.9A in existence was traded for a Spitfire Mk.IX with the RAF Museum in the 1970s, in what was a feat of diplomatic dexterity between the Polish authorities and the Royal Air Force, who was responsible for transporting the Spitfire deep within Warsaw Pact territory by road and the DH.9A back to the UK!
Berlin Tour 15
From Alt Moabit we walk the short distance to the River Spree and the Moltkebrucke. Note the Reichstag at the bridge's end. The final battle for the Reichstag at the end of April 1945 was fierce and intense and despite the building being unused at the time, the engagement played out like the battle for Berlin's soul as both sides fought a hard and costly fight for the empty shell. Having been given a direct order by Josef Stalin to take the Reichstag and raise the red banner from its ramparts by the 1st of May, the Soviet 3rd Shock Army, led by General Perevertkin from within the customs building next to the Moltkebrucke on the waterfront built up its forces for the push. This began around midnight on 28 April, when the 79th Corps crossed the Moltkebrucke, meeting fierce resistance from the Reichstag, where remnants of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler SS Panzer Division, Hitler's personal bodyguard had hunkered down, numbering around 300 men against far superior numbers. The statue on the plinth at the water's edge is the remains of a dragon that adorned the bridge at the time of the Soviet attack. More evidence of the fighting can be seen on the patchwork repairs made to the bridge.
Berlin Tour 16
A Soviet soldier's view of the Reichstag from the Moltkebrucke, with the Swiss Embassy to the left and what was the location of the Interior Ministry to the right. The site's now occupied by the Bundeskanzleramt, or German Chancellery. After the initial push by the 79th Corps the night before, the Soviet's realising they hadn't artillery support fanned out into the surrounding buildings, including the Interior Ministry, which they nicknamed 'The Himmler House'. Crossing the Moltkebrucke at 0700 hours on the 29th, the 150th Division entered The Himmler House and systematically took control of it, advancing room by room until it had been secured. During their advance the Soviets came under intense fire from an unlikely source; the gunners manning Flakturm Eins at Zoologischer Garten had a commanding view of the Reichstag and the surrounding area and thus with its big 12.8cm guns pounded the Russians.
Berlin Tour 17
This is the Swiss Embassy and was during the battle for the Reichstag too; the Swiss being the only country to retain an embassy so close to the Reichstag in what used to be known as the Diplomatik Quartier. Note the TV Tower in the background. Deconstruction of the region and the relocation of other nations' embassies had begun in 1939 in support of the construction of Germania, but in April 1945, the area had more pressing activities going on. By 0400 on the morning of 30 April, having cleared out The Himmler House, the 150th was ordered to promptly attack the Reichstag, but fire from the Krolloper nearby halted their advance. The 207th Division was sent to attack the remaining defensive positions, which took until 11:30am. Within yards of the Reichstag, the Soviets literally had victory in their sites, but for intense fire from the SS troops holed up inside. In the intervening time however, tanks and artillery had arrived, which enabled a frontal assault on the Reichstag, which promptly failed, then another was launched at 1pm, which also made little headway. It wasn't until 6pm that the 171st Division, having taken the eastern half of the Diplomatic Quarter enabled flanking fire that supported the final assault.
Berlin Tour 18
This is Spreebogenpark looking north across the Spree toward the Hauptbahnhof, with the building that occupies where the Deutsches Luftfahrt Sammlung stood to the left of it. The Swiss Embassy is out of the picture to the left and the Reichstag behind us to the right; we are standing in the site of the former Diplomatic Quarter. leaving the assault on the Reichstag for a moment, we go back to before the war and the construction of Speer's Germania. This was the location of the crown of the massive Nord-Sud Asche, North-South Axis, which was to be the principal feature of the reconstruction of Berlin's centre, in accordance with Speer's plan, with Hitler's input; the truly gigantic Volkshalle. If it had been built, we would have been standing within its 250 metre diameter (820ft) dome, which rose from ground level to 290m (950ft) to its peak, crowned by a 24m high (79ft) Reichsadler. Inside, there was to be standing room for 180,000 (yes, 180 thousand) people. Taller than the Eiffel Tower and able to contain the entire St Peter's Basilica in Rome inside it, In an interview in Playboy Magazine (!) Speer asserted that the reasoning for the enormous size of the building was spiritual:
"Hitler believed that as centuries passed, his huge domed assembly hall would acquire great holy significance and become a hallowed shrine as important to National Socialism as St. Peters in Rome is to Roman Catholicism. Such cultism was at the root of the entire plan."
Work on the site began in June 1939 and embassies were cleared out, but by 1945, buildings still remained on site, although work had begun on constructing foundations below ground. Building work can still be seen going on today, though not on the Volkshalle...
Berlin Tour 19
This is how the Volkshalle might have looked based on photographs taken of architectural models built under Speer's direction. That's the Brandenburg Gate below it for scale. Speer later commented on these models: " Our model city was set up in the former exhibition rooms of the Berlin Academy of the Arts. These rooms were kept under careful guard and no one was allowed to inspect the grand plan for the rebuilding of Berlin without Hitler's express permission. There was keen excitement when a new model was set up and illuminated by brilliant spots from the direction in which the sun would fall on the actual buildings. Hitler was in particular excited over the large model of the Grand Boulevard on a scale of 1:1000 which extended for a length of about 100 feet. He loved to 'enter his avenue' at various points and take measure of the future effect. For example, he assumed the point of view of a traveller emerging from the south station, or admired the Great Hall as it looked down from the heart of the avenue. To do so, he bent down, almost kneeling, his eye an inch or so above the level of the model in order to have the right perspective."
Berlin Tour 20
We are standing with our backs to the Spreebogenpark now, looking south, from what would have been the apex of the North-South Axis, the enormous Aufmarschplatz der Nation, a parade square at the front of the Volkshalle. In the foreground, either side of the road is the Wasserspiele, ornamental fountains, definitely needed in the summer heat. These take the shape of a rectangle, with the road bisecting it. The concrete pad on which it sits forms the roof of the Bundestag U-bahn station below ground, but the rectangular hole was dug in 1939 to begin work on the Volkshalle's foundations. An U-bahn tunnel was dug that crossed the rectangle from in front of the Reichstag, but filling up with water in the intervening years of the war, both these holes provided a substantial barrier to the advancing Russian troops in April 1945.
Berlin Tour 21
The full extent of the North-South Axis can be appreciated in this photograph of a photograph I snapped at Tempelhof of one of those models that Speer talks about above. It is keyed as follows: 1: Volkshalle, 2: Reichstag, 3: Tiergarten and East-West Axis, 4: Brandenburg Gate, 5: Unter Den Linden, 6: Propaganda Ministry, 7: Reichs Chancellery, 8: Potsdamer Platz, 9: Bendlerblock - Wehrmacht HQ, 10: RLM - Air Ministry, 11: Reich Security Main Office - Gestapo HQ, 12: Anhalter Bahnhof, 13: North-South Axis, 14: Triumphal Arch, 15: Flugplatz Tempelhof. On our walking tour, we'll be visiting all of these, apart from the last three, two of which never existed and the third we went to yesterday.
Berlin Tour 22
To be continued.
Taking Elle-Trebe Strasse under the railway bridge visible between the two buildings, in front of which Bormann and Stumfegger sheltered before their deaths, we walk to Alt Moabit and face the location of the Deutshes Luftfahrt Sammlung - the world's largest aviation museum. Originally begun at a hangar at Tempelhof as early as 1924, the body of objects that comprised the collection moved to this purpose built site alongside the Lehterbahnhof in 1936 in time for the XI Olympiade, housed in what was known as the ULAP Exhibition Palace. Financed by the RLM, At the time it was the largest aircraft collection in the world and was continuously added to as the Germans expanded their empire in the late 30s and early 40s. With the war well and truly raging in 1941, the museum was temporarily closed, but did open to the public on occasion. In 1943 however, it caught fire during a bombing attack on the city and was almost completely destroyed, with most of the aircraft inside also burned to cinders. After the war, the site was levelled and aircraft remains were scrapped during the reconstruction of the city, although a few items still survive in museums.
This is a model of the Deutsches Luftfahrt Sammlung at the Deutsches Technik Museum on Trebbiner Strasse, with the vast array of aircraft contained within its walls also recreated. This is the view that we would see if we stood where the previous photo was taken. At the front of the building's facade was a courtyard with a number of aircraft located outdoors; note the Spitfire at bottom right. Whilst fire ravaged the building, not fearing for their own welfare, allegedly staff members ran into the blaze to recover some of the precious airframes and remarkably, many of those that made it out still survive at the MLP in Cracow, Poland. A few Sammlung airframes have left the Polish museum and exist in other locations; a Fokker Spin survives at the Aviodome at Lelystad and the only Airco DH.9A in existence was traded for a Spitfire Mk.IX with the RAF Museum in the 1970s, in what was a feat of diplomatic dexterity between the Polish authorities and the Royal Air Force, who was responsible for transporting the Spitfire deep within Warsaw Pact territory by road and the DH.9A back to the UK!
From Alt Moabit we walk the short distance to the River Spree and the Moltkebrucke. Note the Reichstag at the bridge's end. The final battle for the Reichstag at the end of April 1945 was fierce and intense and despite the building being unused at the time, the engagement played out like the battle for Berlin's soul as both sides fought a hard and costly fight for the empty shell. Having been given a direct order by Josef Stalin to take the Reichstag and raise the red banner from its ramparts by the 1st of May, the Soviet 3rd Shock Army, led by General Perevertkin from within the customs building next to the Moltkebrucke on the waterfront built up its forces for the push. This began around midnight on 28 April, when the 79th Corps crossed the Moltkebrucke, meeting fierce resistance from the Reichstag, where remnants of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler SS Panzer Division, Hitler's personal bodyguard had hunkered down, numbering around 300 men against far superior numbers. The statue on the plinth at the water's edge is the remains of a dragon that adorned the bridge at the time of the Soviet attack. More evidence of the fighting can be seen on the patchwork repairs made to the bridge.
A Soviet soldier's view of the Reichstag from the Moltkebrucke, with the Swiss Embassy to the left and what was the location of the Interior Ministry to the right. The site's now occupied by the Bundeskanzleramt, or German Chancellery. After the initial push by the 79th Corps the night before, the Soviet's realising they hadn't artillery support fanned out into the surrounding buildings, including the Interior Ministry, which they nicknamed 'The Himmler House'. Crossing the Moltkebrucke at 0700 hours on the 29th, the 150th Division entered The Himmler House and systematically took control of it, advancing room by room until it had been secured. During their advance the Soviets came under intense fire from an unlikely source; the gunners manning Flakturm Eins at Zoologischer Garten had a commanding view of the Reichstag and the surrounding area and thus with its big 12.8cm guns pounded the Russians.
This is the Swiss Embassy and was during the battle for the Reichstag too; the Swiss being the only country to retain an embassy so close to the Reichstag in what used to be known as the Diplomatik Quartier. Note the TV Tower in the background. Deconstruction of the region and the relocation of other nations' embassies had begun in 1939 in support of the construction of Germania, but in April 1945, the area had more pressing activities going on. By 0400 on the morning of 30 April, having cleared out The Himmler House, the 150th was ordered to promptly attack the Reichstag, but fire from the Krolloper nearby halted their advance. The 207th Division was sent to attack the remaining defensive positions, which took until 11:30am. Within yards of the Reichstag, the Soviets literally had victory in their sites, but for intense fire from the SS troops holed up inside. In the intervening time however, tanks and artillery had arrived, which enabled a frontal assault on the Reichstag, which promptly failed, then another was launched at 1pm, which also made little headway. It wasn't until 6pm that the 171st Division, having taken the eastern half of the Diplomatic Quarter enabled flanking fire that supported the final assault.
This is Spreebogenpark looking north across the Spree toward the Hauptbahnhof, with the building that occupies where the Deutsches Luftfahrt Sammlung stood to the left of it. The Swiss Embassy is out of the picture to the left and the Reichstag behind us to the right; we are standing in the site of the former Diplomatic Quarter. leaving the assault on the Reichstag for a moment, we go back to before the war and the construction of Speer's Germania. This was the location of the crown of the massive Nord-Sud Asche, North-South Axis, which was to be the principal feature of the reconstruction of Berlin's centre, in accordance with Speer's plan, with Hitler's input; the truly gigantic Volkshalle. If it had been built, we would have been standing within its 250 metre diameter (820ft) dome, which rose from ground level to 290m (950ft) to its peak, crowned by a 24m high (79ft) Reichsadler. Inside, there was to be standing room for 180,000 (yes, 180 thousand) people. Taller than the Eiffel Tower and able to contain the entire St Peter's Basilica in Rome inside it, In an interview in Playboy Magazine (!) Speer asserted that the reasoning for the enormous size of the building was spiritual:
"Hitler believed that as centuries passed, his huge domed assembly hall would acquire great holy significance and become a hallowed shrine as important to National Socialism as St. Peters in Rome is to Roman Catholicism. Such cultism was at the root of the entire plan."
Work on the site began in June 1939 and embassies were cleared out, but by 1945, buildings still remained on site, although work had begun on constructing foundations below ground. Building work can still be seen going on today, though not on the Volkshalle...
This is how the Volkshalle might have looked based on photographs taken of architectural models built under Speer's direction. That's the Brandenburg Gate below it for scale. Speer later commented on these models: " Our model city was set up in the former exhibition rooms of the Berlin Academy of the Arts. These rooms were kept under careful guard and no one was allowed to inspect the grand plan for the rebuilding of Berlin without Hitler's express permission. There was keen excitement when a new model was set up and illuminated by brilliant spots from the direction in which the sun would fall on the actual buildings. Hitler was in particular excited over the large model of the Grand Boulevard on a scale of 1:1000 which extended for a length of about 100 feet. He loved to 'enter his avenue' at various points and take measure of the future effect. For example, he assumed the point of view of a traveller emerging from the south station, or admired the Great Hall as it looked down from the heart of the avenue. To do so, he bent down, almost kneeling, his eye an inch or so above the level of the model in order to have the right perspective."
We are standing with our backs to the Spreebogenpark now, looking south, from what would have been the apex of the North-South Axis, the enormous Aufmarschplatz der Nation, a parade square at the front of the Volkshalle. In the foreground, either side of the road is the Wasserspiele, ornamental fountains, definitely needed in the summer heat. These take the shape of a rectangle, with the road bisecting it. The concrete pad on which it sits forms the roof of the Bundestag U-bahn station below ground, but the rectangular hole was dug in 1939 to begin work on the Volkshalle's foundations. An U-bahn tunnel was dug that crossed the rectangle from in front of the Reichstag, but filling up with water in the intervening years of the war, both these holes provided a substantial barrier to the advancing Russian troops in April 1945.
The full extent of the North-South Axis can be appreciated in this photograph of a photograph I snapped at Tempelhof of one of those models that Speer talks about above. It is keyed as follows: 1: Volkshalle, 2: Reichstag, 3: Tiergarten and East-West Axis, 4: Brandenburg Gate, 5: Unter Den Linden, 6: Propaganda Ministry, 7: Reichs Chancellery, 8: Potsdamer Platz, 9: Bendlerblock - Wehrmacht HQ, 10: RLM - Air Ministry, 11: Reich Security Main Office - Gestapo HQ, 12: Anhalter Bahnhof, 13: North-South Axis, 14: Triumphal Arch, 15: Flugplatz Tempelhof. On our walking tour, we'll be visiting all of these, apart from the last three, two of which never existed and the third we went to yesterday.
To be continued.
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