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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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."
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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.
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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.
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To be continued.