Treptower Park
The
site on May 8, 1956 during a wreath-laying ceremony on the anniversary
of the German day of defeat in Treptow and standing at the site in 2021.
In the morning hours of May 8, 1956, the eleventh anniversary of the
defeat of Germany by the allies, members of the government of the German
Democratic Republic, the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party
of Germany, the Diplomatic Corps and delegations from mass
organisations and factories laid wreaths at the Soviet Memorial in
Treptow. Shown here is a view of the honorary formation of the National
People's Army in front of the Soviet memorial. This is the most
impressive monument to the Red Army is the vast war memorial and military cemetery in Berlin, built between
1946-1949 to commemorate the 20,000 Soviet soldiers who fell in the
battle of Berlin in April-May 1945 in the heart of Treptower Park close
to the former East Berlin's embassy quarters. In fact, it remains
perhaps the only public display of a swastika in Berlin, albeit in the
process of being smashed (although it is illegal to display any Nazi
symbol here in Germany, even for anti-fascist purposes). It thus serves
not only as a memorial but as a military cemetery. Completed in May
1949, it was built on the instructions of the Soviet military
administration in Germany to honour the soldiers of the Red Army who
died in the war they helped initiate through the Nazi-Soviet Pact of
August 1939. Over 7,000 of the soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin
are buried here. The colossal statue belonging to the monument is
thirty metres high with hill and base.
During
my 2021 Bavarian International School class trip and as it appeared in a
photograph taken in 1955 by Estella Burket, a teacher at Deseronto
Public School, Deseronto, Ontario, in the Dominion of Canada. After
the war, four Soviet memorial sites were
created by the Red Army in the urban area of Berlin.
These sites are not only monuments to the victory over Germany, but also serve as Soviet war grave sites in Germany. The
central monument is this, the complex in Treptow Park. The memorial in
the Schönholzer Heide, the memorial in the Tiergarten and the
memorial at Bucher castle grounds were also built for this purpose.
A contest had been organised by the Soviet Command for the design of the
memorial in Berlin-Treptow, to which 33 drafts were submitted. From
June 1946, the proposal of a Soviet creator collective, designed by the
architect Jakov S. Belopolski, the sculptor Yevgeny Wuchetich, the
painter Alexander A. Gorpenko, and the engineer Sarra S. Walerius, was
implemented. The sculptures and reliefs were manufactured in 1948
by the Lauchhammer art foundry. The memorial was built on the site
of a large play and sports meadow in the area of the "New Lake", which
was created during the Berlin trade exhibition of 1896 and completed in May 1949.
The
construction of the monument was marked by the beginning of the Cold
War. Although there was a lack of living space in post-war Germany and
the construction sector had almost come to a standstill due to the lack
of planning, labour and material shortages, Soviet propaganda demands
took priority over housing construction. This site was to express two
ideas: on the one hand, an appreciation of Soviet occupation power so
that the scale of the area should be "a witness of the greatness and the
insuperable power of Soviet power." East German politicians like Otto
Grotewohl, on the other hand, saw in the memorial on May 8, 1949, the
fourth anniversary of the end of the war, a sign of gratitude to the
Soviet army as a liberator. In
the following decades, the Treptower site was the scene of mass events
and state rituals of the DDR, which sometimes completely superimposed
the original intention of being the victory mark and cemetery of the
Second World War. In 1985, on the 40th anniversary of the end of the
war, the representatives of the youth movement of the DDR organised a
torchlight procession at the Treptower Memorial. There they took the
"oath of the youth of the DDR" on their behalf. 
At
the site with my students holding one of my wartime Soviet flags and
the same spot on May 8, 1956 with an honorary formation of the National
People's Army in front of the Soviet memorial. The memorial’s
significance goes beyond its architectural grandeur or the scale of loss
it commemorates. It has long been a site of political symbolism. In the
immediate post-war years, as the Soviet Union consolidated its control
over East Germany, the memorial became a focal point for the DDR's
official historical narrative. Through state-sponsored ceremonies and
school visits, it was promoted as a site of pilgrimage, representing
both the brotherhood of Soviet and East German socialism and the eternal
debt owed by East Germany to the Soviet Union. This close association
with Soviet power made the memorial not just a symbol of victory over
fascism but also a potent marker of Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe.
Consequently, for many East Germans, it came to embody the
contradictions of their national identity, simultaneously representing
liberation and subjugation. Scholarly interpretations of the memorial
reflect this duality. Sebestyen argues that the Soviet-designed war
memorials across Eastern Europe, including Treptower Park, were intended
as much to intimidate as to commemorate. The massive scale,
militaristic iconography, and positioning of such memorials were,
according to Sebestyen, reminders of Soviet control rather than simply
tributes to wartime sacrifices. This perspective sees the memorial as a
tool of Soviet soft power, particularly in the years following 1945 when
the Soviet Union sought to solidify its ideological and military
presence in the region. The deliberate evocation of Soviet heroism,
portrayed in such grand terms, was integral to the GDR’s legitimisation
strategy, binding the country closer to Moscow and reinforcing the
Soviet Union’s role as a paternal protector of the socialist bloc. .gif)
Yet,
the post-Cold War era has complicated this narrative. Following the
reunification of Germany in 1990 and the dissolution of the Soviet
Union, the memorial has faced a re-examination within the context of
German historical memory. Initially, there were calls from some segments
of German society to dismantle Soviet-era monuments, seen as relics of
foreign occupation and dictatorship. However, Treptower Park's
significance as a grave for thousands of soldiers has largely preserved
it from such fate, unlike other Soviet statues removed from public
spaces across Eastern Europe. In Berlin, where the history of the Second
World War and its aftermath looms large, the memorial has retained a
certain sanctity, protected in part by the treaties between Germany and
Russia, which guarantee its preservation. As such, it remains a space
where annual commemorations are held, not only by Russian and German
officials but also by anti-fascist groups, who view the site as a symbol
of the defeat of Nazism. However, the memorial's legacy is not without
its tensions. Whilst it continues to serve as a site of remembrance, it
is also a point of contention, particularly among those who view it as a
vestige of Soviet oppression.
At the entrance during cosmonaut Waleri Bykowski's visit and my 2026 class visiit. This stretch is 200 metres long and an hundred metres wide leading to six
bronze-cast wreaths measuring around ten metres in diameter. The Red Army’s actions during the
occupation of Germany, including widespread evidenced reports of
looting, rape, and destruction, complicate the narrative of liberation
that the memorial seeks to promote. Naimark highlights the Soviet
occupation's dark legacy in Berlin, noting that whilst the Red Army’s
role in ending Nazi tyranny can't be discounted, its occupation policies
left deep scars on the German populace, particularly in the immediate
aftermath of the war. For those who suffered under Soviet rule, the
Treptower Memorial serves as a painful reminder not of liberation but of
subjugation and violence. As such, the site remains contested, with
some viewing it as an essential symbol of anti-fascism and others as a
monument to Soviet tyranny. The Treptower Soviet Memorial thus exists
within a web of competing historical interpretations, serving as both a
commemoration of wartime sacrifice and a flashpoint for the unresolved
historical traumas of the 20th century. Its continuing significance
today is a testament to the complexities of post-war memory in Germany
and the broader question of how societies reckon with the legacies of
occupation, war, and dictatorship. The careful preservation of the site
reflects a broader consensus within Germany to acknowledge the
contributions of the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany while
simultaneously confronting the darker aspects of Soviet rule. During
the fall of the Wall on December 28, 1989, strangers smeared the stone
sarcophagi and the base of the crypt with anti-Soviet slogans. The
SED-PDS suspected that the perpetrator or perpetrators came from the
right-wing extremist scene and organised a mass demonstration on January
3, 1990, in which 250,000 citizens of the DDR took part. Party chairman
Gregor Gysi took this opportunity to call for “protection of the
constitution” for the DDR. He was referring to the discussion of whether
the Office for National Security, the successor organisation to the
Stasi, should be reorganised or wound down. Historian Stefan Wolle
therefore considers it possible that behind the graffiti were Stasi
employees who feared for their posts. The Soviet war memorials were an
important negotiating point on the Russian side for the two-plus-four
treaties for German reunification. 
The
Federal Republic therefore undertook in 1992 in the agreement of
December 16, 1992 between the Government of the Federal Republic of
Germany and the Government of the Russian Federation on War Graves Care
to permanently guarantee their existence, to maintain and repair them.
Any changes to the monuments require the approval of the Russian
Federation.On August 31, 1994, the military ceremony for the withdrawal
of Russian troops from Germany was held at the Soviet Memorial in
Treptower Park. After a ceremony in the Schauspielhaus on
Gendarmenmarkt, 1,000 Russian soldiers from the 6th Guards Mot.-Rifle
Brigade and six hundred German soldiers from the Guard Battalion at the
Federal Ministry of Defence came together to commemorate the dead. They
formed the framework for the wreath-laying ceremony, accompanied by
short speeches, by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President Boris Jelzin.
Since 1995, a memorial rally has been held at the memorial every year on
May 9th with the laying of flowers and wreaths, which is organised by
the “Bund der Antifaschisten Treptow e. V. "is organised. The motto of
the event is “ Liberation Day ” and corresponds to Victory Day, the
Russian holiday. On the night of May 8-9 1945 in Berlin-Karlshorst the
unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht by three leading German
military men, that of the last Reich President Karl Dönitz in the
special area Mürwik were authorised to do so, and signed by four Allied
representatives. On May 9, 2015, around 10,000 people visited the
memorial to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the war -
among them were members of the Night Wolves, a Russian motorcycle and
rocker club. The bikers' trip to Berlin caused a sensation when some
members were initially refused entry to Germany. On September 2, 2015,
the inscriptions on a memorial plaque were destroyed by arson. On May 4,
2019, there was another incident in which the statue "Mother Homeland"
was doused with a dark liquid. In October 2003, the statue of the Red Army
soldier was restored in a workshop on Rügen, brought back to Berlin via ship and has been on its base since May 4, 2004.
One
enters the memorial either coming from Puschkinallee or from Am
Treptower Park , each through a triumphal arch made of grey granite
shown here on July 12, 1957 when members of the district association of Greater
Berlin, together with the delegations from the CSR, from China, North
Korea and Vietnam, attended the 7th party congress and during my 2026 class visit. An inscription on this honours the soldiers “who died for the freedom
and independence of the socialist homeland”. Following the path you come
to a kind of forecourt with a three metre high statue of a woman, an
allegory of the “Mother Homeland” mourning for her fallen sons. From
here the line of sight of the main monument opens up. A broad, gently
sloping path lined with sloping birch trees leads along the central axis
to the main field of the complex. This is marked by two large, stylised
flags made of red granite, which lean towards the path on either side.
At the front of each is the sculpture of a kneeling soldier in full gear
and armed with a machine gun. There is an older soldier on the left and
a younger soldier on the right. From here a few stairs lead down to the
symbolic burial ground, which forms the centre of the complex. These
graves, greened with grass and small hedges, are marked by five square
stone slabs, each with a laurel wreath (the real graves are more likely
to be found on the sides of the complex under the plane trees and under
the burial mound).
In the following decades, the Treptow site was at times completely superimposed on mass events and state rituals of the DDR. In 1985, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, the representatives of the DDR's youth movement organised a torchlight procession at the Treptow Memorial.
There, they represented
the "oath of youth of the DDR". In the time of the invasion on 28
December 1989 strangers smeared the stone carcass and the base of the
crypt with anti-Soviet slogans. The SED-PDS suspected that the
perpetrators would come from the right-wing extremist scene and
organised a mass demonstration on January 3, 1990, involving 250,000
citizens of the DDR. On this occasion, Gregor Gysi, party chairman,
demanded "constitutional protection" for the site; historian Stefan
Wolle therefore considers it possible that Stasi employees were behind
the vandalism, fearing their positions upon re-unification. 
I'm standing beside one of sixteen
white sarcophagi of limestone that stand along the outer boundary of
the field leading to the statue, this one displaying Lenin; all display war scenes
and historical moments through reliefs from the history of the Great Patriotic War
of the Soviet Peoples on the two long sides. On each of these is a quote from Stalin on the narrow side facing the central field; in Russian on
the left (northern) and in German on the right (southern). This one shows Lenin on a red banner
that flies behind the Soviet Red Army with a quote on the side embossed in
gold by Stalin. These sarcophagi are marked on the two longitudinal
sides with reliefs from the history of the Great Patriotic War of the
Soviet Peoples, bearing quotations from Joseph Stalin in Russian on the
left and in German on the right. The individual sarcophagi have specific
themes: the attack by the Germans, the destruction and suffering in the
Soviet Union, the sacrifice and abandonment of the Soviet people and
support of the army, the suffering of the army, victory, and heroic
death. Oaulk Stangle (225) writes
During
my 2021 Bavarian International School class trip and as it appeared in a
photograph taken in 1955 by Estella Burket, a teacher at Deseronto
Public School, Deseronto, Ontario, in the Dominion of Canada. After
the war, four Soviet memorial sites were
created by the Red Army in the urban area of Berlin.
These sites are not only monuments to the victory over Germany, but also serve as Soviet war grave sites in Germany. The
central monument is this, the complex in Treptow Park. The memorial in
the Schönholzer Heide, the memorial in the Tiergarten and the
memorial at Bucher castle grounds were also built for this purpose.
A contest had been organised by the Soviet Command for the design of the
memorial in Berlin-Treptow, to which 33 drafts were submitted. From
June 1946, the proposal of a Soviet creator collective, designed by the
architect Jakov S. Belopolski, the sculptor Yevgeny Wuchetich, the
painter Alexander A. Gorpenko, and the engineer Sarra S. Walerius, was
implemented. The sculptures and reliefs were manufactured in 1948
by the Lauchhammer art foundry. The memorial was built on the site
of a large play and sports meadow in the area of the "New Lake", which
was created during the Berlin trade exhibition of 1896 and completed in May 1949. 
The
construction of the monument was marked by the beginning of the Cold
War. Although there was a lack of living space in post-war Germany and
the construction sector had almost come to a standstill due to the lack
of planning, labour and material shortages, Soviet propaganda demands
took priority over housing construction. This site was to express two
ideas: on the one hand, an appreciation of Soviet occupation power so
that the scale of the area should be "a witness of the greatness and the
insuperable power of Soviet power." East German politicians like Otto
Grotewohl, on the other hand, saw in the memorial on May 8, 1949, the
fourth anniversary of the end of the war, a sign of gratitude to the
Soviet army as a liberator. In
the following decades, the Treptower site was the scene of mass events
and state rituals of the DDR, which sometimes completely superimposed
the original intention of being the victory mark and cemetery of the
Second World War. In 1985, on the 40th anniversary of the end of the
war, the representatives of the youth movement of the DDR organised a
torchlight procession at the Treptower Memorial. There they took the
"oath of the youth of the DDR" on their behalf. At
the site with my students holding one of my wartime Soviet flags and
the same spot on May 8, 1956 with an honorary formation of the National
People's Army in front of the Soviet memorial. The memorial’s
significance goes beyond its architectural grandeur or the scale of loss
it commemorates. It has long been a site of political symbolism. In the
immediate post-war years, as the Soviet Union consolidated its control
over East Germany, the memorial became a focal point for the DDR's
official historical narrative. Through state-sponsored ceremonies and
school visits, it was promoted as a site of pilgrimage, representing
both the brotherhood of Soviet and East German socialism and the eternal
debt owed by East Germany to the Soviet Union. This close association
with Soviet power made the memorial not just a symbol of victory over
fascism but also a potent marker of Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe.
Consequently, for many East Germans, it came to embody the
contradictions of their national identity, simultaneously representing
liberation and subjugation. Scholarly interpretations of the memorial
reflect this duality. Sebestyen argues that the Soviet-designed war
memorials across Eastern Europe, including Treptower Park, were intended
as much to intimidate as to commemorate. The massive scale,
militaristic iconography, and positioning of such memorials were,
according to Sebestyen, reminders of Soviet control rather than simply
tributes to wartime sacrifices. This perspective sees the memorial as a
tool of Soviet soft power, particularly in the years following 1945 when
the Soviet Union sought to solidify its ideological and military
presence in the region. The deliberate evocation of Soviet heroism,
portrayed in such grand terms, was integral to the GDR’s legitimisation
strategy, binding the country closer to Moscow and reinforcing the
Soviet Union’s role as a paternal protector of the socialist bloc. .gif)
The
Federal Republic therefore undertook in 1992 in the agreement of
December 16, 1992 between the Government of the Federal Republic of
Germany and the Government of the Russian Federation on War Graves Care
to permanently guarantee their existence, to maintain and repair them.
Any changes to the monuments require the approval of the Russian
Federation.On August 31, 1994, the military ceremony for the withdrawal
of Russian troops from Germany was held at the Soviet Memorial in
Treptower Park. After a ceremony in the Schauspielhaus on
Gendarmenmarkt, 1,000 Russian soldiers from the 6th Guards Mot.-Rifle
Brigade and six hundred German soldiers from the Guard Battalion at the
Federal Ministry of Defence came together to commemorate the dead. They
formed the framework for the wreath-laying ceremony, accompanied by
short speeches, by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President Boris Jelzin.
Since 1995, a memorial rally has been held at the memorial every year on
May 9th with the laying of flowers and wreaths, which is organised by
the “Bund der Antifaschisten Treptow e. V. "is organised. The motto of
the event is “ Liberation Day ” and corresponds to Victory Day, the
Russian holiday. On the night of May 8-9 1945 in Berlin-Karlshorst the
unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht by three leading German
military men, that of the last Reich President Karl Dönitz in the
special area Mürwik were authorised to do so, and signed by four Allied
representatives. On May 9, 2015, around 10,000 people visited the
memorial to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the war -
among them were members of the Night Wolves, a Russian motorcycle and
rocker club. The bikers' trip to Berlin caused a sensation when some
members were initially refused entry to Germany. On September 2, 2015,
the inscriptions on a memorial plaque were destroyed by arson. On May 4,
2019, there was another incident in which the statue "Mother Homeland"
was doused with a dark liquid. In October 2003, the statue of the Red Army
soldier was restored in a workshop on Rügen, brought back to Berlin via ship and has been on its base since May 4, 2004. 
One
enters the memorial either coming from Puschkinallee or from Am
Treptower Park , each through a triumphal arch made of grey granite
shown here on July 12, 1957 when members of the district association of Greater
Berlin, together with the delegations from the CSR, from China, North
Korea and Vietnam, attended the 7th party congress and during my 2026 class visit. An inscription on this honours the soldiers “who died for the freedom
and independence of the socialist homeland”. Following the path you come
to a kind of forecourt with a three metre high statue of a woman, an
allegory of the “Mother Homeland” mourning for her fallen sons. From
here the line of sight of the main monument opens up. A broad, gently
sloping path lined with sloping birch trees leads along the central axis
to the main field of the complex. This is marked by two large, stylised
flags made of red granite, which lean towards the path on either side.
At the front of each is the sculpture of a kneeling soldier in full gear
and armed with a machine gun. There is an older soldier on the left and
a younger soldier on the right. From here a few stairs lead down to the
symbolic burial ground, which forms the centre of the complex. These
graves, greened with grass and small hedges, are marked by five square
stone slabs, each with a laurel wreath (the real graves are more likely
to be found on the sides of the complex under the plane trees and under
the burial mound).In the following decades, the Treptow site was at times completely superimposed on mass events and state rituals of the DDR. In 1985, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, the representatives of the DDR's youth movement organised a torchlight procession at the Treptow Memorial.
There, they represented
the "oath of youth of the DDR". In the time of the invasion on 28
December 1989 strangers smeared the stone carcass and the base of the
crypt with anti-Soviet slogans. The SED-PDS suspected that the
perpetrators would come from the right-wing extremist scene and
organised a mass demonstration on January 3, 1990, involving 250,000
citizens of the DDR. On this occasion, Gregor Gysi, party chairman,
demanded "constitutional protection" for the site; historian Stefan
Wolle therefore considers it possible that Stasi employees were behind
the vandalism, fearing their positions upon re-unification. The Soviet
war memorials were an important point of negotiation on the Russian side
for the two-plus-four treaties on German reunification. The Federal
Republic therefore committed itself in 1992 in the agreement of December
16, 1992 between the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany and
the Government of the Russian Federation on war grave security to ensure
its existence permanently, and to maintain and repair it. Any changes
in monuments require the approval of the Russian Federation. In 1994,
the military ceremonial was held for the withdrawal of Russian troops
from East Germany at the Soviet Memorial. Since 1995 a memorial service has
been held every year on the 9th of May with flowers and wreaths,
including the "Union of Antifascists Treptow e.V." The event is under
the motto "Day of Liberation" and corresponds with the day of the
Victory , the Russian holiday. On May 9, 2015, about 10,000 people
visited the memorial to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the war.
During Castro’s official visit to the DDR from June 13 to June 21, 1972, the first such journey by the Cuban leader and a deliberate early initiative of Erich Honecker after his assumption of the First Secretaryship of the Socialist Unity Party in May 1971. By this stage Cuba had suffered a severe economic reverse with the collapse of the 1970 “Gran Zafra” campaign, which had aimed at a record harvest of ten million tons of sugar and instead exposed the limits of Havana’s autonomous developmental model. Castro therefore embarked on an extended tour of African and East European states lasting from early May to early July 1972, seeking concrete material support and formal integration into the Soviet-led economic system. Full membership of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance followed within weeks of his return. Relations between Havana and East Berlin had been cool throughout the 1960s. Walter Ulbricht regarded Castro’s guerrilla style and intermittent Chinese leanings with suspicion and had received a polite refusal when he invited the Cuban leader in 1963. Honecker reversed that stance. The new leadership offered large-scale technical assistance, the construction of complete industrial plants (including what became Latin America’s largest cement works), power stations and breweries, and the training of some thirty thousand Cubans in GDR combines. In return the GDR obtained sugar, citrus fruit and nickel at preferential prices well above world-market levels. One reported arrangement linked a share of white-sugar export quotas formerly held by the VEB Nordstern works in Halle to the symbolic gestures of the visit. The wreath-laying at the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park belonged to the obligatory ceremonial repertoire of any high-level socialist state visit and carried no unique Cuban inflection beyond the presence of the Cuban delegation itself. Its political utility lay in confirming the shared Soviet-centric narrative that both regimes presented as the foundation of their legitimacy. More distinctive was the exchange of gifts on June 19, 1972: Castro presented a map designating an uninhabited islet in the Bay of Pigs as “Isla Ernesto Thälmann” with a shoreline renamed “Playa RDA.” The gesture was purely symbolic; no transfer of sovereignty occurred, and after 1990 the island reverted without controversy to ordinary Cuban administration. The episode nevertheless illustrated the transactional character of the relationship: political theatre in exchange for tangible economic concessions. Later assessments have noted darker aspects of the partnership. East German security specialists assisted in the professionalisation of Cuban intelligence and internal control structures. Cuban contract workers sent to the GDR saw a portion of their wages remitted directly to the Havana treasury. These arrangements, largely invisible in the official joint communiqué of June 19, 1972, reveal the pragmatic and unequal nature of a relationship that both sides publicly celebrated as fraternal solidarity.
I'm standing beside one of sixteen
white sarcophagi of limestone that stand along the outer boundary of
the field leading to the statue, this one displaying Lenin; all display war scenes
and historical moments through reliefs from the history of the Great Patriotic War
of the Soviet Peoples on the two long sides. On each of these is a quote from Stalin on the narrow side facing the central field; in Russian on
the left (northern) and in German on the right (southern). This one shows Lenin on a red banner
that flies behind the Soviet Red Army with a quote on the side embossed in
gold by Stalin. These sarcophagi are marked on the two longitudinal
sides with reliefs from the history of the Great Patriotic War of the
Soviet Peoples, bearing quotations from Joseph Stalin in Russian on the
left and in German on the right. The individual sarcophagi have specific
themes: the attack by the Germans, the destruction and suffering in the
Soviet Union, the sacrifice and abandonment of the Soviet people and
support of the army, the suffering of the army, victory, and heroic
death. Oaulk Stangle (225) writes More problematic is the portrayal of Soviet innocence, which lacks validity due to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact's program for the future division of Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union, subsequent Red Army participation in the invasion of Poland in 1939, and the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939-1940. Claims that the German invasion disrupted the Soviet Union's peaceful development ignored the forced collectivisation of agriculture and the Great Purge in which 19 million Soviet were arrested, a majority of whom either were executed or died in labour camps. Stalin, responsible for these atrocities and the disastrous lack of preparedness for the German invasion, was omitted from the narrative.Geographical Review , Apr., 2003, Vol. 93, No. 2
The
last two sarcophagi dedicated to the heroic dying stand in line with
the central location of the complex, an artificially created burial
mound. This is dominated by the sculpture “The Liberator” by Yevgeny
Wutschetich standing on a double conical base. 
The figure shows a
soldier who carries a sword in his right hand and a protective child on
his left arm; a swastika is bursting under his boots. This memorial to the liberator as
part of geographic memorial triptych with his
mother on Mamayev Hill in Volgograd (1967) and the worker behind the
front in Magnitogorsk (1979) a showing the forged sword in
Magnitogorsk, the raised sword in Volgograd and the lowered sword in
Berlin. Here it serves as a mausoleum on which a ten to
twelve metre high bronze statue is placed depicting a bareheaded,
heroic, Soviet soldier wielding a sword and standing on a smashed
swastika, into which the sword is deeply cut. On his left arm he is
carrying a child while staring out over the plaza. This sculpture, "Der
Erreer" by Jewgeni Wuchetich, stands on a double conical base 12 metres
high and weighing 70 tonnes. The statue rises above a walk-in
pavilion built on a hill. In the dome of the pavilion is a mosaic with a
circulating Russian inscription and a German translation. This mosaic
was one of the first important orders in the post-war period for the
August Wagner company which
combined workshops for mosaic and glass painting in Berlin-Neukölln .
The hill itself is modelled after a "Kurgan" (mediæval, Slavic tombs on
the Don plain), often found in Soviet memorials such as those at
Volgograd, Smolensk, Minsk, Kiev, Odessa and Donetsk. On top marks the
outstanding endpoint of the 10-hectare complex. The sculptor himself
emphasised in several interviews that the representation of the soldier
with a child saved had a purely symbolic meaning and not a precise
incident. However, in the DDR the narrative of sergeant Nikolay
Ivanovich Massov, who had brought a little girl near the Potsdamer
bridge to safety on April 30, 1945 during the storming of the
Reichskanzlei, was widely circulated. In his honour, a memorial plaque
was erected on this bridge over the Landwehrkanal and for a long time he
was regarded as the model of the Treptow soldier. The model for the
bronze figure was the Soviet soldier Ivan Odartschenko. Another version
claims that the monument is modelled on the heroic deed of the Soviet
soldier and former worker of the Minsker Radiowerkes T. A. Lukyanovich,
who paid for the salvation of a little girl in Berlin with his life. The
source for this version is the book Berlin 896 km by Soviet journalist and writer Boris Polewoi.
The figure shows a
soldier who carries a sword in his right hand and a protective child on
his left arm; a swastika is bursting under his boots. This memorial to the liberator as
part of geographic memorial triptych with his
mother on Mamayev Hill in Volgograd (1967) and the worker behind the
front in Magnitogorsk (1979) a showing the forged sword in
Magnitogorsk, the raised sword in Volgograd and the lowered sword in
Berlin. Here it serves as a mausoleum on which a ten to
twelve metre high bronze statue is placed depicting a bareheaded,
heroic, Soviet soldier wielding a sword and standing on a smashed
swastika, into which the sword is deeply cut. On his left arm he is
carrying a child while staring out over the plaza. This sculpture, "Der
Erreer" by Jewgeni Wuchetich, stands on a double conical base 12 metres
high and weighing 70 tonnes. The statue rises above a walk-in
pavilion built on a hill. In the dome of the pavilion is a mosaic with a
circulating Russian inscription and a German translation. This mosaic
was one of the first important orders in the post-war period for the
August Wagner company which
combined workshops for mosaic and glass painting in Berlin-Neukölln .
The hill itself is modelled after a "Kurgan" (mediæval, Slavic tombs on
the Don plain), often found in Soviet memorials such as those at
Volgograd, Smolensk, Minsk, Kiev, Odessa and Donetsk. On top marks the
outstanding endpoint of the 10-hectare complex. The sculptor himself
emphasised in several interviews that the representation of the soldier
with a child saved had a purely symbolic meaning and not a precise
incident. However, in the DDR the narrative of sergeant Nikolay
Ivanovich Massov, who had brought a little girl near the Potsdamer
bridge to safety on April 30, 1945 during the storming of the
Reichskanzlei, was widely circulated. In his honour, a memorial plaque
was erected on this bridge over the Landwehrkanal and for a long time he
was regarded as the model of the Treptow soldier. The model for the
bronze figure was the Soviet soldier Ivan Odartschenko. Another version
claims that the monument is modelled on the heroic deed of the Soviet
soldier and former worker of the Minsker Radiowerkes T. A. Lukyanovich,
who paid for the salvation of a little girl in Berlin with his life. The
source for this version is the book Berlin 896 km by Soviet journalist and writer Boris Polewoi.
The Heereswaffenmeisterschule dating from 1935 at Treptower Park then and now
Schöneweide
During
the Nazi era, Niederschöneweide in Treptow developed quickly into an
important location for the armaments production thanks to its metal and
chemical industry. A new building was built for Hasselwerderstraße in
the Hasselwerderstraße, where, among other things, the departments of
inheritance and race care, infant care, Schularzt and Schulzahnklinik
were housed. At the end of the Sedanstraße (today: Bruno-Bürgel-Weg), a
building was built for the SA-Stand 5 "Horst Wessel", which at the same
time served as an HJ-Heim for Niederschöneweide. In 1933, the crossing
area in front of Schöneweide train station was redesigned and the main
road system was expanded. Because of the intensified consignments from
1941 personnel shortages in the factories arose. In order to maintain
production, more and more forced labourers were employed. In 1943 Albert
Speer erected a barrack camp for more than 2,000 forced labourers
between the Britzer, Sedan and Grimaustrae. The barrack camp is now
under monument protection. A partial area of this was made available to
the public in the summer of 2006 as a documentation centre for Nazi
forced labour under the sponsor "Topography of Terror". On April 16, 1945 the last great battle of the war in Europe began around Berlin. On April 24, just after German rear groups had blown the Kaisersteg and the Treskow Bridge, Niederschöneweide was in the hands of the 8th Garde Army of the First Belarusian Front.
At
the last well-preserved former Nazi forced labour camp is located in
Schöneweide, located at Britzer Straße 5, Berlin-Schöneweide. During the
war it served as one of the more than 3,000 mass housing sites
dispersed throughout the city for forced labourers. The camp was ordered
to be built for two thousand workers by the “General Building Inspector
for the Reich capital” (Generalbauinspektor für die Reichshauptstadt)
in close proximity to large armament industries. It included thirteen
stone barracks for housing. Civil forced labourers and forced labourers
of various nationalities, Italian military internees as well as female
concentration camp prisoners lived here. A well-preserved residential
barrack referred to as ”Barrack 13” has been open for tours since the
end of August 2010. In 2000 a compensation program was set up to help
out the 2.3 million surviving forced labourers, which is probably both
too little and too late.
Website: http://www.ns-zwangsarbeit.de
Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen
The
camp was used between 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in 1945, and
then used by Russians in the Soviet Occupation Zone as an NKVD camp
until 1950. It now operates as a museum. The camp was established in
1936 and was located 22 miles north of Berlin, giving it a primary
position amongst the German
concentration camps: the administrative centre of all concentration
camps was located in Oranienburg, and Sachsenhausen became a training
centre for ϟϟ
officers (who would often be sent to
oversee other camps afterwards). Originally planned to accommodate six
thousand inmates, Sachsenhausen generally had a population of between
ten and fifteen thousand, rising to about thirty-five thousand in the
final months of the war. The blocks were arranged in a fanlike
configuration in a semicircle around the Appellplatz, which had a radius
of about a hundred meters. The camp as a whole therefore was similar to
an isosceles triangle: at the base, the semicircle of the parade
ground, then the blocks in four concentric rings, and at the apex the
nursery and pigpen. Executions took place at Sachsenhausen,
especially of Soviet prisoners of war. Among the prisoners, there was a
"hierarchy": at the top, criminals (rapists, murderers), then
Communists (red triangles), then homosexuals (pink triangles), Jehovah's
Witnesses (purple triangles), and Jews (yellow triangles). During the
earlier stages of the camp's existence the executions
were done in a trench, either by shooting or by hanging. A large task
force of prisoners was used from the camp to work in nearby brickworks
to meet Albert Speer's vision of rebuilding Berlin. Sachsenhausen was
originally not intended as an extermination camp—instead, the
systematic murder was conducted in camps to the east. In 1942 large
numbers of Jewish inmates were relocated to Auschwitz. However the
construction of a gas chamber and ovens by camp-commandant Anton Kaindl
in March 1943 facilitated the means to kill larger numbers of
prisoners.
At
the main entrance. The Main gate or Guard Tower "A", with its 8mm Maxim
machine gun, the type used by the Germans in the trenches of World War
I, housed the offices of the camp administration. On the front entrance
gates to Sachsenhausen is the infamous slogan Arbeit Macht Frei ("work
makes (you) free"). About 200,000 people passed through Sachsenhausen
between 1936 and 1945. In Sachsenhausen,
some 6,500 were confined at the outbreak of the war. Shortly thereafter, in September 1939, 900 Polish and stateless Jews from the Berlin area were taken to the camp; at the beginning of November, 500 Poles were interned. At the end of that month, 1,200 Czech students were added, and approximately 17,000 persons, mainly Polish nationals, were admitted as inmates in the period from March to September 1940. Despite the high number of new inmates, the camp population here too stabilised at the level of roughly 10,000 prisoners. That was because of the high mortality rate as well as the transfer of large numbers of Poles to Flossenbürg, Dachau, Neuengamme (in the Bergedorf section of southeastern Hamburg), and Groß-Rosen.
Sofsky (35)
Observation
points then and now; since the torching of a barracks by neo-Nazis,
security cameras have been installed throughout the site. Despite this,
the site has been vandalised by Neo-Nazis several times. In September
1992 for example, barracks 38 and 39 of the Jewish Museum were severely
damaged in an arson attack. The perpetrators were arrested, and the
barracks were reconstructed by 1997.
The mortuary and infirmary, showing the autopsy table. The brick pathology building with a large basement mortuary was constructed in spring 1941 and was involved in the storage,
examination, abuse and disposal of the bodies of deceased prisoners.
Before this the bodies of deceased prisoners were stored in a wooden
shed and in the cellars underneath barracks R I and R II of the sickbay.
The growing number of inmates exposed to the increasingly unhuman
conditions led to a rapidly rising death rate, especially after the
outbreak of war in September 1939. The relevant ϟϟ
administration body therefore approved construction of a mortuary and
pathology department on November 12, 1940. On this day alone, eight
prisoners died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. According to Harry
Naujoks a former political prisoner in the camp,
In 1941 Dr. Lewe came to Sachsenhausen from the Buchenwald camp to take charge of the pathology department. Being camp senior, I was told that blocke seniors had to report inmates with unusual tattoos. This report was passed onto the roll call leader. Eventually, each of the tattooed inmates was ordered to come to the sickbay. Soon after we'd receive a death notice. Several times I went to the pathology department while Dr. Lewe wasn't there and in his room saw pieces of skin and body parts with these tattoos, which were kept in jars of alchol lining the walls. In the drawers too, prepared sections of skin were kept. I have held such sections of skin with my own hand.
The Russians, accompanied by Polish soldiers, chanced upon Sachsenhausen concentration camp as they moved to invest Berlin. The camp was in Oranienburg, and the fall of that former royal borough brought it home to Hitler that his days were numbered. There were just 5,000 prisoners left in Sachsenhausen of a population that had reached 50,000. The rest had been taken on 'death marches.’(58) After the Reich - The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation
More and more Berliners had been taking the risk of listening to the BBC on the wireless and even dared to discuss its news. But power cuts were now creating a more effective censorship of foreign broadcasts than the police state had ever achieved. London had little idea of the great Soviet offensive, but its announcement that Sachsenhausen- Oranienburg concentration camp had been liberated just north of Berlin gave a good idea of Red Army progress and its intention to encircle the city. The indication of the horrors found there was also another reminder of the vengeance which Berlin faced. This did not stop most Berliners from convincing themselves that the concentration camp stories must be enemy propaganda.
Beevor (274)
The 140-metre tall Tower of Nations behind me during my 2011 Bavarian International School class trip and in the 1970s, representing what Caroline Wiedmer describes as an
“antithesis of the Nazi architecture of the camp” and a “design in
which the triumph of anti-fascism could be made visible.” At the top of
each of the three sides of the obelisk are eighteen red triangles
representing the ones political prisoners were forced to wear on their
uniforms to designate their identities in the camps. This arrangement
of triangles suggests the multinational political prisoner population at
the camp.
This representation speaks to the importance of international unity — a cornerstone of communist ideology — but lacks regard for any victim groups that were persecuted so harshly at the camps. There is no implied or overt reference to Jews, Sinti or Roma, homosexuals, Slavs, women, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, though all of these groups suffered explicit mass murders in the camp at Sachsenhausen based singularly on these identities. Indeed, many of these captives may have been Communists, but unless they identified as such, they were excluded from memory at the Tower of Nations.
Directly
in front of the tower is Rene Graetz’s Liberation, added to the site in
1961, consisting of three figures standing atop a stone block.
Inscribed on the face of the block are the countries from which
prisoners at the camp came from, serving as a written representation of
the implied meaning of the red triangles on the obelisk. Certainly, the
communist struggle was important to the East German regime as a defining
point in the shaping of a new national identity and to promote the idea
of the ideological and moral victory of the communists that had
recently chased fascism from not only the borders of Germany, but also
the entire the European continent.
In front of Professor Waldemar Grzimek's bronze sculpture, Pietá,
depicting three figures who are supposed to symbolise resistance and
awareness of victory, mourning and death and as it appeared in 1961
before being given an English inscription. This memorial was limited to
the area of the former prisoner camp and only covered around five
percent of the area of the former concentration camp. Only “Station Z”
and the firing trench, originally part of the industrial courtyard,
were integrated into the memorial by relocating the camp wall. The
figures are notably more skeletal in nature than those at the obelisk, offering a much truer
representation of what inmates would have looked like after significant
time in the camp. Two of the prisoners are helping a fallen comrade, carrying him in a
blanket. The bronze cluster still speaks to the GDR message of
camaraderie, but in a more subdued and less overtly nationalist tone. Station
Z is a relevant place for mourning, and the
statue group reflects this, but allowed for a distinct and deliberate
division between areas of celebration and sorrow at the memorial site.
This is where the cremation ovens were located, where around 13,000 to
18,000 Soviet prisoners of war were murdered in the shot in the neck and
their corpses were then cremated. Grzimek’s Pietá is not, however, without its limitations on historical representations. Though all the figures clearly are prisoners, and do depict a more historically accurate prisoner representation than those in Liberation, the man in the rear of the cluster, though wearing a look of grief on his face, stands tall, gaze fixed on a far off point, chest out and prideful. This is in contrast with many traditional representations of Pietá in which Mary is shown cradling the dead body of Jesus. Generally, the Pietá form is undeniably sorrowful. Mary has her head down, or tilted slightly up in supplication, and does not evoke any sense of physical strength or pride. Grzimek’s Pietá represents quite a different take on the classic form.
Bookheimer (15)
The NKVD’s interrogation of the camp commander Colonel Kainel confirmed that Senior Lieutenant Dzugashvili had been held three weeks in the camp prison and then, at Himmler’s directive, was transferred to the special camp, consisting of three barracks surrounded by a brick wall and high-voltage barbed wire. The inmates of barrack number 2 were allowed to walk in the early evening in the area outside their barracks. At 7:00 p.m., the ϟϟ guards ordered them to return to their barracks. All obeyed except Dzhugashvili, who demanded to see the camp commander. The guard’s repeated order went unheeded. As the ϟϟ guard telephoned the camp commander, he heard a shot and hung up. Dzhugashvili, in a state of agitation, had run across the neutral zone to the barbed wire. The guard raised his rifle ordering him to stop, but Dzugashvili kept on going. The guard warned that he was going to shoot; Dzhugashvili cursed, grabbed for the barbed-wire gate, and shouted at the guard to shoot. The guard shot him in the head and killed him. Clearly the unauthorised shooting of none other than Stalin’s son set off great apprehension in Sachsenhausen. He had been transferred in by Himmler himself, who hoped to use him as a pawn of some sort. Now, Stalin’s son was dead, and no one knew what the consequences would be. Dzhugashvili’s body lay stretched across the barbed wire for twenty-four hours while the camp awaited orders from Himmler. The Gestapo sent two professors to the scene who prepared a document stating that Dzhugashvili was killed by electrocution and that the shot to the head followed. The document stated that the guard acted properly. Dzhugashvili’s body was then burned, and the urn with his ashes was sent to the Gestapo headquarters. Indeed, it seemed irrelevant whether Yakov was killed by electrocution or by the bullet. Either way, it was he who committed suicide.Paul Gregory (65-66) Lenin's Brain
Inside
the ruins of the crematorium. The first crematorium at Sachsenhausen
was built at Station Z in April 1940 and construction on the new
crematorium began on January 31, 1942; it was completed and opened for
use on May 29, 1942. It had two rooms where Russian PoWs, who were
Communist Commissars, were executed with a shot to the neck.
Station
Z included a Genickschußanlage, a shooting pit, a gas chamber, and a
multiple gallows with block and tackle. The structures had been kept low
intentionally so as to block visibility and prevent anyone from looking
in over the wall. The first provisional gas chambers in Birkenau were
outside the camp, set up in former farmhouses. But the modern crematoria
were built in close proximity to the camp. They were surrounded by
barbed-wire fences and shielded from view by barriers of willow trees.
Flower beds lent the facilities an innocuous air. The zones of death
were disguised areas beyond the round of everyday camp routine. No one
had access to them except the Sonderkommandos—the corpse carriers and
oven stokers. The zone of death was taboo, a place of mystery where the
power to kill could unfold unhindered.
In
1953, the crematorium building was deliberately blown up by the East
German government, and today nothing is left except the ruins of the
ovens. When the former Sachsenhausen camp was made into a Memorial Site
in 1961, the brick wall separating the Industrial Yard from the camp was
moved so that Station Z could be located inside the memorial.
UFA Studios
UFA Studios
Hitler
and Goebbels visiting UFA's Neubabelsberg studios in 1935 during the
making of the film
"Barcarole." As a result of the nationalist German spirit that already
dominated the company, UFA was perfectly suited to serve the goals of
Nazi propaganda in film. Hugenberg had been named Reich Minister of
Economics immediately following the Nazi takeover of January 30, 1933,
and made UFA openly available for Joseph Goebbels' propaganda machine,
even though Hugenberg was removed from his post shortly thereafter (June
1933) under pressure from Hitler. In an act of anticipatory obedience
to the Nazi regime, UFA management fired several Jewish employees on
March 29, 1933. In the summer of 1933, the Nazi regime created the Film
Chamber of the Reich, which adopted regulations officially excluding
Jewish filmmakers from all German studios.
In March 1937, using precisely the methods that he had previously branded as Jewish, Goebbels took over the major Ufa film company for the Reich. As a warning to Ufa he had instructed the press to trash its latest production; the film flopped disastrously, and the company agreed to sell out. ‘Today we buy up Ufa,’ recorded Goebbels, ‘and thus we [the propaganda ministry] are the biggest film, press, theatre, and radio concern in the world.’ Dismissing the entire Ufa board, he began to intervene in film production at every level, dismissing directors, recommending actresses (like the fiery Spaniard, Imperio Argentina), forcing through innovations like colour cinematography, and rationalising screen-test facilities for all three major studios, Ufa, Tobis, and Bavaria. Depriving the distributors of any such in such matters he created instead artistic boards to steer future film production. Suddenly the film industry began to surge ahead. Blockbuster films swept the box offices. With a sure touch, Goebbels stopped the production of pure propaganda and party epics, opting for more subtle messages instead—the wholesome family, the life well spent.Irving (414-415) Goebbels
In
late April 1945, the UFA ateliers in Potsdam-Babelsberg and
Berlin-Tempelhof were occupied by the Red Army. After Germany's
unconditional surrender the following month the Military Government Law
No. 191 initially halted and prohibited all further film production. On
July 14, 1945, as a result of Military Government Law No. 52, all
Reich-owned film assets of UFI Holding were seized. All activities in
the film industry were placed under strict licensing regulations and all
films were subject to censorship. The Soviet military government, which
was in favour of a speedy reconstruction of the German film industry
under Soviet supervision, incorporated the Babelsberg ateliers into
DEFA, subsequently the DDR's state film studio, on May 17, 1946. Murderers Among Us was
the first German feature film in the post-war era and the first
so-called "Trümmerfilm" ("Rubble Film"). It was shot here in Babelsberg.
Additionally, the Soviets confiscated numerous UFA productions from the
Babelsburg vaults and dubbed them into Russian for release in the USSR;
and simultaneously began importing Soviet films to the same offices for
dubbing into German and distribution to the surviving German theatres.
In contrast, the main film-policy goal of the Allied occupying forces,
under American insistence, consisted in preventing any future
accumulation of power in the German film industry. Here I'm beside the
statue based on the Portaprima Augustus for the execrable 1997 film Prince Valiant.
Fort Hahneberg
After
the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, four forts were planned to
protect the Spandau Armaments Center as part of the citadel at Spandau.
In the end only one of them was built, as the development of artillery,
especially the introduction of explosive grenades, made such types of
fortification useless. Fort
Hahneberg was thus completed in 1886 and put to use two years later
serving, among other things, as a barracks and central archive for
military medicine until 1945. In 1903 it served as a training center
for the infantry. During the so-called Buchrucker putsch on
October 1, 1923 when an attempt by the Black Reichswehr to overthrow
the German government after it had ended passive resistance to the
occupation of the Ruhr on September 26, 1923 occurred, the fort and the
Spandau Citadel were briefly occupied by putschists who had to surrender
to regular Reich defence units. From 1924 to 1934 the Flugtechnische Verein Spandau used some structures of the fort in order to build gliders there. 
With
the establishment of the Wehrmacht in 1935, the fort became a training
location again and was expanded. After the war parts of the brick walls
and structures were broken up to make the fort unusable as a military
installation by blowing up the moat defences. The rubble was transported away as building material for the reconstruction of Berlin as residents
were given permission to demolish the Escarpemauer and other components
for material extraction for the repair of destroyed buildings or for the
construction of new houses. Before
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the fort was located at the border
crossing point on Heerstraße and was only been accessible to the public
again since 1990. The Nazi eagle above the entrance has been allowed to remain.
With
the establishment of the Wehrmacht in 1935, the fort became a training
location again and was expanded. After the war parts of the brick walls
and structures were broken up to make the fort unusable as a military
installation by blowing up the moat defences. The rubble was transported away as building material for the reconstruction of Berlin as residents
were given permission to demolish the Escarpemauer and other components
for material extraction for the repair of destroyed buildings or for the
construction of new houses. Before
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the fort was located at the border
crossing point on Heerstraße and was only been accessible to the public
again since 1990. The Nazi eagle above the entrance has been allowed to remain. 
The fort and area around were used as the hideout forest for the Inglorious Basterds.
As an aside, the title of the movie has to have the swastika removed
because the display of Nazi iconography is illegal in Germany. The
"Offizielle deutsche Website"
has been censored too. Under the German law there are exceptions which
allow the use of "unconstitutional symbols" for artistic and
educational purposes but Universal Pictures obviously didn't find it
worth the effort.Site of Reichpost TV Studios 1935 - 1938
The Nazi eagle remains, dated, above the entrance.
See: Television Under The Swastika (English Version)
See: Television Under The Swastika (English Version)
Recently uncovered footage, long buried in East German archives, confirms that television's first revolution occurred under the Third Reich. From 1935 to 1944, Berlin studios churned out the world's first regular TV programming, replete with the evening news, street interviews, sports coverage, racial programs, and interviews with Nazi officials. Select audiences, gathered in television parlours across Germany, numbered in the thousands; plans to create a mass viewing public, through the distribution of 10,000 people's television sets, were upended by World War Two. German technicians achieved remarkable breakthroughs in televising live events, including near instantaneous broadcasts of the 1936 Olympic Games. At the same time, the demand for continuous programming opened up camera opportunities far less controlled, and more candidly revealing, than Third Reich propagandists would have liked (an interview with a bumbling Robert Ley is particularly embarrassing). In its stated mission - to imprint the image of the Führer onto every German heart - Nazi television proved a major disappointment. But its surviving footage - 285 rolls have been found so far offers an intriguing new window onto Hitler's Germany.
Reichspolizeischule für Leibesübungen von Schirmer/Götze Hohenzollernring
Schlußstein reichsadler dating from 1939/40 above the portal of the Reich police school at Hohenzollernring 124-125.
The Nazi-era reliefs on both sides of the portal entrance
Nazi-era Eagle at the Siemens Ehrenmal
Joseph Wackerle's reichsadler dating from 1935 remains in situ
although Siemens itself has left. With the war, Germany's demand for
armaments began to intensify. Without the aid of foreign workers, the
manufacturing sector could no longer meet this demand which only grew
given that growing numbers of qualified employees at the company’s
various plants were drafted for military service. This led to the
increased use of forced labour starting in 1940 when Siemens relied
increasingly on forced labourers to maintain production levels. These
labourers included people from territories occupied by the German
military, PoWs, Jews, Sinti, Roma and, in the final phases of the war,
concentration camp inmates. During the entire period from 1940 to 1945,
at least eighty thousands of forced labourers worked at Siemens.
Although the company’s production of weapons and ammunition was rather
limited, from the end of 1943 onwards Siemens primarily manufactured
electrical equipment for the armed forces. 
Following
the war all of Siemens's factories in Berlin were closed after nearly
half its buildings and production facilities had been destroyed.
Whatever remained – the large number of functional machines, the
company’s entire inventory, a large portion of its stock and finished
goods as well as technical documentation and design drawings – was
dismantled and removed by the Soviet army as war reparations.The Allies
confiscated all the company’s tangible assets worldwide and all its
trademark and patent rights were rescinded. All its foreign assets were
lost. Overall, Siemens forfeited 80% of its total worth or some 2.6 billion German marks.
The Martin Luther Memorial Church, constructed between September 1933 and December 1935, stands as a significant architectural and historical artefact of the Third Reich’s influence on religious spaces. Designed by architect Curt Steinberg, a member of the Nazi Party since 1933, the church was erected in the Mariendorf district to accommodate a growing congregation that had been planning a new place of worship since 1885. The structure, completed in a Bauhaus-influenced style with its stark brick and stone exterior, was deliberately infused with National Socialist ideology, evident in its interior decorations and symbolic elements. The church’s inauguration on December 22, 1935, marked a moment where Nazi anthems were sung alongside traditional Christian hymns, reflecting the fusion of political and religious ideologies promoted by the German Christian movement. This group, led by Joachim Hossenfelder, sought to align Protestantism with Nazi principles, earning the moniker “stormtroopers of Jesus” in a sermon delivered by Hossenfelder on July 23, 1933, during a campaign to influence church elections.
The interior of the church was meticulously crafted to reflect this ideological synthesis. The vestibule, designed as a hall of honour for World War I soldiers, featured a chandelier shaped like an iron cross, casting light on busts of Martin Luther and Hindenburg. Until 1945, a bust of Hitler himself was displayed alongside these figures, a detail confirmed by church dean Isolde Boehm in a statement made on April 21, 2006. The hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” inscribed in German around the vestibule, was co-opted into a nationalistic narrative, transforming a traditional Protestant anthem into a symbol of Nazi-aligned fervour. The main sanctuary, designed to seat 800 worshippers, contained a massive stone archway adorned with approximately 800 terracotta panels. These panels juxtaposed Christian symbols, such as crosses, with imagery of workers, soldiers, and eagles, some of which originally bore swastikas until their removal post-1945 due to legal prohibitions on Nazi symbols in Germany.
The altar presented a striking depiction of Jesus, carved as a muscular figure with a raised chin, embodying strength and defiance rather than traditional Christian humility. This portrayal, noted by historian Ilse Klein on April 21, 2006, was intended to project a “German hero” aligned with fascist ideals of power and victory. The baptismal font, carved from oak, featured a family scene with a mother, child, and father dressed as an SA stormtrooper, symbolising the idealised Nazi family unit. The pulpit further reinforced this narrative, with carvings depicting Jesus preaching alongside figures of a soldier, an SA member, and a Hitler Youth, blending religious reverence with militaristic and political allegiance. These elements were not incidental but part of a deliberate design to merge Christian theology with Nazi ideology, a goal articulated by the German Christians’ campaign in July 1933 to “merge Christ’s cross with the hooked cross,” as stated in a propaganda poster from that election.
The church’s organ, a grand Walcker instrument, carried a particularly dark legacy. Before its installation in the church, it was played at the Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg on September 10, 1935, where the antisemitic Nuremberg Laws were announced. The organ’s façade, painted with folkloric motifs, was unveiled during the church’s opening ceremony, amplifying the event’s ideological weight. The bells, embossed with swastikas, rang to summon worshippers until their removal in 1942, when metal shortages necessitated their repurposing for the war effort. These bells, cast in March 1933, were a gift from the local Nazi Party branch, as recorded in parish records from that year. The church’s design and furnishings were thus not merely decorative but served as propaganda tools, embedding Nazi ideology into the fabric of religious life.
Despite its overt alignment with National Socialism, the church also witnessed acts of resistance. Pastor Max Kurzreiter, who served from 1935 to 1945, performed a clandestine marriage on March 15, 1938, between writer Jochen Klepper and his Jewish wife, Johanna. This union, illegal under Nazi racial laws, demonstrated Kurzreiter’s defiance, though it came at great personal risk. Tragically, Klepper, Johanna, and their daughter took their own lives on December 11, 1942, to avoid deportation after Adolf Eichmann denied their visa application on November 20, 1942. This event, documented in church records, underscores the complex interplay of complicity and resistance within the institution. The parish’s membership, with two-thirds registered as Nazi Party members by January 1934, reflected the broader societal penetration of Nazi ideology, yet individual acts like Kurzreiter’s highlight exceptions to this trend.
The German Christian movement, which dominated the church’s early years, was formalised under the Protestant Reich Church, established on July 11, 1933, under Ludwig Müller’s leadership. Müller, appointed Reich Bishop on September 27, 1933, advocated for a Christianity stripped of “Jewish influence,” including the removal of the Old Testament from church teachings, as declared in a public appeal on January 5, 1934. This appeal stated, “The eternal God created a law peculiar to our nation in Adolf Hitler,” encapsulating the movement’s attempt to sanctify Nazi leadership. The Martin Luther Memorial Church became a physical manifestation of this ideology, with its architecture and iconography designed to glorify both Christ and the Führer. Proposals in 1933 to name the church after Adolf Hitler, as noted by Isolde Boehm, were ultimately rejected, but the suggestion itself reveals the extent of Nazi influence over the congregation.
The church’s role as a site of Nazi propaganda was further evident in its use during key events. On November 10, 1933, the 450th anniversary of Martin Luther’s birth was celebrated as “German Luther Day,” with a speech by Joachim Hossenfelder at the church praising Luther as a “spiritual Führer” whose ideas unified German Christianity. This event, attended by 600 congregants, was reported in the Chemnitzer Tageblatt on November 11, 1933, as a moment of national and religious renewal.
After the war the church underwent significant changes to address its Nazi legacy. The swastika-embossed bells were melted down by July 1942, and the Hitler bust was replaced with one of Martin Luther by August 1945. The swastikas on the terracotta panels were chiselled out between June and September 1945, leaving blank spaces as a testament to denazification efforts. In 1970, new stained-glass windows by Hans Gottfried von Stockhausen, depicting the Holy Communion liturgy, were installed to replace originals destroyed in a bombing raid on November 23, 1943.
“There was a bust of Adolf Hitler in the nave,” Isolde Boehm, dean of
the church, said. “A carved face of Hitler has been replaced by one of
Martin Luther. There is even a rumour that the church was supposed to
be called the Adolf Hitler Church.”
There
is no other church in Germany so obviously from the Third Reich era. In
the 1930s two thirds of the parish of Martin Luther Memorial were Nazi
Party members. Their babies were baptised in a wooden font, which
still bears the image of a storm trooper, and they married to music
played by an organ that helped to create the dark atmosphere of the
Nuremberg rallies. In 1932 the Protestant church came under the
influence of a Nazi movement called the "German Christians" -- called
"stormtroopers of Jesus," by the group's leader and founder Rev.
Joachim Hossenfelder. In 1933 Hitler forced regional Protestant churches
to merge into the Protestant Reich Church which, based on Nazi ideas
of “positive Christianity”, portrayed Jesus as an “Aryan” and
eliminated the Old Testament.
During the war Alfred Rosenberg conceived a new National Reich Church
which would replace the Bible with Mein Kampf. Until 1942 bells
embossed with the swastika called the Nazi faithful to church on
Sundays. Then the bells were melted down and made into cannon.
Parishioners and priests are trying to raise the €3.5 million needed to rescue the church from collapse. Sources: Der Spiegel and The Times on Line
Arch
with stone carvings of helmeted stormtroopers whilst the encircled
swastikas on the top left panel and the right surmounted by the Nazi
eagle have been erased
Adolf-Hitler-Platz
, shown with German and Italian flags and, centre, decorated for the
Olympic Games, 25 July 1936 is now Theodor-Heuss-Platz...
...
but one wouldn't know it from Google maps which mislabelled
Theodor-Heuss-Platz, in the western Charlottenburg district of Berlin,
with the name it held from 1933 to 1945: Adolf-Hitler-Platz. Google
couldn't explain the error when approached by German mass-circulation
daily B.Z. which first reported the story, but a Google representative
said they were looking into the matter. The square had been returned to
its current name by 21.00 that night. The square was originally called
Reichskanzlerplatz when it was constructed in the early 1900s. In April
of 1933 it was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz, which it retained until the
Nazis were defeated. The square's name returned to Reichskanzlerplatz
from 1947 to 1963, when it was given the name of the first federal
president of Germany, Theodor Heuss.
The Funkturm and Ausstellungshallen in Charlottenburg during the 1936 Olympics and today
Charlottenburg
Palace, the largest palace in Berlin and the only royal residency
in the city dating back to the time of the Hohenzollern family. During
thewar the palace was badly damaged but has since been
reconstructed with Andreas Schlüter’s epic Reiterdenkmal
des Grossen Kurfürsten of 1699 which shows the
Great Elector on horseback, also returned to
the front courtyard.
The Funkturm and Ausstellungshallen in Charlottenburg during the 1936 Olympics and today
Schloss Bellevue- The Presidential Palace- from Berlin in Bildern, published 1938, and today. Hitler
had used the building as the site for the museum of ethnography, before
being renovated as a guest house for the Nazi government in 1938. In
that year Paul Otto August Baumgarten transformed the guesthouse so
that in the process the two entrances, which are now known as arched
windows of the side elevation, were walled in and the present middle
entrance with the free staircase was created.It was the residence of
actor, director and general director of the Prussian State Theatre,
Gustaf Gründgens, until the end of the war. On May
31 1931, Hitler toured the Bellevue Castle which had by then been
transformed into an official guest house for prominent foreigners hosted
by the Third Reich. Professor Baumgartner had supervised the
refurbishing of the facilities. Hitler displayed particular interest in
the rooms assigned to foreign dignitaries. In spite of his ambitious
intentions, these rooms were destined to serve only a second- rate
clientèle, insignificant politicians from the various Balkan states,
because of the increasing isolation of Germany internationally.
During
the war it was severely damaged by strategic bombing as early as April
1941 and during the Battle of Berlin, after which it was refurbished
substantially from 1954 to
1959 by the architect Carl-Heinz Schwennicke as the seat of the Federal
President of the Federal Republic of Germany. From the West German point
of view, a seat of office was possible in spite of the four-power
status of the city in accordance with Article 23 of the Basic Law. From
the time of its creation, only the ball hall designed by the architect
Carl Gotthard Langhans remained in the upper floor of the castle. The
renovation in the style of the 1950s was mocked because of its
ahistorical additions and conversions as a "mixture of film star
sanatorium and ice cream parlour" and has for its part largely given way
to numerous further renovations.
The Presidential Palace in March 1941 during the visit of the Japanese Foreign Minister in Berlin. The photo on the extreme right shows
German First Lady Bettina Wulff apparently giving the Hitler salute
from the steps. Franc Rennicke, a member of the far right NPD party
who made an unsuccessful bid to become president himself earlier in
2010, sent the photo to prosecutors. “For decades the so-called
German greeting has been outlawed and thousands of people have been
taken to court for making it,“ wrote Rennicke. “The photo of her
outside Schloss Bellevue in Berlin clearly shows her making this
banned gesture.“
Hitler inspecting a guard of honour shortly after assuming full power
in 1934 and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII,
leaving the presidential palace on the right after meeting with Hitler
in March 1939.
Charlottenburg
Palace, the largest palace in Berlin and the only royal residency
in the city dating back to the time of the Hohenzollern family. During
thewar the palace was badly damaged but has since been
reconstructed with Andreas Schlüter’s epic Reiterdenkmal
des Grossen Kurfürsten of 1699 which shows the
Great Elector on horseback, also returned to
the front courtyard. Charlottenburg, where the journalist Margret Boveri lived, was an affluent area, and one of the last to surrender. She became aware of the change in the situation when she ventured out on to the streets to obtain her last quarter-pound of butter. She found Russians already sniffing at the queues. Most of the Berliners had thought it prudent to don white armbands. They openly complained of the Party for the first time. When she got home she found that German soldiers had broken into a neighbour’s cellar to steal civilian clothes. They intended to make a break for the west: no one wanted to be caught by the Russians. ... The terror began quietly in Margret Boveri’s Charlottenburg. ‘Ich Pistol!’ announced the soldiers. ‘Du Papier!’ That meant that they had guns, and no amount of paperwork was going to do you any good if you wanted to hang on to property or virtue. ‘There is nothing in this city that isn’t theirs for the taking,’ reported another woman who lived near Neukölln in the south. At first the Russian soldiers came for watches. With a cry of ‘Uhri! Uhri!’ they snatched, sometimes discarding the previous acquisition, which had simply stopped and needed to be rewound. This anonymous ‘Woman’ saw many Red Army soldiers with whole rows of watches on their arms ‘which they continuously kept winding, comparing and correcting – with childish, thievish pleasure’.. Most of the rapists in Charlottenburg, Margret Boveri discovered, were simple soldiers sleeping rough in the park. Those who had been properly billeted behaved better. She resorted to sleeping pills to get though the night, and didn’t wake when the Russians knocked at her door. Only in the morning did she hear the grim news from the neighbours.
MacDonogh, After the Reich
The Reichsadler remains on the front façade of the Amtsgericht in the Berlin suburb of Wedding.
The hospital at Danziger Straße 64 on Prenzlauer Berg was originally the Reichsluftschutzschule
The
Schlossbruecke across the Spree in Charlottenburg, where the Soviet
Second Guards Tank Army forced its way, despite the damage, on April 29,
1945.
Denkmal der nationalen Erhebung
Reichsadler dating from 1935 by
Max Esser at Lüdenscheider Weg 2-4 near Haselhorster dam in Spandau
within a children's playground inside a block of residential buildings
in Berlin-Haselhorst. Esser was best known as an animal sculptor and
designer of porcelain figures. At the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937
his plastic otter, created in 1934, was awarded a Grand Prix. Esser died
in Berlin in 1945 at the age of 60 and is buried in the Zehlendorf
cemetery.
German Reich Railways Central Office
Through Gleichschaltung,
the Nazis placed the rail network under direct government control on
10 February 1937, adding swastikas to the Hoheitsadler on the railcars.
Here, at the back of the central office of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, is
the stone emblem- a winged wheel- although the swastika relief at the
base has been removed.
The Regionaldirektion Berlin-Brandenburg der Bundesagentur für Arbeit
as it appeared when it served as the administration building for Fritz
Todt's Armaments Ministry and today, where it serves as the state labour
department. The building dates from 1938 when the architect Hans
Fritzsche was commissioned by the Reichsarbeitsministerium to
design a new service building for the Gauesamt of the Gaues Brandenburg.
A site between Friedrichstraße and Charlottenstraße in the southern
Friedrichstadt was chosen to serve as a location. The plot of
approximately seventy metres in width and 110 metres high was originally to
be built with commercial buildings. The building was eventually built in
1940 by Heilmann & Littmann. According to Matthias Donath, the
Gauworkamt is a "typical example of the monumental architectural style
which was preferred for official administrative buildings after 1933."
The eagle remains unmolested, overlooking the capital still. The
model for this design was the entrance spylon of the German pavilion
designed by Albert Speer at the world exhibition in 1937.
Post office on Knesebeckstraße 95, showing the Reichsadler above door
Schubertstraße in Lichterfelde, hit by the RAF on the night of January 28/29 1945, after the war and today
Post office on Knesebeckstraße 95, showing the Reichsadler above door
Race and Settlement Main Office of the ϟϟ
On this street was located the Race and Settlement Main Office of the ϟϟ (Rasse-und
Siedlungshauptamt, RuSHA), the Nazi office that dealt with racial
matters. Established in 1931, RuSHA was designated as an ϟϟ Main Office
in 1935. The office's tasks included
doing research and providing instruction on race issues, including
special
training courses for elite Nazi groups; making sure that ϟϟ men and
their
wives were racially pure; carrying out the resettlement of ϟϟ men in
Nazi-occupied countries as part of the global Nazi plan for expanding
the German
Reich throughout Europe; and encouraging them to settle on farm lands
near
cities. RuSHA's staff included many determined and industrious young men
who either had medical or some other professional eligibility. Some were
later
promoted to senior ϟϟ positions.
The
RuSHA began evicting landowners from their homes and settling
Germans in their place in mid-1939. RuSHA offices established in the
parts of
Poland annexed to the Reich were in charge of confiscated Jewish- and
Polish- owned land. In 1940 RuSHA came up with the plan to "Germanise"
Poles who had the appropriate racial qualities. Possible candidates were
screened and interviewed by "race experts and qualifications examiners."
These experts also checked out the racial authenticity of Poles who
registered
themselves as "ethnic Germans" (Volksdeutsche). In addition, RuSHA made
plans to "Germanise" the Ukrainian people. The bombing raid on Berlin on
February 3, 1945 destroyed almost all buildings in the Hedemannstraße
and in the southern Friedrichstrasse.
Heavy Load Testing Body
The
heavy load testing body was constructed to examine the weight-bearing
capacity of the below the surface soil for the Nazis planned monumental
structures, especially for the triumphal arch. Located in the Tempelhof district, it
remains as one of the few structures of the “Germania” plans still
standing today. A cylindrical concrete structure towers fourteen metres
in height and delves another eighteen metres into the ground. It is 21
metres in diameter. This engineering feat was built in 1941 making use
of French slave labourers. The load-bearing structure had a weight of
12,650 tons and was supposed to help determine the maximal load-bearing
capacity of the ground along the North-South Axis. The construction of a
colossal, 117 metre-high triumphal arch was dependent on these results.
Albert Speer planned to build the arch nearby, based on a design by
Hitler. Renovation of the heavy load-bearing structure was completed in
2009.
Built between 1934 and 1940 to a design by Heinrich Wolff to house the central bank, the Reichsbank
became the Finance Ministry and later headquarters of the Central
Committee of the East German Communist Party. Today it serves as the
Charlottenburg tax office responsible for the taxation of everyone
living in the Charlottenburg district and also for the payment
transactions of all Berlin-based tax offices. There
remains today a reichsadler designed by Kurt Schmidt-Ehmen over the
doorway of the Finanzamt Charlottenburg on Bismarkstraße in Berlin, the
swastika covered by the address number. Schmid-Ehmen is considered to
be the creator of the Nazi eagle and the Nazi emblem. His entry into
the Nazi Party in the early 1930s and his acquaintance with the
architect Paul Ludwig Troost gave him his first orders and personal
acquaintance with Hitler. 
It was he who designed the memorial to the 'martyrs' of November 9, 1923 in the Feldherrnhalle, the eagles that were installed atop the party buildings in Munich, on the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg and the eagle relief that was seen in the smoking room in the New Reich Chancellery.
Schmid-Ehmen made the nine-metre high bronze eagle for the German
Pavilion at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris referred to above and
received the Grand Prix de la Republique Française for it. From 1936 he
was a member of the Presidential Council of the Reich Chamber of Fine
Arts, and on January 30, 1937 Hitler appointed him professor. In 1938
Hitler bought his Spear bearer. In 1939 Schmid-Ehmen was represented at
the Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art in Munich
with the bronze sculpture 'Mädchen mit Zweig'.
It was he who designed the memorial to the 'martyrs' of November 9, 1923 in the Feldherrnhalle, the eagles that were installed atop the party buildings in Munich, on the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg and the eagle relief that was seen in the smoking room in the New Reich Chancellery.
Schmid-Ehmen made the nine-metre high bronze eagle for the German
Pavilion at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris referred to above and
received the Grand Prix de la Republique Française for it. From 1936 he
was a member of the Presidential Council of the Reich Chamber of Fine
Arts, and on January 30, 1937 Hitler appointed him professor. In 1938
Hitler bought his Spear bearer. In 1939 Schmid-Ehmen was represented at
the Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art in Munich
with the bronze sculpture 'Mädchen mit Zweig'. The Charlottenburg tax office
itself was built in 1936–1939 according to plans by the architect Eugen Bruker
and was the largest tax office in Berlin at the time. The building
consists of a representative main wing on Bismarckstraße, a central wing
and a rear wing on Spielhagenstraße. The three-storey high portal niche
around the main entrance sets a monumental accent, marked by four
angular shell limestone pillars. The eagle above the entrance door
grasps a swastika with its claws, which is now hidden by the building
number. Today the building is one of the architectural monuments of the
district of Charlottenburg.
The former entrance to the Flakregiment at Reinickendorf Heiligensee showing the Luftwaffe eagle on the façade.
Schubertstraße in Lichterfelde, hit by the RAF on the night of January 28/29 1945, after the war and today
Stefan
Braunfels's disturbing Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, home of the parliamentary library, located in the
government district of Berlin between Adele-Schreiber-Krieger-Straße and
Schiffbauerdamm, inaugurated after five years of construction on
December 10, 2003 and how the site appeared immediately after the war. Braunfels
justified his design as part of a "jump over the Spree," being connected
to the equally awful Paul-Löbe-Haus from east to west, supposedly
symbolising the 'togetherness' of East and West Germany and intended as a
counterbalance to the vision of what the Nazis would laud as Welthauptstadt Germania.
The Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus stands to the right and left of the
earlier course of the Berlin Wall. In fact the first major competition Braunfels, grandson of the composer Walter Braunfels, won was for the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich in 1992 which when opened in late 2002 became one of the largest new museums in Germany.
The
Jewish Hospital used by the Gestapo from 1941-43 as an assembly point
for Jews being deported which was located on the corner of
Exerzierstrasse and Schulstrasse in Wedding. Once
a top Berlin facility, it gradually became a clearinghouse for Jews
facing transport to the camps. The Nazis apparently wanted the Jews
healthy before sending them off to die. According to its website, it
"is the only institution in the whole of Germany to survive the Nazi
terror and is the oldest still-existing establishment founded on a
concept developed by people of Jewish belief." This hospital was the subject of the book Refuge in Hell: How Berlin's Jewish Hospital Outlasted the Nazis by Daniel Silver, a lawyer and former general counsel to the CIA.
In
the 1930s, Tempelhof was at the forefront of European air traffic with
its traffic volume, ahead of Paris, Amsterdam and even London. The
limits of the technical possibilities were soon reached, and in January
1934 the first planning work for a new building for a large airport on
the Tempelhofer Feld began. In July 1935, the architect Ernst Sagebiel
received the planning order for the new building from the Reich Aviation
Ministry, which reflected both the new urban planning ideas and the
monumental architecture under the Nazis and had to anticipate the
development of aviation for a longer period of time. The airport was
planned to handle up to six million passengers a year. The facility was
intended not only for air traffic, but also serve for events such as the
Reichsflugtag and provide a seat for as many aviation-related agencies
and institutions as possible. This new building also met all the
requirements of a military airfield at the time.
Nearby, Volkssturm along Hermannstrasse. Beevor (302) writes of how
Tempelhof aeroport
The Nazi eagle, shorn of its swastika, still remains. Amongst the first projects the Nazis undertook
with the
reconstruction of Berlin was the planned renovation of Berlin's Tempelhof International Airport, which
began in 1934. Tempelhof was dramatically redesigned as the gateway to
Europe, and became the forerunner of today's modern airports. Indeed,
the airport halls and the neighbouring buildings are still known as the
largest built entities worldwide, and Tempelhof has been described by
British architect Sir Norman Foster as "the mother of all airports". The
building complex was designed to resemble an eagle in flight with
semicircular hangars forming the bird's spread wings. A mile long hangar
roof was to have been laid in tiers to form a stadium for spectators at
air and ground demonstrations. However, although under construction for
more than ten years, it was never finished because of the war. Tempelhof
was one of Europe's three iconic pre-war airports, the others being
London's now defunct Croydon Airport and the old Paris–Le Bourget
Airport. It acquired a further iconic status as the centre of the Berlin
Airlift of 1948–49.
The
Nazi enlargement of Berlin's Tempelhof aeroport grandiosely
demonstrated their aims at enlarging Germany's influence in Europe. The
airport's eagle design clearly conveys that "the Eagle of Germany" would
again take to the skies, to fly higher than ever before. Coupled with
other Nazi architectural accomplishments, like the 1936 Olympic Stadium,
and Nuremberg Zeppelin Tribune, were assuredly profound propaganda
victories for the Nazi regime.
In
the 1930s, Tempelhof was at the forefront of European air traffic with
its traffic volume, ahead of Paris, Amsterdam and even London. The
limits of the technical possibilities were soon reached, and in January
1934 the first planning work for a new building for a large airport on
the Tempelhofer Feld began. In July 1935, the architect Ernst Sagebiel
received the planning order for the new building from the Reich Aviation
Ministry, which reflected both the new urban planning ideas and the
monumental architecture under the Nazis and had to anticipate the
development of aviation for a longer period of time. The airport was
planned to handle up to six million passengers a year. The facility was
intended not only for air traffic, but also serve for events such as the
Reichsflugtag and provide a seat for as many aviation-related agencies
and institutions as possible. This new building also met all the
requirements of a military airfield at the time.  |
| Hitler and Göring at Tempelhof, 1932 |
The
early Nazi concentration camp Columbia, which was opened on December
27, 1934, was located directly at the new building and had operated
until November 5, 1936 and demolished in 1938. A 1994 memorial designed
by Georg Seibert and the Friends' Association for the commemoration of
Nazi crimes on and around the Tempelhofer Flugfeld eV commemorates the
existence of the Columbia concentration camp since 1994.
From
January 1940 until early 1944, Weser Flugzeugbau assembled Junkers Ju
87 "Stuka" dive bombers; thereafter, it assembled Focke-Wulf Fw 190
fighter planes in the still unfurnished main hall and hangars 3 to 7 of
the new terminal, which were supplied by a railway and trucks via a
connecting tunnel.[16] Hangars 1 and 2 were not used to assemble
aircraft as these were already used by Luft Hansa for its own planes.
Aircraft parts were brought in from all over the city while complete
aircraft engines were trucked to Tempelhof. Once the airframes were
complete and the engines had been installed, the finished aircraft were
flown out. The Luftwaffe did not use Tempelhof as a military airfield
during the war, except for occasional emergency landings by fighter
aircraft.
A decapitated reichsadler in front of the aeroport with how it originally appeared on the roof with victorious Red Army soldiers, May 1945 below. 
When the front approached at the end of April 1945, the airport was to
be defended. The airport commander at the time, Colonel Rudolf Böttger,
and some senior Lufthansa employees circumvented this order, however, by
having the weapons provided and setting up a field hospital. This did
not lead to a defence of the airport, which could have led to its
complete destruction. According to Wikipedia, Böttger evaded Adolf
Hitler's extermination order to blow up the entire complex by suicide.
However, according to other sources he was called upon by an officer of
the Waffen ϟϟ
for insubordination and shot. In fact, the concrete floor of the main
hall was blown up, so that it fell onto the luggage level below and the
main hall became unusable. On April 29 1945 Red Army troops occupied the
Tempelhof district and the airport. The new buildings were largely
spared from destruction, but there were several fires that also severely
damaged the steel structure of the hall buildings. The buildings of the
old airport were completely destroyed and the airfield was littered
with impacts. The underground bunker with the film archive also burned
down completely, and all films were destroyed in the process.
When the front approached at the end of April 1945, the airport was to
be defended. The airport commander at the time, Colonel Rudolf Böttger,
and some senior Lufthansa employees circumvented this order, however, by
having the weapons provided and setting up a field hospital. This did
not lead to a defence of the airport, which could have led to its
complete destruction. According to Wikipedia, Böttger evaded Adolf
Hitler's extermination order to blow up the entire complex by suicide.
However, according to other sources he was called upon by an officer of
the Waffen ϟϟ
for insubordination and shot. In fact, the concrete floor of the main
hall was blown up, so that it fell onto the luggage level below and the
main hall became unusable. On April 29 1945 Red Army troops occupied the
Tempelhof district and the airport. The new buildings were largely
spared from destruction, but there were several fires that also severely
damaged the steel structure of the hall buildings. The buildings of the
old airport were completely destroyed and the airfield was littered
with impacts. The underground bunker with the film archive also burned
down completely, and all films were destroyed in the process. On
July 2, 1945, the Red Army left the airfield so that it could be taken
over by the Americans (473rd Air Services Group) before their official
arrival on July 4.
The
airport was given a new meaning in 1948 when, along with the Gatow
airfield and later Tegel Airport, it served to transport food and goods
for Berlin by plane during the blockade of West Berlin through the
valiant efforts of the RAF and USAAF. A large part of the cargo
consisted of fuel. The vital supply through the Berlin Airlift between
various West German cities and Berlin lasted from June 26, 1948 to May
12, 1949. In Tempelhof, the planes took off and landed at roughy
ninety-second intervals. The American pilot Gail Halvorsen popularised
the dropping of candy during the approach to Tempelhof with parachutes
made of handkerchiefs from the cockpit windows, which was adopted by
other pilots and gave the aircraft the legendary name of raisin
bombers. The southern runway was built for the smooth operation of the
airlift.
Tempelhof
Airport closed all operations on October 30, 2008, despite considerable
protest. The former airfield has subsequently been used as a
recreational space known as Tempelhofer Feld. In September 2015 it was
announced that Tempelhof would also become an emergency refugee camp.
The swastikas return to allow Tom Cruise to make his movie Valkyrie
The remnants of his `Norge' and `Danmark' regiments were waiting impatiently by the canal for motor transport, which was having difficulty getting to them through the rubble-blocked streets. Just as the trucks finally arrived, a cry of alarm was heard: `Panzer durchgebrochen!' This cry prompted a surge of `tank fright' even among hardened veterans and a chaotic rush for the vehicles, which presented an easy target for the two T-34s that had broken through. The trucks that got away even had men clinging on to the outsides. As they escaped north up the Hermannstrasse, they saw scrawled on a house wall `SS traitors extending the war!' There was no doubt in their minds as to the culprits: `German Communists at work. Were we going to have to fight against the enemy within as well?
