Berlin Conundrum: Hitler's Bunker - Demolish or Preserve?
 

I go to Berlin every chance i get and i always try to pinpoint the location of Hitler's Bunker, where he was holed up at the end of WWII when the Soviet troops were bearing down on him - where he spent his last hours and committed suicide with Eva Braun. No Berlin map i know of pinpoints the bunker's location. I know the general location, in a field between Potsdammer Platz and the new Holocaust Memorial by the Brandenberg Gate. The site is a chaos of construction right now, after being in the no-man's zone of the wall for years, on the East German side.
But the question that Berlin authorities are grappling with his whether to demolish the apparently intact bunker or reopen it as a monument to Nazi atrocities, etc.
One camp says that to reopen it would make a mecca for neo-Nazis perhaps, glorifying Hitler and his henchmen.
The other camp says to preserve it, and open it up to tourism - a ghoulish tourist site perhaps, but like concentration camps, preserved to show monstrosity of Nazi era.
Myself i would restore and reopen the bunker - just something that doesn't like to erase bad memories - it would be fascinating to go in and the appropriate displays could be done to make it a sobering visit, much like concentration camps. Indeed with the refurbished Olympic Stadium in Berlin, which was a fascist showpiece built for the 1936 Olympics meant to glorify Aryan superiority, when it was rebuilt to host World Cup this summer a special exhibit that fans walk thru point out Nazi horrors.
WHAT DO YOU THINK - BULLDOZE OR REOPEN OR LEAVE AS IS - INTACT BUT UNPUBLICIZED.

I'd say reopen it, at least partially as a memorial, but also as a very interesting historical place, as with the Cabinet War Rooms in London. It's not like a visitor to Germany can escape the extremely common reminders of the monstrosity of the Nazis, the Germans aren't about to forget.

Why is it that the various camps which are on display such as Dachau as well as the "Eagle's Nest" at Berchtesgaden have not become "mecca(s) for neo-nazis?"

As fas as I know that ruins of the Gestapo Hq. in Berlin, the so-called "most frightening address in the city" hasn't become a mecca, either.

The Germans have been relentless in ensuring that these "meccas" do not get inadvertently created and I can certainly understand why so who knows what will happen.

Isn't this in a parking lot or something? Somehow I remember hearing about it during my walk with Berlin Walks (?) in August of 2003.

Quite an interesting walk, by the way. I still remember the guide's top 3 for Berlin that he urged everyone to see: Brandenburg Tor, Reichstag Dome, Topographie des Terrors.

I agree with you both and i don't understand why the Berlin government finds it such a touchy subject that nothing is done but to leave the problem buried! Maybe i didn't state the reasons against so articulate as some may.

Well have they decided what to do about Palast der Republik?

It's part of the history of the city, so it should not be destroyed.

I dunno - needing a memorial to the bunker where Hitler committed suicide and was then burned by the Russians seems macabre to me. (BTW - I'm not advocating getting rid of the many memorial sites where millions of innocent people were brutalized and murdered, or letting the German people forget about their collective role in this shameful part of history.)

Some had a similar complaint when the remaining bunkers of the Siegfried Line were demolished near Frankfurt a few years ago. Supposedly, Neo-Nazis were using these places as hang-outs.

If I recall, many of these sites (like the Eagles Nest) were blown-up by the U.S. and our allies so reminders of Hitler would NOT remain visible.

Re: Palace of the Republic - just read that debate is still raging about its fate - with demolition forces apparently winning but a growing preservationist noise as well. Currently the palace is gutted but does have some of its exquisite interior intact and hopes are for a restoration. I hope they save what to many is a classic example of East German architecture - Ossies feel its part of their patromony. To rebuild the old Schloss, torn down by the East Germans in the 1950s would simply result in an Ersatz new old-looking palace.

PalQ - bad news on the Palast der Republik. It is decided - they demolish it. Not sure what will be built afterwards. I heard they want to rebuild the facade of the Schloss (LOL) but they have no idea if offices inside or whatever. It is like in a madhouse :-)

Interesting to read your opinions on the Bunker.

I say blow up the Roman Colisseum too since innocent folks were murdered there for the entertainment of the landed aristocracy. The Tower of London should go next.

Ingo - i believe you're a Dresdener and i was thinking after OP that if i were German i may have completely different take - some Berlin officials balked both at the Jewish Memorial and Holocaust Memorial and perhaps Germans feel there has been enough such memorials - maybe it like being saddled forever with the sins of their ancestors. Should there be American Indian memorials all over the US attesting to our atrocities against native peoples? Maybe Germans feel it's time to move on - i can see if i were German i may have different take.
Nurnberg i believe also has a problem with the vast Nazi parade grounds on the southern edge of the city - when i was there several years ago the impressive stone parade boulevards were all overgrown and barely discernable and the stadium was in shambles - i haven't heard much about this but understand the desire perhaps to sweep away relics of a distasteful past if i were a young German innocent of the crimes of my ancestors, feeling that they are being forever flogged for these crimes.
Tearing down the palace of the Repulik i believe is sad!

Yes, I feel it is time to move on. However, we must know the past! I believe we need to preserve the relics of concentration camps to show the future generations what happened. But I don't see the "message" of Hitler's bunker. I guess there is not much to see and I doubt someone has a great idea what to do with it. How can people learn from just visiting it?

I have been to quite some concentration camps and such places (Buchenwald, Terezin e.g.) and learned a lot.

To allow the <i>f&uuml;hrerbunker</i> to decay, or to raze it, would be consciously to ignore that the Third Reich existed - and what it did. This complex wasn't a killing factory, but it <u>was</u> the &quot;head office&quot; of that industry.

This dark page in human history must be remembered. Posterity owes its victims that it never be forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerbunker

(By the way, if you want to see the unvarnished reality of the Holocaust, see <i>The Grey Zone</i>. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252480)

I don't think it's any more or less morbid than the concentration camps. I wouldn't choose to visit either myself.

t