Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
is displayed with kids in mind, though not the frequently excellent temporary
exhibitions of cutting-edge contemporary art.
Former Luftfahrtministerium
he city block west of the Museum für Kommunikation is marked out by Hermann
Göring's fortress-like
Luftfahrtministerium
(air ministry), a rare relic of the Nazi past that
has survived very much intact and once formed the southern end of the former hird
Reich government quarter along Wilhelmstrasse (see p.40). Göring promised Berliners
that not a single bomb would fall on the city during the war; if this were to happen, the
Reichsmarschal said, he would change his name to Meyer - a common Jewish surname.
Ironically, the air ministry was one of the few buildings to emerge more or less
unscathed from the bombing and Red Army shelling. After the establishment of the
GDR it became the SED regime's
Haus der Ministerien
(House of Ministries), and was
the target of a mass demonstration on June 16, 1953 (see box, p.120), which was to be
a prelude for a general but short-lived uprising against the communist government the
next day. here's a historical irony of sorts in the fact that the building became, for a
number of years after reunification, the headquarters of the Treuhandanstalt, the agency
responsible for the privatization of the former GDR's economy. It has been tidied up
again and now houses the Federal Finance Ministry.
7
Topography of Terror
Niederkirchnerstr. 7 • Daily 10am-8pm (outside areas until dusk) • Free •
T
030 25 45 09 50,
W
topographie.de • S- & U-Potsdamer Platz
Lurking behind central Berlin's most substantial but dilapidated stretch of Wall is a city
block that between 1933 and 1945 headquartered the Reich security services, including
the Gestapo and SS. Some ruined foundations remain, but the flawlessly sleek and
silvery piece of memorial-chic architecture in the middle houses the
Topography of
Terror
, Germany's most significant museum on the perpetrators of Nazi terror. Inside,
this dreadful history is retold on numerous information panels (in both English and
German) which include many reproduced black-and-white photos of Nazis and their
forlorn victims at a range of miserable events - book burnings, public humiliations, the
destruction of Jewish property and synagogues, the rounding-up of Jews and others to
be murdered in concentration camps. It's all sadly familiar, but what many don't realize,
and the exhibition goes out of its way to show, is that many of the perpetrators were
never brought to justice. One exception was senior SS-man Adolf Eichmann, whose
life story is extensively retold here, from his role in the Holocaust to his subsequent
capture in Argentina in 1960 to his trial and hanging in Israel.
Meanwhile, in the Reich Security ruins outside, more info panels provide a potted
history of the hird Reich in Berlin and reveal gruesome insights: the ground beneath
the exhibition once held the cellars where prisoners were interrogated and tortured.
Martin-Gropius-Bau
Niederkirchnerstr. 7 • Wed-Mon 10am-7pm • Prices vary; around €10 •
T
030 25 48 60,
W
gropiusbau.de • S- & U-Potsdamer Platz
he magnificently restored building beside the Topography of Terror is the
Martin-
Gropius-Bau
, designed in 1877 by Martin Gropius, a pupil of Schinkel and the uncle
of Bauhaus guru Walter (see p.102). Until its destruction in the war the Gropius-Bau
was home of a museum of applied art, but rebuilt and refurbished, it now houses
changing exhibitions of art, photography and architecture.
Anhalter Bahnhof
he
Anhalter Bahnhof
, on Stresemannstrasse, is a sad reminder of a misguided civic act
that some would term vandalism. Completed in 1870, this train station was once one
of Europe's greatest, forming Berlin's gateway to the south. During the Holocaust it
was one of the three stations used to deport Jews to heresienstadt (or Terezín), and
from there to the death camps. Nearly ten thousand Jews were deported from here,
