Third Reich ruins - Nazi bunkers, gigantic structures and history tours.
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Third Reich ruins: Winkeltürme concrete towers were air raid shelters
In Nazi Germany concrete towers - called Winkeltürme (Winkel Towers) after their architect Leo Winkel - were build as air raid shelters because it was cheaper to build above ground than to dig underground bunkers. Their cone shape caused bombs to slide down the walls and detonate at a heavily fortified base. It was possible to cram as many as 500 people inside and the "footprint" of such tower was very small when observed from the air, making it hard for the bombers to score a direct hit. Hitler was impressed by Winkel's concept and blueprints, and ordered full engineering and production support. (-)
"Topography of Terror" documentation center opened at the former Gestapo and SS headquarters in Berlin
The new "Topography of Terror" documentation center in Berlin at the site of the Gestapo and SS headquarters showcases the faces of the unknown perpetrators of the Holocaust. The index cards cover an entire wall containing names and handwritten notes. They are the details of some of the 7,000 employees of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), the merger of the SS paramilitary group and Gestapo - the men who worked at the core of the Nazi terror regime. This was where the masterminds behind the Nazi crimes, such as SS leader Heinrich Himmler and SD chief Reinhard Heydrich, had their offices. (spiegel.de)
Plans for Austria's huge Nazi-era flak towers spark controversy
Scattered through Vienna are 6 huge anti-aircraft towers, a reminder of the city's Nazi past. The flak towers, built by forced labour, were set up 1942-1945. Architectural historian Ute Bauer says their main purpose was propaganda: "The towers were... a sign of the military strength of the Third Reich... In 1943 when the towers were built, the authorities already knew the bombers flew higher - so they were of no military use, but they built them regardless." One of the flak towers houses an aquarium and another is used by the Austrian army. But what to do with the other relics - getting rid of the reinforced concrete is difficult. (bbc.co.uk)
Third Reich Walking Tour
Every year thousands of visitors travel to Germany to tour the ruins of the Third Reich. From the V2 rocket factory to the underground tunnels and bunkers in Berlin - and from Hitler's mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden to the SS Camelot at Wewelsburg, tourists are fascinated by the history of the Third Reich. The Sun took one of the many Third Reich Walking Tours in Munich -- the city where Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party was formed in the 1920s. "You can read books and see films but it's only coming to places like this that you get a real handle on it," explained Mike Kennedy. (thesun.co.uk)
A guide to (Nazi) Germany's darkest places
Wewelsburg, SS leader Heinrich Himmler's nazi castle. --- Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg. The backdrop for Leni Riefenstahl's documentary film "Triumph of the Will." --- Wannsee Conference House, where the Nazi leadership met in 1942 to discuss the Final Solution to the Jewish question. --- The Last Submarine: U-995 is the last surviving Type VII- C/41 submarine, and the mother of all German u-boats. --- Dachau Concentration Camp. The list of Nazi concentration and death camps is harrowing: Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, Majdanek, Buchenwald... But for all of them, there was a model. And that model was Dachau, the first nazi camp, opened in March 1933. (spiegel.de)
More travellers tour Hitler's HQ Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) after the Valkyrie film
Lying overgrown in a Polish forest the ruined concrete bunkers is a relic of the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler's "Wolfsschanze" (Wolf's Lair) has long drawn history buffs, but now tourist interest is up because of the Tom Cruise's WW2 movie "Valkyrie". Visitors have to use their imagination to paint a picture of the nazi site in its heyday, because the Nazis blew it up in 1945. But a guided tour brings the historical site to life. "Hitler lived right here, in this bunker. He spent more than 800 days at the Wolfsschanze," says tour guide Jerzy Szynkowski. The bunker remains breathtaking, with its 6-metre-thick (20-foot-thick) walls and 8-metre (26-foot) roof. (france24.com)
Vogelsang Castle Nazi college to become museum - Swastikas and Teutonic torch bearer
One of Germany's largest Nazi sites, a training college built to look like a castle, is being turned into a museum after emerging from a 60-year time warp that left it filled with Nazi symbols like a giant swastika laid into a floor and the towering figure of a Teutonic torch bearer. Dominated by a mediaeval-style keep, Vogelsang Castle overlooks wooded hills in the Eifel region. The Nazi party built it in the 1930s to create an elite of brainwashed and physically fit bureaucrats to run the Third Reich. The museum and visitor centre will be completed 2011, but guided tours of the site are available already. (thenational.ae)
Nazi walking tours in Munich: Travelling to Germany to explore ruins of the Third Reich
3 tour guides are standing next to each other in Munich, but only one of them is doing well: Jeff Cox, who is offering "Third Reich Tour. Munich Walk Tours in English." The Third Reich in Munich. That means Hitler, Göring, Gestapo, SS. Cox soon has 18 tourists: Nazis always sell. One of the tourists is Alan Stark, who has read 7 Adolf Hitler biographies, but he still listens closely Cox's stories. Stark travelled to Germany for 6 days, so he has to focus on what's essential. Day 1: Nuremberg, the site of the Nazi party rallies. Day 2: Berchtesgaden, Hitler's mountain retreat. Day 3: Munich, Third Reich tour. Day 4: Bayreuth. "Parsifal," 5 hours of Wagner. (spiegel.de)
Third Reich walking tour of Munich - Where Adolf Hitler met Eva Braun
Imagine being sat in the dentist's chair, mouth wide open, and the dentist starts to make chit-chat about his clinic. "This used to be the Nazi party headquarters... Come to think of it, this was where Hitler met Eva Braun." It would be a little disturbing. But the surgery at 50 Schellingstrasse, Munich, was once the studio of Adolf Hitler's personal photographer Hans Hoffman, and here the cash-strapped party had meetings. Eva Braun was Hoffman's assistant, and she caught Hitler's eye while climbing a ladder. Details like this make the Third Reich walking tour of Munich fascinating. The historical tour continues up to Konigsplatz... (news.com.au)
Berlin to turn Tempelhof airport into park after years of debate
Berlin's government will spend 61 million euros converting the Tempelhof airport into a garden in central Berlin which, at 1 square mile, will be just under the size of New York's Central Park. Spokesman Marko Rosteck said the monolithic limestone terminal, designed by Ernst Sagebiel, will be saved. The site was originally a military training ground, and in 1909 American flight pioneer Orville Wright used it for aviation experiments. The debate over Tempelhof's future was heated and continued up to the moment the loss-making airport was shut down on Oct 31, 2008. (telegraph.co.uk)
Makeover planned for gigantic "strength through joy" complex on the island of Ruegen
The windows are broken and the roof is leaking, but otherwise the gigantic steel and concrete structure has lasted unscathed. The complex in the Baltic Sea resort of Prora on the island of Ruegen was part of Adolf Hitler's "Strength Through Joy" program to keep Germans healthy. It was to house 20,000 persons in 8,000 rooms. Work on the complex, which began in 1936, slowed in 1939 and was halted in 1943. The only Germans to live in there were refugees fleeing the Soviet Red Army. After German reunification it was seized by the federal government, which is now - after years of wondering what to do with it - launching a project to turn the site into a holiday complex. (haaretz.com)
Flak towers and U bahn photos - thread at Axis History Forum
As the Allied bombing offensive against Nazi Germany escalated in 1942, the Nazis reacted by developing new air defence systems for cities. In Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna, they built massive concrete towers called flaktowers (flaktürme) as platforms for anti-aircraft guns. The towers were grouped in pairs, each consisting of a G-Tower (Gefechtturm, Combat Tower), and an L-Tower (Leitturm, Lead Tower). There were 3 pairs of towers in Berlin, 3 in Vienna and 2 in Hamburg. Today the flaktowers still loom over Vienna and Hamburg, less so in Berlin since the only standing tower is in a large park and is partly hidden by trees. (forum.axishistory.com)
Huge tunnels show Adolf Hitler's megalomaniac vision for nazi capital Germania
Three vast tunnels were opened under Berlin, offering a glimpse of Adolf Hitler's vision for the capital of Nazi Germany. The tunnels were built in 1938 as part of a transport network beneath a series of buildings designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer. The overground plans included boulevards, huge buildings, and the 290-metre high Great Hall. Hitler called the concept "Berlin - the capital of the world." "The tunnels... were part of Speer's grand plans, what we now call 'Germania'," said historian Dietmar Arnold, head of the Berlin Underground Association and bunker tour guide, who took journalists on a rare visit into the dank tunnels. (reuters.com)
Touring Berlin's endangered bunkers and underworld
Berlin's greatest tourist attraction is the one that's not there: the Führerbunker where Adolf Hitler spent his final days. A tour guide told: "If I could sell tickets to that thing, I'd charge 100 euros a ticket and... hundreds of people would line up..." If you're interested in getting underground you should soon, as limited budgets may soon claim several of the bunkers. --- Deep underneath Gesundbrunnen train station tour guide Brito Morales, who leads tours for Berlin Underworlds, warns: "Don't touch the paint, it's toxic. This bunker only offered the illusion of protection. To save on building costs, the Nazis only built the walls 120cm thick." (thelocal.de)
Rescuing Berlin's most famous WW2 ruin - The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
West Berlin's most famous landmark and a touching reminder of the WW2 horrors is threatened by collapse - because of traffic vibration. When the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was put down by a British bombing raid all that remained was its ruined tower. Still, Berliners resisted plans to demolish the badly shattered belfry, which rises nearly 70 meters over the city. The spire of the church, built in 1895 by Kaiser Wilhelm II to honor his grandfather Kaiser Wilhelm I, is nicknamed "Hollow Tooth" and saved for posterity. Charles Jeffrey Gray, a British pilot who bombed Nazi Germany, was one of the first to call for the rescue of the famous wartime ruin. (dw-world.de)
Nazi bunkers surface in Denmark - Filled with beds, boots, stamps featuring Hitler
Tommy Cassoe looks like a Indiana Jones as he crawls out of a WWII bunker buried under the sand, one of 7,000 the Nazis built along Denmark's western shores. 4 Nazi bunkers, buried under the dunes of Houvig since 1945, were discovered by 9yo boys after a fierce storm. "What's so fantastic is that we found them completely furnished with... the personal effects of the soldiers who lived inside," says Jens Andersen, the curator of the Hanstholm museum that focuses in Nazi fortifications. Archaeologists raced to the scene to empty the bunkers of boots, socks, badges, bottles, books, inkpots, stamps featuring Hitler, medicines, keys, hammers and other objects. (dailymail.co.uk)
A group campaigns to reopen long abandoned Vienna's Nazi flak towers
Everyone in Vienna knows about the Flaktürme, flak towers, the huge gun emplacements built 1942-1945 by decree of Adolf Hitler to repel Allied air raids. All 6 of these concrete titans survive at the heart of a baroque city. Yet the flak towers do not exist in "official" Vienna - other than a brief mention in guidebooks. Angered by the denial over the towers, a group of architectural historians wants that the truth about the monsters (one of the biggest groups of concrete structures in Europe) is told. Designed by Fried rich Tamms, who designed much of the Nazi Germany's autobahn system, Hitler had planned them to be clad in marble after the victory of the Reich. (newstatesman.com)
The Reich Underground - One of the most massive construction projects by humankind
It was one of the most massive construction projects ever attempted. Late in World War II, the Nazis set up a plan to shelter armaments factories from the allied bombs - by relocating them in underground labyrinths. Many of the half-built nazi-tunnels have been long-forgotten. With unreleased film material and exclusive interviews, the story of the Underground Reich is reconstructed when the Nazis leaders still hoped that the miracle weapons would bring Third Reich final victory. The film shows the horrors faced by forced laborers, and how a team explores the awesome underground worlds. (spiegeltvdistribution)
Nazi fortress overlooking the strategic port of Cherbourg to be museum
A fortress described as a "treasure trove of Nazi memorabilia" is to be opened as a museum in France. The complex was a nerve centre of German resistance after D-Day. 200 soldiers lived inside the fort, which was linked by 2,000 ft of corridors to 4 gun batteries aimed at the English Channel 300 ft below. During the bitter hand-to-hand combat that took place after the Allied landings on June 6, 1944, the troops set up so fierce resistance that they held out for 3 weeks. Adolf Hitler was so impressed that, even after the fort's surrender, its commander Rear Admiral Walter Hennecke was granted a Knight's Cross. (telegraph)
Third Reich U-boat base Valentin for sale - The largest existing Nazi bunker
Built by slave labourers, the vast concrete complex known as Valentin near Bremen is for sale - to anyone needing a building with 7m-thick walls. Nazi Germany's submarine factory is the largest surviving bunker from the Third Reich. The price is not clear but officials say that they could be adapting, because the place has become a millstone with its upkeep cost of 800,000 EURs a year. Adolf Hitler, worried that Nazi Germany was losing the edge in the war for the sea lanes, ordered the construction of the factory with the aim of building a new U-boat, the advanced XXI model, every 56 hours. (timesonline)
Part of the largest building the Nazis ever began to build is to reopen
It was the biggest building project ever begun by the Nazis, but it was never finished. Now part of Nuremberg's Congress Hall is reopening: as a concert venue. The huge oval-shaped building, planned in the typical Nazi neo-Classicist style, was modeled on Rome's Colosseum, and the foundation stone was laid in 1935. After the end of WWII, the city of Nuremberg preserved the ruins as a reminder of the dangers of fascism. The structure is part of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds where Hitler, during the 1930s, held massive nazi parades, memorialized in Leni Riefenstahl's film "Triumph of the Will." (spiegel)
From Nazi Military Court to Posh Apartments - Third Reich ruins
Adolf Hitler's military courts were infamous for their liberal use of the death penalty. Now, a Berlin courthouse where Nazi judges sentenced Third Reich dissidents has been converted to an apartment building. From 1936 to the middle of World War II, it housed one of Nazi Germany's military courts. From their bench in the building, Nazi judges sentenced over 1,400 conscientious objectors and resistance fighters to die, including members of "Rote Kapelle" (Red Orchestra). "This project shows an incomprehensible forgetfulness ... when it comes to the past," says Manfred Krause, of the Forum Justizgeschichte, a group focusing in the misdeeds of Nazi courts. (spiegel)
Selling off a former military airfield built by Adolf Hitler
A former military airfield in eastern Germany, built by the Nazis and used as a Cold War base, is about to get a new owner. Investors had until Friday to submit bid proposals for Cottbus-Drewitz Airfield, 100km southeast of Berlin. The site may be turned into an air freight hub - That is what happened to Parchim Airport, another military airfield in eastern Germany. The airfield was carved out of a pine forest as Nazi Germany went to war in 1939, says Klaus-Peter Siegel, who runs a museum documenting the airport's history. Under the Nazis, it was used as a pilot-training school by Luftwaffe. After World War II, the Communist regime flew MiG fighter jets from the base. (iht)
What the Nazis planned beneath Devil's Mountain - Berlin Teufelsberg
After WWII Teufelsberg became the loftiest man-made hilltop in Berlin, when 16 million square metres of rubble from the nazi capital were dumped there. In 1937, Adolf Hitler showed up there to lay the foundation stone for a huge military academy designed by Albert Speer. The existence of the Teufelsberg military academy was forgotten until the Association of Berlin Underworlds discovered documents relating to it. The organization has announced plans to dig into the mountain to find the "last undiscovered secret that underground Berlin has to offer." Dietmar Arnold is convinced most of the military school is intact, despite post-war blow up efforts. (monstersandcritics)
Berlin bunker expers found Nazi military academy in Teufelsberg
Experts in Berlin's WWII bunkers have discovered a forgotten Nazi military school designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer. It's buried under a man-made hill in the Teufelsberg (Devil's Mountain), a 116-metre-high mound which was constructed from the 26m cubic metres of the wartime rubble. The unfinished building, for which Adolf Hitler laid the foundation stone in 1937, was meant to become part of Germania, the huge capital of the 1,000-Year Reich. The British occupation forces planned to turn the building into their headquarters, until it proved too difficult. Instead, half of Berlin's rubble was poured on top and so the Teufelsberg was born. (guardian)
Kaliningrad Wants Its Castle Back - Movement to rebuild city center
For years Kaliningrad has been allowed to decay as a forgotten Russian enclave surrounded by Europe. It's not uncommon for elderly East Prussians to break into tears when they see to what depths their city of birth has sunk to. The destruction of the former pearl on the Pregel River by the bombs of World War II was immense. Indeed, Kaliningrad, once known as Königsberg, became a symbol not just of loss, but also of the destruction, of homeland. 30 divisions and two air fleets of the Red Army attacked the city during the final battle in April 1945, remembers Otto Lasch, the German Wehrmacht's commander in Königsberg at the time. (spiegel)
Buildings in the Berlin underground
Berlin's Olympic Stadium, AEG-Test tunnel, Spree tunnel Stralau, Axis crossing Tiergarten, Gasometerbunker Fichtestraße (The Fichtebunker in Kreuzberg is the only surviving large bunker of its kind in Germany), Potsdamer Platz, The Tempelhof airport (planned by the architect Ernst Sagebiel and built 1937-1941. At the time of its completion, it was the worlds second largest building, featuring extensive subterranean installations. The airport was part of Albert Speer's plans for the German capital. According to Hitler's ideas, Berlin was to become the capital of Europe and be renamed `Germania` by 1950. (berlinerunterwelten)
Former Nazi Elite School to Become Tourist Attraction
The Nazis used the space for a political and military training facility. Soon tourists will be able to spend their vacation there. The state government decided to back the development of the former Nazi elite school "Vogelsang" into a tourist destination. Not all of the state officials agreed with the decision to transform the former Nazi school into a tourist attraction. During the Third Reich, the Nazis built three such elite educational centers. The "Vogelsang" facility was first used for political and military training before it was taken over by the Wehrmacht, the Nazi army, in 1939. (dw-world)
Historic Tempelhof - An Uncertain Future for Hitler's Airport
Tempelhof - a monument to Nazi ambitions that became a symbol of hope during the Cold War - is one of the world's most storied airports. But its history won't be enough to save it from closure. Monumental Tempelhof Airport was to be a statement of Nazi Germany greatness - to wow visitors to the new Third Reich capital of Germania - but the dream of Germania collapsed along with the smoking ruins of Berlin. Tempelhof is Europe's largest stand-alone structure: 8 stories high, with another 3 below ground, it is 3.23 million square feet. The semi-oval columns and über-vaulted ceilings are typical style loved by Nazis. (spiegel)
Ruegen - Unused Nazi Baltic island resort is finally opening (Article no longer available from the original source)
The former Nazi resort of Prora on the Baltic island of Ruegen is opening 70 years after it was commissioned by Adolf Hitler. Designed by architect Albert Speer, the 8 storey concrete building with 10000 rooms was planned as part of the Nazi party's "Strength Through Joy" programme - meant to offer Storm troopers and party members brainwashing and fun in the Sun. After the war, the Russians tried to destroy it by dynamite, but they ran out of explosives. Behind the Iron Curtain, it was forgotten after the East Germany removed it from all maps and the area became a covert training ground for Soviet tanks and the Spetsnaz. (newkerala)
Hitler Room at Volkstheater - Part of Third Reich architecture
The controversial "Hitler Room" at Vienna's Volkstheater that was awarded cultural-heritage status as part of an project to protect Third Reich architecture is to be turned into a discussion area. The room was constructed in honour of Hitler, and in 1939 the theatre was turned into a place for loyal Nazis to enjoy plays as part of the party's Kraft-durch-Freude (Strength-through-Joy) programme. Vienna`s city council has ordered a survey of all buildings dating back to the Nazi period, ranging from those that Hitler ordered built to the place where he once lived as a struggling artist. (ejpress)
Aryans on the Altar; Swastikas on the Church Bells
A Protestant parish in Berlin has grabbed an ethical dilemma by the horns with an appeal for funds to save Germany's last Nazi era church. The building's interior is full of Third Reich symbols. The aim is to turn it into a place of remembrance. The stark entrance hall is lit by a black chandelier in the shape of an iron cross. The pulpit has a wooden carving of a muscular Jesus leading a helmeted Wehrmacht soldier and surrounded by an Aryan family. The baptismal font is guarded by a wooden statue of a stormtrooper from Adolf Hitler's paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) unit clutching his cap. (spiegel)
In the bowels of Berlin's past - Nazi-era bunkers (Article no longer available from the original source)
Under modern buildings shooting skywards from Berlin's avenues and squares, the layered history of the city is being unpeeled by historians and archaeologists - with sometimes controversial results. From Nazi-era bunkers to Cold War nuclear fallout shelters, underground Berlin is now breaking surface - and serving as a growing tourist attraction. "Every time, the numbers we show round are growing," says Michael Foedrowitz, a historian and consultant with the Berliner Unterwelten, a group of historians, archaeologists and urbanists which has been opening up underground Berlin to visitors. (aljazeera)
Vogelsang Castle: In the Shadow of the Third Reich
Since the US Army occupied Burg Vogelsang, one of the Nazi's four elite schools, in 1945 hardly a civilian has had a chance to see it. Young men were molded into Nazi leaders of the future at Vogelsang Castle in the Rhineland. The complex is the best maintained example of Third Reich architecture in Germany, and since Jan. 1 it's open to the public. For now though, security guards patrol the grounds to prevent former Nazis and neo-Nazis from making "pilgrimages" to the Third Reich's old school. (Deutsche Welle)
Adolf Hitler's gigantic holiday camp at Ruegen to become a resort
A Holiday camp built by Adolf Hitler as the biggest in the world is finally to open... nearly 70 years on. The complex - 4 miles long, 6 storeys high with 10,000 rooms - was finished in 1936 to provide seaside breaks for 20,000 families. It never opened because of the start of World War II. Later, the East German government used it as a training barracks for officers. After the Berlin Wall fell, it was a giant memorial with museums. (Mirror)
Hitler's dosshouse saved as warning to future generations
Austria has vetoed moves to turn the Vienna dosshouse where Adolf Hitler once lived into a hotel as part of a new drive to preserve Nazi-era buildings as cultural monuments. Until now such landmarks as the Meldemann Strasse homeless hostel, where Hitler stayed as a penniless painter, were deliberately exempted from conservation orders. But heritage chiefs now want them retained as sombre warnings to future generations. (telegraph.co.uk)
History tours: Germany turns the relics of its Nazi past over to tourism
Lately many sites of importance in the Third Reich have become tourist magnets. In Ravensbruck, 8 of the 23 former SS guardhouses will be converted to cater. Thousands of people traipsed through a museum carved in the air-raid tunnels of the mountain at Berchtesgaden where Adolf Hitler had his summer residence Eagle's Nest. In the forests of Karinhall, the country seat of Hermann Goering, amateur treasure hunters rake the ground each weekend for lost artefacts. For every foot of building above ground in Berlin, there are three below; secret tunnels and bunkers begun when Hitler came to power in 1933. (telegraph.co.uk)
See also:
D-Day tours
German WW2 militaria
Berghof
Munich & Hitler
Berlin
Nazi Germany
Reichstag
Castles
WWII Tours
War bunkers
UK ruins, bunkers
Ruins, bunkers in the US.