BERLIN — A Hamburg investor plans to demolish a Nazi bunker in Berlin and replace it with an apartment building. The architectural firm BLRM from Hamburg has proposed a seven-story residential building with 66 apartments, in addition to a six-story office building.

Berlin's State Monument Council produced an internal recommendation opposing the demolition. The council stated, "The New Reich Chancellery was the planning center and starting point of World War Two and also symbolizes the catastrophic end of the Nazi regime." The council added, "In view of its potential significance as a historic monument, its state of preservation and its inclusion on the list of listed buildings should be assessed by the State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments."

Historian Dietmar Arnold described the site as "the power centre of Nazi Germany, Hitler's New Reich Chancellery, and these are the last remains." Arnold also stated, "It is a site of the perpetrators." According to Arnold, 1,200 square meters of the bunker complex remain intact, with walls and ceilings each 1.7 meters thick.

The bunker is part of a subterranean complex constructed over ten years. It served as the headquarters of the Nazi regime until the final week of World War II in Europe, housing a military hospital and sheltering people who worked in the Reich Chancellery. The complex is situated near the former Reich Chancellery, which was severely damaged at the end of World War II and torn down by Soviet forces in 1949. The bunker site is within sight of the Brandenburg Gate, and its entrance is beneath a mound on an empty lot in central Berlin, behind the state offices of Hesse and Brandenburg. At least half of the bunker complex remained after the war.

Berlin Housing Senator Christian Gaebler stated, "We are not standing in the way of new housing developments just to preserve a bunker that might then even become a place of pilgrimage." Berlin Senate building director Petra Kahlfeldt indicated that heritage authorities do not believe the bunker must be preserved. Adolf Hitler utilized a separate bunker, the Führerbunker, approximately 100 meters away, moving into it on January 16, 1945, and committing suicide there with his wife on April 30, 1945.

Why It Matters

This situation involves a proposed demolition of a historical structure with ties to the Nazi regime to make way for new residential and office complexes in central Berlin. The planned development faces opposition from preservation advocates who cite the bunker's historical significance, specifically its role as a control center during World War II. The debate includes considerations of urban development and the historical memory associated with sites from the Nazi era.