Berlin Plans to Demolish 1,200-Sq-M Nazi Bunker for Housing, Sparking Preservation Row
Updated
Updated · bbc.co.uk · Jun 30
Berlin Plans to Demolish 1,200-Sq-M Nazi Bunker for Housing, Sparking Preservation Row
1 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Jun 30
Summary
Berlin officials want to tear down a 1,200 sq m bunker from Hitler’s New Reich Chancellery to make way for flats and offices in central Berlin.
Housing Senator Christian Gaebler said the city should not block new housing to preserve a bunker that could become a pilgrimage site for Nazi sympathizers.
Dietmar Arnold of the Berlin Underworlds Association called demolition “absolute madness,” saying the structure is one of the last remains of the Nazi power center and could instead become a museum and memorial.
Arnold said the bunker was still in very good condition when he entered it in 2007, with 1.7-meter-thick walls and ceilings, and argued building above it might be possible without full demolition.
The dispute builds on criticism from Berlin’s State Monuments Council last year, which said the site has significant historical value as a planning center and symbol of the Nazi regime’s collapse.