Plans to demolish a bunker, one of the last visible remnants of Adolf Hitler's New Reich Chancellery in central Berlin, have ignited a debate between city officials advocating for new housing and historical preservationists. Berlin's Housing Senator Christian Gaebler stated that the city should not impede new housing developments to preserve a bunker that could become a site of pilgrimage.
"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," Gaebler told the newspaper BZ.
Dietmar Arnold, chairman of the Berlin Underworlds Association, called the demolition proposal "absolute madness," emphasizing the bunker's historical significance. "It is a site of the perpetrators. It was the power center of Nazi Germany, Hitler's New Reich Chancellery, and these are the last remains," Arnold told the BBC.
He proposes collaborating with the Holocaust Museum to transform the site into a museum and memorial, featuring an exhibit on the end of the war. Arnold expressed concern over the continuous destruction of historical sites in Germany, including both Nazi and Communist history. He last visited the bunker in 2007 and described its condition as very good.
The bunker in question is distinct from the more famous Führerbunker, where Hitler and Eva Braun died by suicide, which is located approximately 120 meters to the north. This structure, built by Hitler's architect Albert Speer, was heavily damaged at the end of World War II and subsequently demolished by Soviet forces in 1949. However, the bunker remains visible on a patch of wasteland.
According to Arnold, approximately 1,200 square meters of the bunker complex are still intact, with walls and ceilings measuring 1.7 meters thick. He suggested that construction could potentially occur on top of the existing structure without complete demolition. Historically, this bunker served personnel working in the Reich Chancellery and was later used as a hospital at the war's conclusion.
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