Berlin
“GRAU UND REGNERISCH” was how the German forecaster described the weather in Berlin during my visit there last month. But “gray and rainy” is typical for most of Germany this time of year. It’s the kind of weather that makes a café warm and cozy inside, what is known as Gemütlichkeit. But it also creates a somber mood if you happen to be standing outside–which for a good part of the day I was, under an umbrella in the pouring rain, able to see my breath in the chilly air, and surrounded by rubble.
So why wasn’t I basking in the Gemütlichkeit of a café or taking a steam at the Hotel Adlon? The rubble surrounding me was not from the usual construction found throughout the city. Rather, it dated back to the Second World War. The buildings that once stood here, on a city block along Niederkirchnerstrasse, Wilhelmstrasse, and Anhalter Strasse, were once home to the most feared addresses in Europe: At 102 Wilhelmstrasse stood the Reich Security Service (SD). At 8 Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse stood the Reich Security Main Office and the Gestapo. The rest of the SS leadership resided next door at the Prinz Albrecht Hotel.
From here, policies were issued, including the removal of political threats, the arrest of undesirables, and, eventually, the liquidation of all enemies of the state, especially the Jews. It was here that the ideas for the Wannsee Conference (where the Jewish Question was answered) were first formulated. It was here the Einsatzgruppen (special task forces) were created, before they were unleashed on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, leading to such massacres as that of Vinnitsa, where 4,000 Ukrainian Jews were executed in one day, including 1,000 children, or Babi Yar in Kiev, where 34,000 men, women, and children were murdered in two days. This city block was home to Heinrich Himmler, his henchman Reinhard Heydrich (aka “The Hangman”), and Adolf Eichmann–all architects of the Final Solution. It was also here at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse where countless individuals were rounded up and interrogated, including those who plotted to assassinate the Führer.
Specifically, suspects were taken to the Gestapo’s house prison, which consisted of 39 cells, within which unspeakable acts of torture and murder took place. The story of Joseph Beyrle is especially enlightening. Beyrle is the only American to have fought for the United States and also (after escaping a stalag) for the Red Army in World War II. In 1944, Beyrle landed in Berlin, having gotten on a railcar headed in the wrong direction. Eventually he and two other Americans were taken to 8 Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse for interrogation. As Beyrle related to author Thomas Taylor in “The Simple Sounds of Freedom”:
There were other brands of torture that took place at Gestapo headquarters. In “Faust’s Metropolis,” Alexandra Richie mentions how the SS “devised situations in which fellow prisoners were forced to beat one another, and they entertained themselves by meticulously recording how long it took before the man or woman would pick up the whip or how many times they would have to be threatened before they acted. They particularly enjoyed forcing friends to beat one another, reveling in the debasement and the dehumanization of their victims.”
The horrors at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse continued until the end of the war–the building’s last defenders being battalion commander Henri Fenet and his band of French Waffen SS. By the time the Red Army reached what remained of the Gestapo house prison on May 2, 1945, there were only six prisoners alive, including a Communist, a former Gauleiter, and a pastor.
In 1953, all that was left of the block was demolished. Less than 10 years later, the Berlin Wall went up, right along Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse (renamed Niederkirchnerstrasse, after a resistance fighter murdered by the SS). The plot on the West Berlin side remained barren until 1985 when historians launched an excavation that uncovered the kitchen, basement, and later a garage of Gestapo headquarters. In 1987, the area was designated the “Topography of Terror,” an exhibition that has now become a major architectural project and will hopefully turn into a permanent museum, if the city can find the money.
“The Topography of Terror is a very obvious site to keep,” said Levin von Trott zu Solz, managing director of the Bergedorf Round Table, a forum for dialogue between politicians, academics, and journalists. “It is a place that makes very clear that the Germany of the Berlin Republic is true to all remarkable and honorable parts of its intellectual, political, and cultural history for the last 200 years–as well as to the shameful, thorny, and forceful reminders of the abyss of the Holocaust and the many other terrible atrocities that Germans brought upon large parts of the world during World War II.” As he explained to me, “It is sometimes very hard for Germans to be reminded of all these terrible atrocities as often as they are present in the media and in public life, but it is my understanding of national dignity, that in this country it most strongly derives from the way in which we deal properly and honestly with a past that has become a universal reminder of how deep human nature can sink.”
I met with Levin over lunch at Café Einstein, several blocks north of the Topography of Terror. Midway through our discussion, as he emphasized the importance of the site’s preservation, he says in passing, “You know, my uncle was sent there.” His uncle, Adam von Trott zu Solz, a Rhodes scholar, served in the foreign ministry of the Third Reich. He was from the outset a critic of the Führer and tried to find alternatives to his regime. This led, in turn, to Adam’s involvement with the Kreisau Circle–which later was tied to the attempt to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944. But the plot had failed–the bomb that went off at Wolf’s Lair injured more than a dozen and killed four, yet Hitler survived with only minor injuries. “There was a plane ready to take my uncle to Portugal,” said Levin. “But he refused it, saying he would stay behind to face the consequences.” (His uncle was a foreign policy spokesman for the plotters.) “It’s a pity, he would have been helpful in the postwar set up.”
I thought about Adam von Trott zu Solz when I walked past the basement ruins. It is hard to contemplate the enormity of what took place here, now as the rain was letting up and a few Turkish visitors toured the site, along with a small class of high school students. Von Trott was tortured at the house prison for several weeks before being sentenced to death and hanged at Plötzensee. His wife received a bill to pay for the cost of his execution. Adam was only 35 years old.
Victorino Matus, an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard, traveled to Berlin under the auspices of the Aspen Institute Berlin.
