Berlin is facing backlash over a proposal to demolish one of the last physical remnants of Adolf Hitler’s New Reich Chancellery. The structure, a bunker, remains on a patch of wasteland after the original chancellery was destroyed in 1949 by Soviet forces.

Call for Demolition to Build Housing

Berlin’s Housing Senator Christian Gaebler (SPD) supports the plan, arguing the site should be used for new housing and office developments. ‘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,’ he said in an interview with the BZ newspaper.

Preservation Advocates Warn Against Loss

Dietmar Arnold, chairman of the Berlin Underworlds Association, has criticized the proposal, calling it ‘absolute madness’ to destroy the bunker. He argues the site is historically significant as the Nazi power center and should be preserved as a museum and memorial site.

‘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.

Arnold added that 1,200 sq m (12,900 sq ft) of the bunker complex remain intact, with walls and ceilings each measuring 1.7m (5.6ft) thick. He suggested that it would be possible to build on top of the structure without demolishing it entirely.

He also clarified that this was not the same as the Führerbunker, where Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide, which lies about 120m to the north. Instead, this bunker was used by staff of the Reich Chancellery and even served as a hospital at the end of the war.

Historical Significance Recognized

Last year, the Berlin State Monuments Council expressed concerns over the demolition plan, stating the bunker has ‘significant historical value.’ The council emphasized that the New Reich Chancellery symbolizes both the planning of World War Two and the catastrophic end of the Nazi administration.

‘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,’ the council said.