Long
considered an ugly Nazi relic, a half-destroyed concrete fortress
in Berlin now has become an addition to the German capital's tourist
map.
Since April regular guided
tours have taken curious visitors into the vast
World War II structure to see the turret
interiors and the effect of two failed attempts to blow it up
after the war.
It is a part of a growing trend in Germany to show a broader
view of the war and include German suffering after years of sole
attention to the evils of the Nazis.
Tours pass thick walls that resisted bombs and Russian artillery,
bare halls and staircases where civilians sheltered and deep shafts
which carried anti-aircraft shells from the basement to the rooftop
guns seven floors above.
Visitors can also marvel at technology well advanced for its
time. The gun steering, for example, was fully automated. A radar
tower 300 yards away tracked enemy aircraft and fed signals along
cables still visible clinging to the walls.
The fortress is one of six that Adolf Hitler ordered to be built
in the German capital to defend it from air attack. His command
in September 1940 came just days after Berlin came under a three-hour
barrage from Allied planes.
Hitler himself sketched the form the defenses should take with
120-foot-high turrets and guns at each corner.
Financial constraints eventually limited the number to three
fortresses, completed by April 1942, although two further structures
were built in Hamburg and Vienna.
Each complex could hold around 15,000
civilians and their 8 foot-6-inch walls were deemed impenetrable.
The post-war Allied occupiers in Berlin decided to destroy most
military structures. The British and Russians managed to bring
down two of the complexes after several failed attempts.
However, the French were unable to destroy the fortress in their
northern Berlin sector, leaving two towers and 1.6 million cubic
yards of debris. The latter was partly landscaped,
but the remaining structure has been largely untouched for 50
years.
The Berlin Underworlds Association already runs tours of nearby
wartime and Cold War shelters, but preparing the half-demolished
air defense fortress for visitors was a task of a different order.
It took thousands of hours of volunteer labor to ready the building
for show.
The bunkers may not be so well visited as the glass dome on the
Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, but interest is growing.
Last year 25,000 visited the site compared to 8,000 in 2001.
(agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-16 01:00