The Battle for Berlin: tracing the footsteps of warriors
“Where can we see the most important World War II sights in Berlin?” This is perhaps the most frequently asked question at our reception desk at Die Fabrik.
A short but not entirely helpful answer is that barely a square inch of Berlin was left unscathed by war, so you’re slap, bang in the middle of it. Of course, some people wish to visit the most historically significant sights; the Topographie des Terrors (the former Gestapo HQ), the “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe”, and die Gedächtniskirche (the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church) are all within a skip and a jump from our hotel and each richly deserves the otherwise over-used sobriquet, “iconic”.
They certainly communicate an understanding of the sheer scale what happened during the period 1939 to 1945, and, whilst Mariupol and Khan Younis remain presently off-limits, these places are the closest most of us will get to the corners of hell which bear witness to the havoc behind the headlines of history.
Like all learnings, everyone knows that, the more we personally invest in the endeavour, the more richly rewarded we will be. Indeed, doing a bit of background work and then placing yourself in the position of a rank-and-file soldier during the final days of World War II – that is what delivers perspective and understanding on a visceral level. It is the closest most of us will ever get to a pure first-hand experience rather than that of a casual bystander.
Then We Take Berlin
We start our education with three essentials; a good book, a smartphone, and a pair of sturdy walking shoes.
That good book would be “The Fall of Berlin 1945” by Antony Beevor, a harrowing and meticulously researched chronicle of the final months of World War II in Europe, focusing on the 1.6m strong Red Army assault on Berlin and the implosion of Nazi Germany.
Published in 2002, Beevor draws on myriad sources, including Soviet, German, and Western archives, and soldiers’ personal accounts to reconstruct the brutal, chaotic, and ultimately humiliating unravelling of Adolf’s murderous master-race wet dream.
Generally, it is fair to say that much has been written about the Battle for Berlin, but few books can match this magnificent tome, let alone best it, and we wholly recommend scoring a copy from your favourite, independent bookseller or from your local library. Moreover, “meticulous” is the watch word here; Beevor forensically details the house-to-house, brick-by-brick combat, leaving the reader with a clear picture of the individual streets and thoroughfares which led to the centre of wartime Berlin.
Information is Everything
This is where one seemingly benign snippet of information becomes the golden nugget; the pre-war German building regulations stipulated in urban areas like Berlin, apartment blocks could reach a maximum of 5 storeys, and minimum ceiling heights for residential buildings were typically 2.50 to 2.60 meters (about 8.2 to 8.5 feet) for living spaces.
After the war, these rather grandiose regulations were hastily abandoned in favour of rapid and cheap urban regeneration with limited resources. Ergo, lower ceilings, more storeys, job done. As can often be seen on Berlin street corners, especially in Kreuzberg and Schöneberg, and as we near the Reichstag, these “new-builds” are characterised by bland 1950s architecture, typically with eight storeys, small windows and, and none of the elaborate wrought-iron balconies of the neighbouring houses.
More often than not, these sites are where buildings were destroyed during the battle. Simply close your eyes and imagine the chaos, the carnage, the fear, and the misery that happened here and all within living memory.
More still, if the building is still standing, as detailed in the header image on this page, the Villa Parey in Sigismund Strasse in Tiergarten, the chances are that it is such a robust hunk of important architecture that it is worth whipping out your phone and doing a quick Google to learn more about that and other nearby sites. And, with a stroke of luck, many pre- or immediately post-war archives and images can also be found.
In the case of Sigismund Strasse, that would show that the German Resistance Memorial complex is on the next street, which was the nerve-centre of the Nazi military machine and is now dedicated to the memory of von Stauffenberg and his fellow officers who were executed here on the night of July 20, 1944 following their failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. The inescapably painful asymmetry is that, had they actually been successful, they would probably have sued for peace and spared Berlin from the battle which would consume the city, some nine months later.
Will this all involve a lot of shoe-leather? In short, no. There are simply so many scarred and pock-marked facades in the central districts of Berlin that you will happen upon them sooner or later.
Nonetheless, plenty of others have already done the hard yards. User Kreigsspuren (“traces of war”) on BlueSky – having bailed out of X/Twitter, presumably owing to their aversion to Nazis – has created a selection of maps which are an invaluable resource for anyone who really wants to get up close and personal with the savagery.
