Around the Easter period I travelled to northern Germany once again. Primarily this was to visit family and to see to some bureaucratic things that needed doing. But I also managed to squeeze in a touch of dark tourism here and there.
Hamburg is the city I was born in and where I grew up (mostly), went to school and studied. Since I left in the mid-1990s I’ve been back numerous times, yet there still remained things I had never managed to slot in before. One thing I had long wanted to do was going back to my former primary school in Hamburg on Kielortallee. When I finished the errand I had to run in the area on my first day back in the city, which went much quicker than I had expected, I found the time to retrace my steps along what used to be my walk to school. The main reason for me wanting to go there, however, wasn’t just pure nostalgia but had a dark-tourism connection. In fact I was interested in the address right next door to the school building, as seen in this photo:
If you’ve read the 27 January Blog Post about Auschwitz you may already recall what the connection is here. This address, Kielortallee 22, I found written on a suitcase that was on display at the Auschwitz I museum exhibition during my first visit to the site in 2008:
Finding this address at Auschwitz brought the whole dark story somewhat closer to home, as it were. Thus my guide back then allowed me to take this photo (there was a no-photography rule in place at that time, which has since been lifted). On my return visit in January this year I looked for this same suitcase but was unable to find it. Now in Hamburg, I was intrigued if the name on the case would feature on a “Stolperstein” in front of the entrance to the house at that address. Indeed there was an unusually large cluster of such “Stolpersteine” (literally ‘stumbling stones’, memorial cobble stones stating the names and fates of former residents who became victims of the Holocaust):
However, the name on that suitcase is not amongst those represented. I wonder why not. It may mean that nobody of the family or anybody else who could have requested the name to be represented survived the Holocaust and WWII. I now wonder whether you can petition for the name to be added. I will investigate …
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UPDATE: I have meanwhile found out that the name on the suitcase, Bernhard Aronsohn, does have a “Stolperstein” in Hamburg, but at a different address, namely at the house where he had his last rented room, from 1938. There he lived reclusively for a few more years, before he was evicted by the Gestapo. He and his wife were moved to a house that meanwhile served as a collection point for Jews from where they eventually were to be deported. That house was at Kielortallee 22, the address on his suitcase. He ended up on the first transport from Hamburg to Auschwitz from the Hannoversche Bahnhof on 11 July 1942. From there on no trace of him could be found. Given his age and profession (he was a medical doctor) he was probably murdered on arrival. It does make sense, then, that he has his “Stolperstein” at the address where he had his final voluntary abode rather than at the one where he was forced to await deportation. You can read more about his background in this article (external link, opens in a new tab).
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The names that are on the pavement in front of the Kielortallee building include one of another victim of Auschwitz, others died at Riga, Theresienstadt or Litzmannstadt (Łódź ) and several in Minsk (see Maly Trostenets), plus there are a couple who were murdered at Treblinka and Sóbibor in the “Aktion Reinhard”. The last name in the bottom right corner is an exception: this is for a victim of the “Aktion T4”, the Nazis’ so-called “euthanasia” programme of the disabled and mentally ill, the systematic mass murder by gassing that preceded that in the Holocaust.
Wandering back through the area I was pleased to spot the odd anti-Nazi graffiti, as well as this sign on the window of an alternative bar/cafe restricting who would be served there – the text translates as “no beer for Nazis, anti-Semites and all other arseholes”:
Later on my return to Hamburg, after a few days of visiting family in the countryside, I took a wander through the centre of the city and passed the Nikolaikirche, the ruin of the church whose tall spire was used by the Allied bombers as a target beacon during “Operation Gomorrah”, the WWII fire-bombing of the city in July 1943 in which tens of thousands perished:
After the war, the burned-out spire was retained to serve as a war memorial while most of the rest of the church was destroyed. In the space that was the nave there are a few further memorials – and on this occasion I also found an open-air exhibition about the current war in Ukraine, beginning with this panel:
The current dark theme continued at the Schleusenbrücke near the city hall where I spotted a little shrine to Alexei Navalny, the anti-Putin dissident who died recently in a prison in the Arctic north of Russia under suspicious circumstances (the signs translate as “heroes never die”, “courageous to the end” and “we are here, we won’t give up”):
Not far away I found a plaque I had never seen before, marking something I had equally been totally oblivious to until now:
It commemorates a man who in 1977 died from self-immolation – as an act of public suicide intended to protest against the then advancing development of nuclear power plants in Germany, at a time, as the plaque emphasizes, when Chernobyl and Fukushima hadn’t happened yet, but the warnings of the dangers of nuclear power were already being raised. How come I never knew of this tragedy right in my then home town is beyond me … Well, every day is a school day, anywhere and everywhere, home included.
While all the things reported so far were rather small-scale dark-tourism experiences, one larger site had been on my wish list for many years, yet it never fitted into my plans due to its limited (weekend-only) opening times and its location far from the city centre. This time I managed to see it – here’s a photo of the site’s exterior (same photo as the featured one at the top of this post):
This is one of Hamburg’s former “Flaktürme”, bunkers that served two functions: a) as platforms for anti-aircraft guns against Allied air raids, and b) as shelters for the local population during such air raids. These bunkers, which always came in pairs, a “Gefechtsturm” (‘battle tower’) with the guns and a “Leitturm” (‘guidance tower’) with measuring equipment for locating the targets, were militarily pretty ineffective, but constitute colossal WWII relics, built by the Organsiation Todt utilizing the slave labour of POWs and concentration-camp inmates. Berlin and Vienna (see Augarten) were given three such pairs each, Hamburg only two. The “Leittürme” were destroyed in Hamburg, the other “Gefechtsturm” on Heiligengeistfeld closer to the city centre survived and has long been used for various purposes (photo and music studios, storage, etc.) and is currently being converted (with a new urban forest on the top and a green hotel).
The remaining flak tower is in Wilhelmsburg, a lower-income working-class district on the other side of the Elbe River surrounded by the harbour. The tower was left in a derelict state for decades. After the war the British occupation power decided to destroy the tower, and indeed the interior was blown up more or less completely in 1947, but the thick outer walls and the even thicker roof remained standing. But as the inside was now unsafe to enter, the tower was simply left, out of bounds, unused and ignored. This changed in the 2000s when it was decided to renovate the bunker and turn it into a green energy plant. Indeed it now features a mix of solar and other energy generation as well as providing heating for the surrounding residential districts. For this a giant hot-water reservoir was installed inside the bunker, as seen on this next photo:
This photo was taken on one of the free guided tours that are offered on weekend afternoons. These also allow access to parts of the original staircases, such as this one:
At one point the guide also alerted us to some original writing on the wall dating from WWII, in this case giving directions to an “Entgiftungs-Raum” (‘detoxification’ or ‘decontamination room’):
The tour also included access to the roof at a height of 50m, as well as to one of the four corner turrets that once each housed the twin 12.8 mm anti-aircraft guns. In their place you now see the supports for the solar energy panels above the roof:
Below the roof level is a terrace or gallery that runs all around the tower at an elevation of 30m. There’s a cafe there called “vju”. What this was supposed to mean only occurred to me when I saw the slogan “Room with a vju” inside. Normally a <v> is pronounced voiceless in German if at the beginning of a word, so that would rather give you “few”, but of course they mean “view”. And indeed you get quite a good view from up there. Looking north you can see the entire Hamburg skyline in the distance and make out a few of the city’s iconic landmarks:
After Hamburg I also added a couple of days in Berlin. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to this great place, certainly well over a dozen times. But it’s always nice to go back – not least because it’s what I regard as the “capital of dark tourism” (on my main website there are more subchapters for Berlin alone than there are for most whole countries!).
One place in Berlin that I wanted to revisit was the famous Holocaust monument, officially called “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe”. It mainly consists of grey concrete blocks of various heights, as seen here:
As I wandered through this field of ‘stelae’ I noticed that several had cracked after having been exposed to the elements for 20 years since the opening of the monument. Some of the concrete blocks even needed support by steel braces to hold them together, as seen in this photo:
My main reason for my return visit, however, was to see if anything had changed at the underground exhibition beneath the monument. No photography is allowed inside now, so I can’t provide any new images. But I can report that it’s otherwise exactly the same as what I had seen back in 2010 on my first visit – except it was far busier now and security has been tightened (airport-like, just as at Auschwitz … sadly this seems to be necessary these days).
Nearby is also another monument to a different group of Holocaust victims, namely Sinti & Roma (who in Nazi times were still lumped together under the now politically incorrect cover term ‘gypsies’). I hadn’t seen this memorial before, so going there closed a gap. Here’s a photo of the main installation with the adjacent Reichstag (parliament) building reflected in the circular pool:
On the famous Potsdamer Platz I noticed a new Berlin Wall monument, probably the successor to the previous relics of the Wall near Potsdamer Platz that I had seen many years ago (and which had to be moved due to redevelopment). In addition to segments of the Wall there were now also information panels in between them:
What was weird was the fact that the surface of the Wall segments were covered in discarded chewing gum. I’ll have to try and find an explanation for that.
A total chance find was this aircraft model in a shop window in Charlottenburg at a shop called “Aviation Centre”. It’s an Antonov An-225:
Now what’s the dark link here? Well, this: the An-225 was the largest aircraft ever built, originally designed for the Soviet space shuttle programme. But after that was abandoned this giant plane was first mothballed and then converted into a cargo plane for super-heavy payloads … of up to 250 tonnes, apparently. And it was unique. Only a single specimen was ever completed and put into service. Then came Putin’s war against Ukraine and during the initial phase when the Russians tried to reach Kyiv they also attacked the airport where the An-225 was based. Allegedly there had been a plan to evacuate the giant aircraft, but it was too late. Sometime in late February 2022 it was destroyed. It’s obviously not as tragic as all the human victims, but it’s also a victim of this senseless war of aggression nevertheless.
My favourite sight in Berlin is its iconic TV Tower, which can only be regarded a DT site marginally at best, through the fact that it was built as a prestige project by the then communist regime of the GDR. But I just like the structure, and find it the prettiest TV tower in the world. And it always invites creative photography playing with perspective (the church in the foreground is obviously only a fraction of the TV Tower’s height in reality):
One newer sight that I hadn’t yet seen since the building was completed in 2021 is the so-called Humboldt-Forum, the recreated Berlin City Palace:
This edifice is controversial for a range of reasons (costs, some right-wing sponsors, etc., etc.) but my main gripe is that this fake-old pile was built on the very site where the GDR’s parliament building once stood, the Palace of the Republic. This was demolished, officially due to asbestos contamination, but I never bought that explanation. Other buildings had their asbestos removed without necessitating demolition. I rather see it as plain “architectural iconoclasm”. One of the key symbols of the GDR had to be erased. I can understand that the building was unloved by those who were glad to see the demise of that repressive state. But what the Palace of the Republic has been replaced with is hardly an improvement in my view. I find it fake, Disneyesque, pretentious, pompous and unnecessary. But opinions on it naturally vary …
Finally, the place I chose to stay at for my Berlin visit also had a dark-tourism element about it, namely that it was a hotel converted from a former women’s prison! Here you can see the main cell blocks, still complete with barred windows:
The windows have mostly been enlarged, though, to let more light in and hence are only barred at the top. Likewise formerly separate cells were combined into larger guest rooms by knocking down walls. But many of the original cell doors were retained:
What the rooms behind these doors look like I wasn’t able to see, because my wife and I were given an upgrade to one of the rooftop penthouses, which were added to the original structure (the hotel wasn’t very busy at the time, hence the upgrade). There were plenty of original features in the communal parts of the hotel, though. Overall I found it a wonderful place of subdued class, with a touch of history and: very friendly staff (not something that can be taken for granted in Berlin, whose inhabitants are known for what they call “Berliner Schnauze”, literally ‘Berlin snout’ but meaning a certain brash/sassy way of speaking).
It was also an oasis of calm in a busy part of the city (Charlottenburg), set back from the streets as it is, in a leafy courtyard. Parts of this have become a garden, and some of the produce served in the restaurant is grown right on site.
The courtyard and ex-prison lie behind a former courthouse, which was not accessible for guests, but apparently is occasionally used for special events. This is the view from the garden to the courtyard wall and the ex-courthouse behind it:
But so much for this short visit to Hamburg and Berlin and what mostly smaller-scale dark-tourism activities it included.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this account of the trip.
