''The Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker Complex: An Illustrated History of the Seat of the Nazi Regime'' is a 2006 book by
Steven Lehrer, in which Lehrer recounts the history of a group of Berlin buildings, from their construction in the 18th century until their complete destruction during and after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
King
Frederick William I of Prussia built the ''Palais Schulenburg'', at
Wilhelmstraße
Wilhelmstrasse (german: Wilhelmstraße, see ß) is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte and Kreuzberg districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it was recognised as the centre of the government, first of the Kingdom of Prussia, later of t ...
77, for his esteemed Lieutenant General Count
Adolph Friedrich von der Schulenburg.
Later the ''Palais'' had a more distinguished owner, Prince
Anton Radziwill
Anton may refer to: People
*Anton (given name), including a list of people with the given name
*Anton (surname)
Places
*Anton Municipality, Bulgaria
**Anton, Sofia Province, a village
*Antón District, Panama
**Antón, a town and capital of th ...
, a Polish nobleman, aristocrat, musician and politician in Prussia. A guest at the ''Palais Radziwill'' was Polish composer and virtuoso pianist
Frédéric Chopin.
During the
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
,
Marshal Victor, the French Governor in Berlin, occupied the ''Palais''.
In 1875, the feuding Radziwill heirs sold the ''Palais'' to the German Reich.
It became the ''Reichskanzlerpalais'', the Chancellery of
Otto von Bismarck and subsequent German Chancellors, the last being
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
.
Though Hitler lived in the old Chancellery when he was in Berlin, he ordered the building of a larger, grander structure, the New
Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery (german: Reichskanzlei) was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called ''Reichskanzler'') in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared ...
, completed January 1939. Hitler's Reich Chancellery was not only a center of government but, in
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
’s words, the hub of “a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.”
In April 1945, as the Soviet
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
closed in, Hitler and his mistress,
Eva Braun
Eva Anna Paula Hitler (; 6 February 1912 – 30 April 1945) was a German photographer who was the longtime companion and briefly the wife of Adolf Hitler. Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was a 17-year-old assistant and model for his ...
,
committed suicide together in the ''
Führerbunker'', which Hitler had built under the Chancellery garden.
[Dietmar Arnold, Ingmar Arnold. Dunkle Welten: Bunker, Tunnel und Gewölbe unter Berlin. Ch. Links Verlag. Berlin 2004]
Notes
External links
''The Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker Complex'' on Google Books
2006 non-fiction books
Books about Adolf Hitler
Books about Nazism
History books about Nazi Germany
History of Berlin
Nazi architecture
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