The Congress Hall and 'Great Street'

The Congress Hall was based on the Colosseum and was intended for Nazi party congresses. It's the second largest remaining Nazi structure.Part of the building is used for a museum about Hitlerism in Nuremberg entitled Documentation Centre Nazi Party Grounds Nuremberg which deals with the time from the end of the Great War to the end of the Nuremberg trials of October 1946. At the end of the war the structure was used to store American military equipment.
Great StreetSpeer designed the Great Street to be the central axis of the Party Rally Grounds aligned with the Imperial Castle in the Old Town to create a symbolic historic link. It is 60 metres wide and was to be 2 kilometres long. Between 1935 and 1939, only 1,5000 metres were actually built, with 60,000 granite slabs.

The Congress Hall with the Great Street at the top-right .

Dutzendteich Lake Station, Nuremberg

Built in 1871, between 1934 and 1936 this station accommodated tens of thousands of Party Rally participants.

Former transformer building, Nuremberg

Built in 1936 by Albert Speer in Regensburger Straße for the power supply to the Party Rally Grounds. It supplied the power for the Party Rally Grounds and the so-called 'Cathedral of Light.' The energy demands of lighting and the general running of the grounds was extremely high. The transformer station could handle the power supply for a major city.You can still see the faint outline of the Reich eagle which apparently does not cause concern to Burger King.

Berlin 1950

Stills from David Barsalla's Final Year Project on BA ANIMATION at Bournemouth University: Germania Project (2003-04)

Entrance
Museum

River Shot
Brandenburg Gate
Berlin Dome Shot
The Core
"Enter the Darkness"

Berlin- Brandenburg Gate

When Hitler had been appointed Chancellor January 30, 1933, SA troops marched through. Other parades through the Gate took place when Mussolini visited in 1937, for Hitler's 50th birthday in 1939, and in 1940 when the Wehrmacht celebrated their blitzkrieg triumphs over Poland and France.

A model for this year's games in Beijing, another totalitarian regime.
A stamp commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nazi seizure of power in 1943.

The Brandenburg Gate, still with its 'Goddess of Victory' on top.

Complete Agfachrome colour Nazi propaganda film from 1936 providing a portrait of everyday life in Berlin in this rare, well preserved film. Original soundtrack sans subtitles.

Berlin- Reichstag

On 27th February, 1933, the Reichstag caught fire. When they police arrived they found Marinus van der Lubbe on the premises. After being tortured by the Gestapo he confessed to starting the Reichstag Fire. However he denied that he was part of a Communist conspiracy. Hermann Goering refused to believe him and he ordered the arrest of several leaders of the German Communist Party (KPD). When Hitler heard the news about the fire he gave orders that all leaders of the German Communist Party should "be hanged that very night." Paul von Hindenburg vetoed this decision but did agree that Hitler should take "dictatorial powers". KPD candidates in the election were arrested and Hermann Goering announced that the Nazi Party planned "to exterminate" German communists.

On 23rd March, 1933, the German Reichstag passed the Enabling Bill. This banned the German Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party from taking part in future election campaigns. This was followed by Nazi officials being put in charge of all local government in the provinces (7th April), trades unions being abolished, their funds taken and their leaders put in prison (2nd May), and a law passed making the Nazi Party the only legal political party in Germany (14th July).

Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933

After the Battle for Berlin

More Soviet soldiers died getting from where I'm standing to get the picture of the Soviet standard on the roof for Stalin than the British, Canadians and Americans who died storming the beaches at Normandy...
The most costly photograph ever taken showing Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria of the 756th Rifle Regiment raising a handmade Soviet flag over the Reichstag.

Memorial directly in front of the Reichstag to the 96 Reichstag members of the opposition parties killed by the Nazis.

Berlin- Former Central Office of the Inspector General for Construction in the Reich Capital (Albert Speer's Office)

Originally the Academy of Fine Arts (which it has since reverted to), Hitler had easy access to this building from his Chancellery which housed his 30 metre-long model for the reconstruction of Berlin.

Berlin- Hotel Adlon

One of the most famous hotels before the war, hosting the likes of Chaplin in his heyday, it was used as an hospital during the war with a luxury bunker below, its ruins were destroyed with its new incarnation rebuilt in 1997.

Berlin- Wilhelmstrasse

Wilhelmstrasse, site of the Third Reich's most important ministries and embassies. Apart from the Air Ministry, all the major public buildings along the Wilhelmstrasse were destroyed by Allied bombing during 1944 and early 1945. The Wilhelmstrasse as far south as the Zimmerstrasse was in the Soviet Zone of occupation, and apart from clearing the rubble from the street little was done to reconstruct the area until the founding of the GDR in 1949. The communist GDR regime regarded the former government precinct as a relic of Prussian and Nazi militarism and imperialism, and had all the ruins of the government buildings demolished in the early 1950s. In the late 1950s there were almost no buildings at all along the Wilhelmstrasse from Unter den Linden to the Leipziger Strasse. In the 1980s, apartment blocks were built along this section of the street.

Berlin- Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Goebbel's HQ)

Currently serving as the German Federal Ministry of Health and Social Security, this is where Goebbels was in charge of cultural institutions, publishing, art, theatre, music, press, radio, and all other media.