Berlin is currently convulsed by a culture war – and one all too familiar in a country and capital which, nine decades after World War Two ended, can still never seem to escape the long shadow of its Nazi past.
Just a few yards away from that bunker site stands another sombre memorial to those evil days
The German capital’s Housing Senator, Christian Gaebler, of the Social Democratic SPD party, has announced plans to demolish the last remnants of a bunker dug beneath Hitler’s long demolished Reich Chancellery building to make way for sorely needed modern apartments.
The plan, however, is being fiercely opposed by a powerful group of amateur historians, the Berlin Unterwelt EV (Berlin Underworld association) who run highly successful tours of other wartime bunkers in the city. Dietmar Arnold, the Chairman of the Underworld Association, describes the demolition plan as “Absolute madness”, contending that Berlin needs to confront its history, however dark the past may be.
As well as the pressing need for housing, the SPD running the city are fearful that the bunker could become a shrine attracting neo-Nazis. Their discomfort is accentuated by the rise of the populist AfD party, which some left-wingers want to ban for alleged right-wing extremism, but which is currently leading the polls in state elections this September in the nearby Saxony-Anhalt province.
