In November 2019, a museum dedicated to the Nazi era opened in Berlin. Titled “Hitler is a Taboo Here,” the museum aims to showcase how an advanced democracy like Germany can quickly slide into the abyss of authoritarianism and fascism. The highlight of the museum is the bunker where Adolf Hitler spent his final days. The exhibit provides a chilling reminder of the atrocities committed during the Nazi regime and serves as a warning against the dangers of ignoring the signs of rising authoritarianism. This article explores the lessons we can learn from the museum and the bunker, and why understanding this history is essential for the preservation of democracy.
In the heart of Berlin lies a bleak reminder of the city’s dark history: the Berlin Story Bunker. Built in 1942 to shelter 3,500 people during Nazi air raids, the five-story bunker became a last resort for 12,000 terrified civilians by the end of World War II. Today, the gloomy wartime structure is a chilling testament to the “Stunde Null” or “zero hour” that Germans experienced after the war. It is also home to a sprawling exhibition that delves into Adolf Hitler’s early life and rise to power, using the dictator as a backdrop to a bigger story of fascism’s devastating impact on Europe and the world.
Wieland Giebel, a 73-year-old writer and historian, transformed the bunker into a documentary center to preserve the memories of the past. While the museum is an old-school version with information boards and occasional monitors, it has attracted 350,000 visitors, who spend an average of three hours there. Visitors are taken on an intensive historical course that makes them confront some of the darkest aspects of human history.
“Many people know the selection ramps in Auschwitz,” says Giebel, “but it is something else entirely to see these people, naked, lying on the street, looking directly at you.” Giebel is concerned with the impact of war on ordinary people, a thread running throughout his life, which includes his restless years as a law student in Germany and later, as a documented account for an alternative German newspaper about the dire conditions and arbitrary humiliations of Catholic communities in Belfast carried out by the British soldiers.
The Berlin Story Bunker is controversial because it boldly and emotionally tackles Hitler and the atrocities he inflicted upon Europe. The museum includes a recreation of the room where Hitler took his own life, complete with a sofa, desk, and portrait of Frederick the Great. One of the highlights of the exhibition is a series of rooms reproducing the SS photographer’s images from 1941 in Lemberg when the Nazis rounded up the Jewish population, ordered them to strip naked, and paraded them through the city. Visitors are warned of the images in advance because they are searing, shocking, and disturbing, but for Giebel, they are necessary.
However, not everyone in Berlin welcomes the direct and emotional approach of the Berlin Story Bunker. Berlin authorities and public institutions are ambivalent about feeding the curiosity of people who visit Berlin to learn more about Hitler, fearing that the city may appear to glorify or exploit the dictator’s horrendous crimes. The Topography of Terror museum, for example, explains the rise of the National Socialist Party and its fascist dictatorship. Still, it sidesteps Hitler himself, the man whose ideology sparked all the horror.
In 2006, Berlin historian won permission to erect an information plaque on the site of the former “Führerbunker” where Hitler’s body was burned after he committed suicide. However, authorities were reluctant to give permission, fearing the incorrect facts or potentially exploiting the legacy of the dictator. In 2017, when Giebel opened Berlin Story Bunker, he was accused by some of creating a “Hitler Disneyland.”
While the Berlin Story Bunker may be controversial, it is an important reminder of the past because it allows people to confront the Nazi era head-on. “Everything we did here is connected to the present,” says Giebel. “Many visitors tell me they fear Putin is Hitler without the Holocaust and that Ukraine is just the beginning.” The museum reminds visitors that the past is behind us, but its lessons remain timeless, still relevant today.
