Bendlerblock

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South facade on the Landwehr Canal ( Reichpietschufer )

The Bendlerblock is a building complex in the Berlin district of Tiergarten in the Mitte district at Stauffenbergstraße 18 (until 1955: Bendlerstraße - after the councilor mason and local politician Johann Christoph Bendler ) and Reichpietschufer 72-76. From 1914, the building was used by various military offices and has been the second headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Defense since 1993 .

During the National Socialist era , the building at Bendlerstrasse 11-13 was the seat of the General Army Office and the Commander of the Replacement Army in the Army High Command (OKH). There was the center of the resistance group of the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 around Colonel General a. D. Ludwig Beck and Colonel i. G. Claus Schenk Count of Stauffenberg . The permanent exhibition of the German Resistance Memorial Center in some of the former service rooms and the memorial for the officers executed there in the courtyard commemorate the resistance fighters .

history

Empire

The land for the oldest part of the Bendlerblock came into the possession of the tax authorities in November 1909 through an exchange deal with the operator of the Berlin subway at that time , the elevated railway company . The Hochbahngesellschaft had pre-emptive rights for properties in Königin-Augusta-Strasse (from 1933: Tirpitzufer , since 1947 Reichpietschufer ) and in Bendlerstrasse (today's Stauffenbergstrasse) in order to be able to extend the Hauptstrasse – Nollendorfplatz underground line northwards. These plans have not yet been implemented. For the construction of the underground line from Potsdamer Platz to Spittelmarkt (today's underground line U2 ), the block of houses between Leipziger Platz and Voßstraße had to be driven under. Large parts of the Reichsmarineamt resided in this block of houses in cramped conditions and spread over several houses. As a result of the property swap, the Hochbahngesellschaft acquired the property on Leipziger Platz, which was later sold to the Wertheim Group for the construction of the Wertheim Leipziger Strasse department store .

The oldest part of the building complex was built between 1911 and 1914 for use by the highest department of the Imperial Navy . The architects Reinhardt & Süßenguth designed plans for the construction of a five-story building with neoclassical and neo-baroque style elements. The main building on the Landwehr Canal in Koenigin-Augusta-Strasse 38-42 was intended as the official seat for the State Secretary of the Reichsmarinamt; until 1916 this was Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz . The east side of the building was occupied by the admiral's staff of the Imperial Navy and the east wing at Bendlerstrasse 14 was occupied by the naval cabinet , which Wilhelm II was directly subordinate to as a personal secretariat in naval matters. The Secretary of State for the Navy and the Chief of the Navy Cabinet also had official apartments on the second floor.

To commemorate this, streets and squares in the vicinity were named as follows during the Nazi era :

Weimar Republic

After the First World War , the military provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 required the government of the Weimar Republic not only to drastically reduce the armed forces, but also to reduce the size of the command authorities (until the end of 1920, “provisional”) for the Reichswehr and Reichsmarine , which now shared the building. The air forces, including naval aviators and naval airmen , were completely disbanded. The first Reichswehr Minister , the Social Democrat Gustav Noske , moved into the official apartment of the Grand Admiral and the then Chief of Army Command, General Walther Reinhardt , took over the premises of the former imperial naval authority. During the Kapp Putsch in March 1920, the chief of the troop office , Major General Hans von Seeckt , refused to put down the Berlin uprising of the Freikorps soldiers. In the office of the Reichswehr Minister, he is said to have refused to protect the government with the words "Troops do not shoot troops". As a result, the members of the government fled Berlin and evaded to Stuttgart for a short time . As a result of the uprisings, Gustav Noske was dismissed from his office. In 1920 Otto Geßler moved into the building as his successor and Major General von Seeckt took over the position of Chief of Army Command in the same year.

time of the nationalsocialism

Planning of the diplomatic quarter in Berlin from 1938, the Bendlerblock on the right

Shortly before the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg , the Reichswehr leadership discussed his chancellorship in January 1933. Despite the concerns, also on the part of the then Chief of the Army Command, General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord , the inauguration took place without objection. Just a few days later, on February 3, 1933, Hitler gave a speech in Hammerstein-Equord's private apartment, in which he disclosed his political goals. He spoke, among other things, of the "extermination of Marxism stump and stem", "the strictest authoritarian governance and elimination of the cancer damage of democracy", "fight against Versailles" and "conquering new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanization ". Hammerstein-Equord was an opponent of National Socialism . This also resulted in differences with Werner von Blomberg , who was appointed Reichswehr Minister in January 1933 , and who influenced the Reichswehr with National Socialist ideas. Hammerstein-Equord then submitted his resignation in December 1933. His successor was Lieutenant General Werner von Fritsch in January 1934 .

Waffen SS soldiers in the Bendlerblock, July 1944

On the neighboring property Bendlerstrasse 10–13, which was acquired in 1926, additional extensions and new buildings were built by 1938 based on designs by the architect Wilhelm Kreis . During this time the building complex was given the never officially introduced but common name "Bendlerblock". In the main building on the Landwehr Canal, parts of the naval war command in the High Command of the Navy (OKM) were housed and most of the Foreign / Defense Office in the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris . The main part of the Bendlerblock on Bendlerstrasse was used by the General Heeresamt in the OKH under General Friedrich Fromm , from 1940 General Friedrich Olbricht and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army - after the dismissal of Blomberg and Fritsch - Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch , until Hitler himself took command in December 1941 took over.

War and post-war period

In the last days of the Battle of Berlin during the Second World War , the Bendlerblock served as a command post for the commandant of Berlin, General Helmuth Weidling , until soldiers of the Red Army occupied it on May 2, 1945. After the war damage had been repaired, numerous offices and federal authorities were housed in the building complex from the 1950s, including the Federal Disciplinary Court . After the capital city resolution of the German Bundestag to relocate the Bundestag and the federal government to Berlin, the Ministry of Defense has been using the Bendlerblock as its second office since September 2, 1993 .

resistance

In the Foreign / Abwehr Office - the German military foreign secret service that was housed in the Bendler Block - the first military resistance center was formed. A group around General Hans Oster (1887–1945) planned the overthrow of the Nazi regime in 1938 in order to prevent Hitler from taking military action against Czechoslovakia in the so-called Sudeten crisis . When the European powers agreed to the annexation of the Sudetenland to the German Reich in the Munich Agreement , the project could no longer be carried out. Until the Gestapo was disempowered in 1943, the “ Abwehr ” in the Bendler block remained a central point of military resistance.

Inner courtyard of the Bendlerblock

In the service rooms of the east wing, another resistance group around General Olbricht worked again in the early 1940s on a plan to overthrow the Nazi regime. A secret plan of the Wehrmacht called " Valkyrie " was manipulated for its own goals in such a way that, after Hitler's death, important positions could be filled immediately in favor of the resistance. Stauffenberg carried out the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, as he, as Chief of Staff under the command of the replacement army, Colonel-General Fromm, had access to the briefing at the Wolfsschanze headquarters . Not knowing that it had failed, he traveled back to Berlin, where the resistance group in the Bendler Block tried in vain to implement the plan. On the night of July 21, on the orders of Colonel General Fromm, the resistance fighters General Olbricht, Colonel von Stauffenberg, Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim and Stauffenberg's adjutant , First Lieutenant Werner von Haeften , were shot in the courtyard of the Bendler block . To the coup attempt Colonel General involved a. D. Ludwig Beck forced Fromm to commit suicide shortly beforehand . As accomplices of the coup plan Fromm was arrested a day later himself condemned to death , and on March 12, 1945 executed .

German Resistance Memorial Center

To commemorate the resistance fighters of July 20, 1944, a memorial was erected in the courtyard of the Bendler block in the 1950s. After the laying of the foundation stone in 1952 by General Olbricht's widow, the Governing Mayor of Berlin , Ernst Reuter , unveiled a bronze figure created by Richard Scheibe on July 20, 1953 , depicting a young man with his hands tied. An inscription designed by art historian Edwin Redslob says:

"You do not bear the shame, you defended yourselves, you gave the great ever-waking sign of repentance, sacrificing your hot life for freedom, justice and honor"

In 1955, Bendlerstrasse was renamed Stauffenbergstrasse and on July 20, 1960, the then mayor, Franz Amrehn, unveiled a plaque in the courtyard of honor with the names of the officers who were shot in the Bendlerblock in 1944:

"
Colonel-General Ludwig Beck - Infantry General Friedrich Olbricht - Colonel Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg - Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim - Lieutenant Werner von Haeften" died here for Germany on July 20, 1944 "

Since the redesign of the courtyard according to plans by the sculptor and architect Erich Reusch in 1980, another inscription has been embedded in the wall at the entrance to the courtyard:

“Here in the former Army High Command, Germans organized an attempt on July 20, 1944, to overthrow the unjust Nazi regime. For this they sacrificed their lives "

In 1968 the Berlin Senate decided to open the first exhibition inside the Bendler Block with information on the resistance to National Socialism, which the historian Peter Steinbach expanded on behalf of the Governing Mayor Richard von Weizsäcker from 1983 onwards. The “German Resistance Memorial Center” with the permanent exhibition “Resistance against National Socialism” found its place in the rooms in which the revolution was planned.

Not least because of the "significant point" of resistance against National Socialism, the Federal Minister of Defense decided in 1993 to use the Bendler Block as the second official headquarters. “With this, he once again clearly underlined that the Bundeswehr is following the tradition of military resistance against the Nazi regime. She sees her foremost task in defending the rule of law and advocating for human dignity. This connects them with the women and men of July 20, 1944. “This commemoration has been taking place since 1999 (every year until 2007, since 2012 alternating annually with the Platz der Republik in front of the Reichstag building ) on July 20 on the parade ground of the Bendlerblocks held a public vow , which was often disrupted by critics with a counter-event .

  • Memorial plaque in Stauffenbergstrasse 13 for the resistance fighters from July 20, 1944

  • Memorial in the inner courtyard of the Bendlerblock. Young man with tied hands , bronze figure by Richard Scheibe , 1953

  • Memorial plaque with the names of the officers who were shot

  • Inscription at the entrance to the Bendlerblock

Cenotaph for the fallen soldiers of the Bundeswehr

On the grounds of the Bendlerblock, on the eastern edge of Hildebrandstrasse, there is a central memorial for those killed in the Bundeswehr . The monument was designed by the architect Andreas Meck and inaugurated on September 8, 2009 by the then Federal President Horst Köhler .

Cinematic receptions

The courtyard of the Bendlerblock served several directors as a film set. In 2004, Jo Baier shot the television film Stauffenberg with Sebastian Koch in the lead role, in which the shooting of the resistance fighters on July 20, 1944 was reenacted in a scene at the original location. On the same occasion, the director Bryan Singer used the courtyard in September and October 2007 to shoot the film Operation Walküre - The Stauffenberg Assassination , in which Tom Cruise met Colonel i. G. Stauffenberg plays.

literature

  • Federal Ministry of Defense, press and information staff (ed.): Der Bendlerblock . Fü S  I 4 in cooperation with the Military History Research Office , 2nd update. Ed., May 2005.
  • Reinhard Scholzen : A memorial for the Bundeswehr. In: Mut, Forum for Culture, Politics and History No. 469, September 2006, pp. 6–11.

Web links

Commons : Bendlerblock  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tirpitzufer . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
  2. ^ Dorothea Zöbl: The peripheral center. Location and development of the federal and imperial authorities in the greater Berlin urban area 1866 / 67–1914. (=  Brandenburgische Historische Studien , Vol. 10) Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 2001, ISBN 3-932981-19-7 , pp. 296-301.
  3. ↑ Großadmiral-Prinz-Heinrich-Strasse . In: Luise.
  4. ^ Graf-Spee-Strasse . In: Luise.
  5. ^ Grand Admiral von Koester-Ufer . In: Luise.
  6. ^ Admiral-von-Schröder-Strasse . In: Luise.
  7. ↑ Skagerrakplatz . In: Luise.
  8. ^ First meeting of Hitler [...] on February 3, 1933 (at Hammerstein-Equord) . In: Hans-Adolf Jacobsen : 1939–1945 - The Second World War in chronicles and documents . Darmstadt 1959, here p. 81 f.
  9. ↑ Erich Lindgen: Handbook of disciplinary law for civil servants and judges in the federal and state levels: second volume Formal Disciplinary Law . de Gruyter , Berlin 1968, DNB  457437219 , p. 35 .
  10. ↑ BMVg : Der Bendlerblock , p. 6.
  11. ^ Bundeswehr pledge in Berlin once at the Reichstag, once in the Bendlerblock In: Berliner Zeitung , July 16, 2012.
  12. ↑ A new memorial for the fallen soldiers. In: Berliner Morgenpost from September 8, 2009.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 25 "  N , 13 ° 21 ′ 41"  E