Photo taken by author
After the war it was required that Berlin demilitarize all of the shelters, fortifications, and Flak Towers. There was not much to demilitarize in the bunkers because after the war people took everything of value from the bunkers leaving them empty and deserted. However, the Flak Towers were a complete different story.
During our visit to Berlin, we visited the Humboldthain Flak Tower. There was a large hill in the park surrounding the tower that we had to climb to get to the top. We were unable to tour the inside of the tower because bats take refuge in the tower during the winter. Since we didn’t take a tour of the inside of the tower, we only saw the outside of the tower which did not lend itself to understanding the true massiveness of the structure and the surrounding area.
Shown to the left is an image of the Humboldthain Flak Tower with some of the hill visible in the foreground. This hill continues around the tower and contains roughly 1.5 million cubic meters of rubble in and around the tower. We did not realize during our visit that the hill surrounding the Flak Tower was created from the rubble of the city. Beneath the hill, the Flak Tower continues underground about five more stories.
Used with commission by Berliner Unterwelten e.V.
Here you can see one room of the underground Bunker in Gesundbrunnen. While this room would have been used during the war for shelter it has been converted into a museum room about the place it was before.