A Sinister Neighbour: Gestapo HQ Berlin

My new novel, Fables & Lies: A World War II, arose from my fascination with the archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, who not only proved the ancient city of Troy existed but also discovered a fabulous cache of gold there known as Priam’s Treasure.  Schliemann smuggled the trove out of Turkey then ‘bequeathed’ it to the German people. During WWII, the treasure was kept in a Berlin museum. After the Soviets looted the city, Priam’s Treasure disappeared mysteriously for 50 years until the Russians admitted they had hidden it in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum where you can see it today.

Priam's Treasure in Berlin

My protagonist, Freyja Bremer, is a patriotic museum assistant raised on Nazi dogma. Through her love affair with Cambridge educated archaeologist, Darien Lessing, her eyes are opened to the rot beneath the Regime’s lies, as both strive to protect Priam’s Treasure and other antiquities from air raids. Intertwined is Freyja’s forced marriage to Kaspar Voigt, one of Himmler’s SS scholars, and her quest to discover what her husband’s twisted research entails. As such, Freyja’s safekeeping efforts and her journey to enlightenment form the spine of the novel. However, I also explore Himmler’s promulgation of the Aryan Myth to justify invasion, dispossession and murder.

My research revealed Priam’s Treasure was housed in the Pre and Early History Museum in the ‘Martin Gropius Bau’ building on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. It had the distinction of being located next to Gestapo Headquarters which intrigued me. What would it have been like for my characters to have worked next to such sinister neighbours?

A changing streetscape

Excited to visit Berlin to ‘walk the ground’, I hired a guide from Humboldt University to give me a tour of specific places I’d identified as relevant to my plot. I quickly learned many street names had altered over the years depending on which regime was in power. The East Germans changed Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse to Niederkirchnerstrasse in 1951, named after Käthe Niederkirchner, a communist resistance fighter against the Nazis.

In the late 1880’s, the short street boasted the elegant Prince Albrecht Palais at No. 9 and Martin Gropius Bau at No.7 which was purpose built in 1881 to house the Museum of Decorative Arts. Opposite these stood the Prussian Parliament House. In 1905, an extension to the Decorative Arts Museum was built at No.8. Later this annexe became the School of Industrial Arts.

After WWI, the Museum of Decorative Arts was moved elsewhere in Berlin. Martin Gropius Bau became known as ‘the Museum at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse’ which housed three collections – Pre and Early History, East Asian and the Art History Library. The ‘Schliemann Salon’ displayed Priam’s Treasure and other Trojan exhibits. The ‘Gold Hall’ was filled with magnificent Merovingian Frankish jewellery and Bronze Age troves such as the Cottbus and Eberswalde Hoards. In all, there were over 100,000 exhibits in the Pre and Early History Museum to pack and protect.

Martin Gropius Bau, venetian friezes,
Gestapo HQ, Berlin Wall death strip
(Clockwise from top left)

An ominous address

The cultured atmosphere of Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse changed after 1933. No.8 was taken over as Gestapo HQ. The palace at No.9, since turned into a Grand Hotel, became SS House. The parliament building became The House of the Aviators. Goering also built his massive Aviation Ministry (which covered one city block) at the corner crossing at Wilhelmstrasse, an imposing eagle statue at the front. In fact, during the Third Reich, ‘Wilhelmstrasse’ became shorthand for the entire government quarter of ministries including Hitler’s New Reich Chancellery.

Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse was an ominous address. Being taken ‘to No.8’ was a terrifying prospect. Dungeons were built underground. A ‘House Prison’ was erected in its gardens. Thousands of people were interrogated and tortured within its walls.

Of course, Gestapo Headquarters and other Wilhelmstrasse ministries were targets for Allied bombers during the war. As a result, Martin Gropius Bau was under constant threat of becoming collateral damage. Despite this danger, curators persisted in packing their national treasures. During the Soviet assault, Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse was part of the ‘Zitadelle’- the innermost sector containing Wilhelmstrasse which was to be defended at all costs. Ultimately, the Soviets bombarded SS House and No.8 with artillery but, even in the downfall, SS soldiers defended Gestapo HQ to the last, their blood staining the cobblestones.

The quest to save national treasures

Zoo Flak Turm

On the eve of the war, the Nazis issued a directive to all cultural institutions to sort their exhibits into three categories: priceless, most valuable, and less precious. Over time, space was found in bank vaults for the first two groups, but with the advent of RAF saturation bombing and American ‘blockbusters’, many of the irreplaceable and most valuable objects were sent to salt mines in western Germany. However, the director of the Pre and Early History Museum, Wilhelm Unverzagt, chose to secure his Category One exhibits such as Priam’s Treasure in a monumental ‘Flak Tower’ near the zoo which resembled a medieval fortress with three-metre-thick concrete walls.

My protagonist, Freyja Bremer, is one of Unverzagt’s assistants. She risks her life packing the collections while watching the museum take hit after hit. Freyja lives in a world of oppression where trust is a fragile currency. Threats from the Gestapo loom large in her life as much as the HQ’s physical presence next to her workplace. As Himmler made it a prerequisite for SS cadets to pass an exam on pre-history she grows used to ‘Black Angels’ attending lectures in the museum. There is no escaping interaction with her odious neighbours.

Through Freyja, the reader is taken into the world of Germany’s safekeepers and the destruction of Berlin’s cultural landmarks. Freyja also weathers the Soviet assault in the Flak Tower and witnesses a Soviet Trophy Brigade plundering all the exhibits she’s strived so hard to protect. At the same time, she’s drawn into the chilling world of Himmler’s research institute, the SS Ahnenerbe. Forced into marriage with Kaspar Voigt to protect her father, she is horrified to learn how prehistorians and ethnologists are subverting history to serve power.

A walk through history

Niederkirchnerstrasse stands today as a time capsule for various eras in Berlin’s history. No.8 and No.9 have been razed with only the basement cells remaining. A museum known as ‘The Topography of Terrors’ has been established to serve as a reminder of the oppression of the Regime. The Berlin House of Representatives now occupies The House of the Aviators. Only Goering’s Aviation Ministry remains pretty much as original due to the Soviets and then GDR officials using it as offices.

Ornate bas reliefs and columns

The street also holds echoes of misery from the German Democratic Republic. The Berlin Wall ran down the middle of the road cutting off Mitte in the east from Kreuzberg in the west. Martin Gropius Bau ended up in the ‘American sector’ during the period of the Four Powers. Checkpoint Charlie, the infamous crossing point featured so often in spy thrillers, was located nearby. Pseudo US soldiers now pose with tourists for photos there. A section of the wall with its death strip remains as a memorial.

Next to this wasteland, Martin Gropius Bau rises in its splendour. The West Germans reconstructed it in 1978 with further renovations occurring after reunification. It certainly wasn’t what I expected to find on my tour - a delight to behold – one of the most beautiful historic buildings in Berlin. I describe it in my novel:

Majolica mosaics

‘Although Freyja had worked at the museum for some time, she’d never grown accustomed to such sinister neighbours. She was always relieved to reach the refuge of the Martin Gropius Bau at No. 7. Three storeys high, the faux Italian palazzo was a confection of red brick, terracotta and sandstone. A row of Venetian glass mosaic friezes adorned its top floor. The blue, red and gold majolica human characters in each panel embodied nine different epochs of art. She saw the gleaming figures as her guardians.’

In addition to these magnificent friezes, each storey is demarked by terracotta reliefs depicting industrious craftsmen such as masons, spinners and carpenters. Above each are stone lozenges engraved with the names of famous artisans such as Schinkel, Schiller and Buhl. The entrance columns are ornately adorned with frolicking children and fruit such as pineapples. There are coats of arms including one with masonic symbols. The art epochs are exemplified by figures such as an Egyptian pharaoh, Japanese geisha, Roman Caesar and Grecian noblewoman. 

Atrium skylight, foyer dome, acanthus balustrades

Inside, the museum is no less wondrous. The rococo décor is a celebration of the Baroque with green acanthus balustrades and stucco ceilings festooned with garlands. In the foyer is a beautiful leadlight dome. Three double doors lead to a huge atrium covered by a rectangular skylight. In its heyday, over thirty exhibition salons surrounded the hall on the ground and first floors. Now it is an art exhibition space which has featured artists such as Wei Wei, Anish Kapoor and Paul Klee.

I admit I’ve become entranced by this amazing building with all its layers of history. If you are ever in Berlin – I recommend you visit. You won’t be disappointed!

Elisabeth Storrs is the author of A Tale of Ancient Rome trilogy. Her latest release is Fables & Lies: A World War II Novel. She is also the founder of the Historical Novel Society Australasia and the ARA Historical Novel Prize.

Photos are my own or courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.