The Reichstag in Berlin houses Germany's parliament.
The building is steeped in history.
In 1945 one of the last great battles of World War II raged here.
That was 75 years ago — but even today, the city is still full of reminders.
And today, I'm going to visit some of these places.
I would like to learn more about the end of the war, here in Berlin,
and also more about the people of that time.
About the victims and the perpetrators, about the victors, and the defeated.
Well, join me in the search for traces, here in the capital.
I’m meeting the Bundestag's historian, Michael Feldkamp.
First he shows me the library with all the minutes of the Bundestag from 1949 to the present day.
On these tables, the ballots are counted after each vote.
This painting is dedicated to German history. And it doesn't gloss over the Nazi period.
What significance did this building have in the Nazi era?
In essence, none. After the Reichstag fire in February 1933,
the building could no longer be used for anything official
— even though the fire only damaged the interior of the chamber of deputies.
The side wings like the one we're in now were still in working order, and exhibitions were held in them.
Then, in the very last phase of the Second World War,
a maternity ward was set up down here, so babies were actually born here.
The Reichstag building might not have had much significance for the Nazis,
but the Soviet Union saw it as the most important symbol of Nazi Germany.
Just imagine — after the battle of Stalingrad,
Joseph Stalin had a slogan painted on all his missiles, in white paint:
For The Reichstag.
Traces of the war can still be seen today.
After their victory, the Soviet soldiers immortalized themselves with graffiti on the walls.
Usually with the date, the city the soldier came from, and their own name.
And here in this box, you see a message.
It says, 'For Leningrad, you have paid in full'.
In their graffiti the Soviet soldiers referred to the Reichstag building as 'Hitler's lair'.
But the dictator had sought refuge in a different building.
Located near Brandenburg Gate on Wilhelmstrasse,
an air-raid shelter called the 'Führerbunker' had been built underneath the garden of the old Reich Chancellery.
This is where Hitler committed suicide on April 30th, 1945.
Only an information board stands here to mark the site.
The bunker was partly demolished after the war; the rest was buried.
My next stop is Berlin-Karlshorst, far from the city center,
where the German Wehrmacht signed the unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945.
Today, the historic site houses the German-Russian Museum.
Exhibition curator Julia Franke shows me what's called the "surrender room."
Why is this museum so far off the beaten track?
Well, the Soviets set up their headquarters in this building in April, 1945.
The building hadn't been completely destroyed,
and it was a distinguished-looking space that seemed appropriate for the signing of the surrender.
And what I see here — is that all original or has it been recreated?
Well, as you just guessed, the furnishings are not the originals.
They were brought to this museum in the 1960s.
The flooring, the lamps and chandelier, are the originals from the 1940s.
And do you have the original surrender documents?
No, the originals of the surrender agreement are kept in the military archive in Freiburg.
And that's where they'll probably stay.
But we've had high-quality reproductions made that look quite authentic.
These aren't just simple copies in a glass case.
As you can see, there's an American or English version, a Russian
and a German version of the surrender agreement.
The museum covers the Nazi regime's war of annihilation against the Soviet Union,
which claimed an estimated 25 million lives on the Soviet side.
My next stop is the Topography of Terror.
With over a million visitors a year, it’s one of the best-known places of remembrance in Berlin.
The documentation center informs and educates visitors about perpetrators
— the people behind the Nazi's regime of power and terror.
Florian Kemmelmeier shows me around.
Could you briefly explain what I see here?
This is a model of the German Reich's government district.
That's what it was even before the Nazi era.
Wilhelmstrasse is where the most important ministries were located.
On the spot we are now, from 1933 on, was the main office of the Prussian secret state police.
That was the headquarters of the political police, the Gestapo.
The headquarters of the SS, the Schutzstaffel, the security service of the SS,
occupied the area where the Topography of Terror is located now.
Different organizations but with a single goal: to maintain the Nazi's hold on power.
They fought the resistance and organized deportations.
So you could say that here, at this location, the threads all came together
— of many of the crimes that were committed one or two thousand kilometers away from here.
These here were the perpetrators?
Yes, these were young people, radicals who were prepared to give everything they had
to ensure the success of their movement and especially Germany's success in the war.
They saw themselves as a young, radical elite.
The exhibition continues outside.
The cellar walls of the Gestapo building were excavated in the 1980s.
Right behind them ran the Berlin Wall — of which pieces remain today.
Many non-Jewish Berliners also fell victim to the war.
They sought shelter from bombing raids in cellars and bunkers.
In Humboldthain Park, the ruins of a gigantic flak tower are still standing.
It was built to defend the city from air raids and provide shelter to civilians in the area.
Guided tours are held from April to October. In the winter, bats live in the ruins of the bunker.
The entrance to the structure was in what's left of this massive door frame.
The original doors weighed about a ton to make the entrance bomb-proof and above all gas-proof.
Three flak towers were completed in Berlin:
in the Tiergarten and Friedrichshain parks and here in Humboldthain Park.
They resemble massive fortresses.
This is the basic design. Up above, the big, heavy anti-aircraft guns were mounted.
On the corners and sides there were smaller-caliber guns for shorter-range defense.
On the narrow sides, there were the huge doorways where civilians
and material deliveries entered the building.
The shelter had room for as many as 40-thousand people.
But as the last battles raged, up to 60-thousand people are believed to have squeezed in.
When the air-raid sirens wailed, Berliners had 15 minutes to find a shelter.
And then the bombs came raining down.
Together with the civilians, many soldiers were also accommodated in the Humboldthain tower.
The guns on top were so big, it took 22 anti-aircraft assistants to operate them.
Since all the adult soldiers were at the front — or had already fallen —
only children were left to fire the cannons.
We talked to a lot of them, and one really captured it.
He said, we could fire the biggest cannon the airforce had ever made.
But we could't go to the late show at the cinema, because we were just kids.
After the war, three attempts were made to demolish the flak tower, but only part of it caved in.
The Berliners soon piled the rubble from their own ruined buildings around it.
Now, the area is covered with trees.
The top offers a great view of the city.
Well, the flak towers did not stop the Allies.
They won the war and divided Berlin into four zones of occupation.
And the American sector was in the southwest of the city.
And there's the Allied Museum. That's my last stop for today.
During the post-war era, the lives of the American forces stationed in Berlin centered on Clayallee.
This is where the G. I.'s shopped, played sports and went to the movies.
The Outpost Theater is now a listed building and part of the Allied Museum.
The exhibition covers the history of the Western allied powers in Berlin.
It begins with the arrival of the American, British and French occupation forces in 1945
and ends with the ceremonial departure of all the allies in 1994.
The war was a long time ago and yet there are still many places in the city
where you can learn about this dark time. And I have to say, I've learned a lot and I hope you did, too.
Bye bye and see you next time, here at Check-in.