The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape

by Brian Ladd

The Third Reich’s architectural legacy in Berlin goes far beyond Hitler’s personal plans. A great number of buildings were put up for one reason or another between 1933 and 1945, and many of them still stand. National Socialist architecture did not take a single form: industrial buildings continued to display glass, steel, and concrete in typically modernist fashion, and suburban and small-town houses were built in rustic, half-timbered styles. But in Berlin the Third Reich built mostly government offices, and buildings that displayed the power and authority of the Nazi state had to meet a different standard. Their style is distinctive; a moderately experienced eye can usually pick them out from among others built under earlier or later regimes. Stone facades, generous proportions, massive window and door frames, rigid symmetry, starkly simplified columns and other classical details—together these elements give a jolt of recognition to the unsuspecting passerby in many obscure Berlin streets and courtyards.