Bederblock – Wikipedia

The Bendlerblock Is a building complex in the Berlin district of Tiergarten in the Mitte district at Stauffenbergstrasse 18 (until 1955: Bendlerstraße – according to the master councilor and local politician Johann Christoph Bendler) and the Reichpietschufer 72–76. From 1914 the construction was used by various military offices and has been the second office of the Federal Ministry of Defense since 1993.

During the time of National Socialism, the building Bendlerstraße 11–13 was the seat of the General Army Office and the commander of the replacement army in the army command of the army (OKH). There was the center of the resistance group of the attack of July 20, 1944 around Colonel General a. D. Ludwig Beck and Colonel i. G. Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. The permanent exhibition is reminiscent of the resistance fighters in some former service rooms German resistance memorial And in the courtyard the cenotaph for the officers.

Large taps take place in the Bendler block. In 2021, for example, Angela Merkel was adopted as Chancellor with a large tap.

Empire [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

The properties for the oldest part of the Bendlerblock came into the possession of the tax authorities in November 1909 with the then operator of the Berlin subway, the Hochbahngesellschaft. The Hochbahngesellschaft had pre -purchase rights for land in the Königin-Augusta-Straße (ab 1933: Tirpitzufer , since 1947 Reichpietschufer) ^[first] and acquired on Bendlerstrasse (today’s Stauffenbergstrasse) in order to be able to extend the U-Bahn line Hauptstraße-Nollendorfplatz to the north. To date, these plans have not been implemented. For the construction of the subway line from Potsdamer Platz to the Spittelmarkt (today’s U2 subway line), the block of houses between Leipziger Platz and Voßstraße had to be underway. In this block of houses, large part of the Reichs naval team resided under cramped conditions and spread over several houses. Due to the property exchange, the Hochbahngesellschaft came into the possession of the land on Leipziger Platz, which later at the Wertheim group for the construction of the department store Wertheim Leipziger Strasse were sold. ^[2]

The oldest part of the building complex was created in 1911-1914 to use the top office of the imperial Navy. The architecture firm Reinhardt & Süßenguth designed plans for the construction of a five -storey building with neoclassical and neo -baroque style elements. The main building on the Landwehr Canal in Königin-Augusta-Straße 38–42 was intended as a office for the State Secretary of the Reichsorinamt; Until 1916 this was Great Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. The building side lying east moved into the admiral staff of the imperial marine and the east wing at Bendlerstraße 14 the marine cabinet, which Wilhelm II was directly subordinate as a personal secretariat in naval affairs. The Marine’s Secretary and the head of the marine cabinet were also available on official apartments on the second floor.

As a reminder, streets and squares in the vicinity were named as follows in the period of National Socialism:

Weimar Republic [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

After the First World War, the military provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 from the government of the Weimar Republic also requested a reduction in the commands (“preliminary”) Reichswehr and Reichsmava, which now used the building together. The air forces, including the naval flyers and naval airship, were completely dissolved. The first Reichswehr Minister, the Social Democrat Gustav Noske, moved into the official apartment of the Great Admiral and the then head of the army management, General Walther Reinhardt, took over the rooms of the former imperial naval authority. During the Kapp coup in March 1920, the chief of the troop office, Major General Hans von Seeck, refused to defrost the Berlin uprising of the Freikorps soldiers. In the Empire of the Reichswehr Minister, he is said to have rejected the government’s protection with the words “Troop does not shoot on troops”. The government members then fled from Berlin and gave way to Stuttgart for a short time. As a result of the uprisings, Gustav Noske was released from his office. In 1920, Otto Geßler moved into the building as his successor and Major General von Seeckt took over the post as head of the army management in the same year.

time of the nationalsocialism [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

Planning of the diplomat district in Berlin from 1938, on the right the Bendlerblock

Shortly before Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor by Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, the Reichswehr leadership discussed his chancellery in January 1933. Despite the concerns, also on the part of the then head of the army management, General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, the inauguration took place without contradiction. Just a few days later, Hitler gave a speech on February 3, 1933 in Hammerstein-Equord’s private apartment, in which he opened his political goals. Among other things, he spoke of “extermination of Marxism with stump and stem”, “the most tight authoritarian leadership and elimination of the cancer damage of democracy”, “fight against Versailles” and “Conquest for new habitat in the east and its reckless Germanization”. ^[8] Hammerstein-Equord was an opponent of National Socialism. This also resulted in differences with the Werner von Blomberg, who was appointed Minister of Reich in January 1933, who influenced the Reichswehr with National Socialist ideas. Hammerstein-Equord then resigned in December 1933. His successor became Lieutenant General Werner von Fritsch in January 1934.

Soldiers of the Waffen-SS in Bendlerblock, July 1944

Until 1938, additional attachments and new buildings were built on the neighboring properties Bendlerstraße 10–13 acquired in 1926. During this time, the building complex received the never officially introduced but common name “Bendlerblock”. In the main building on the Landwehr Canal, parts of the nautical secretary management were housed in the High Command of the Navy (OKM) and most of the Office abroad/defense in the Wehrmacht Higher Command (OKW) under Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. The main part of the Bendlerblock on Bendlerstraße used the general army office 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 of General Walther von Brauchitsch, until Hitler himself in December 1941 took over.

War and post-war period [ Edit | Edit the source text ]

During the Second World War, the Bendlerblock served the battle commander of Berlin, General Helmuth Weidling in the last days of the battle around Berlin as a battle stand until soldiers of the Red Army occupied it on May 2, 1945. After removing the war damage, numerous agencies and federal authorities were housed in the building complex from the 1950s, including the Federal Disciplinary Hof. ^[9] According to the capital decision of the German Bundestag to move the Bundestag and Federal Government to Berlin, the Ministry of Defense has been using the Bendlerblock as a second office since September 2, 1993.

A first military resistance center formed in office abroad/defense – the German military secret service, which was housed in the Bendler block. A group led by General Hans Oster (1887–1945) planned the fall of the Nazi regime in 1938 to prevent Hitler from preventing a military approach to Czechoslovakia in the so-called Sudeten crisis. When the European powers in the Munich Agreement agreed to the connection of the Sudetenland to the German Reich, the project could no longer be carried out. Until the gestapo in 1943, the “defense” in the Bendlerblock remained a central point of military resistance.

Bendler block inner courtyard

In the service rooms of the east wing, another resistance group around General Olbricht again worked on a plan for disempowering the Nazi regime in the early 1940s. A “Valkyrie” secret plan of the Wehrmacht was manipulated for its own goals in such a way that after Hitler’s death, an immediate occupation of important functions could be ensured in favor of resistance. The assassination attempt on Hitler carried out Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, since he, as head of the staff, under the commander of the replacement army General Fromm, had access to the position consultation in the leader headquarters Wolfschanze. Unskving that it had failed, he traveled back to Berlin, where the resistance group in the Bendlerblock tried in vain to implement the plan. On the night of July 21, the resistance fighter General Olbricht, Colonel von Stauffenberg, Colonel Albrecht Ritter Mertz von Quirnheim and the Adjutant Stauffenberg, Oberleutenant Werner von Haeften, were shot in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. The Colonel of General a. D. Ludwig Beck forced the shorter before. As a fond of the overthrow, Fromm was arrested a day later, sentenced to death and executed on March 12, 1945.

To commemorate the resistance fighters of July 20, 1944, a memorial was built in the 1950s in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. After the foundation stone was laid in 1952, through the widow of General Olbricht, the ruling mayor of Berlin, Ernst Reuter, unveiled a bronze figure created by Richard Scheibe on July 20, 1953, which represents a young man with bound hands. An inscription designed by art historian Edwin Redslob says:

In 1955 the renaming of the Bendlerstraße In Stauffenbergstrasse and on July 20, 1960, the then mayor Franz Amrehn unveiled a plaque with the names of the officers in the Bendlerblock in 1944:

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

In the interior of the Bendlerblock, at the decision of the Berlin Senate, a first exhibition opened with information on the resistance against National Socialism, which the historian Peter Steinbach expanded on behalf of the ruling mayor Richard von Weizsäcker from 1983. The “Memorial of German Resistance” with the permanent exhibition “Resistance to National Socialism” found its place in the rooms in which the overturn was planned.

Not least because of the “significant position” of resistance to National Socialism, the Federal Minister of Defense in 1993 decided on the Bendlerblock as a second office. “He has again clearly underlined that the Bundeswehr is in the tradition of military resistance to the Nazi regime. In the defense of the rule of law and in the occurrence of human dignity, she sees her most distinguished task. This connects them with the women and men on July 20, 1944. ” ^[ten] In this commemoration, since 1999 (until 2007 every year, since 2012 in the annual change with the Republic of the Republic in front of the Reichstag building) ^[11] On July 20, a public vow will take place on the paradise of the Bendlerblock, which was often disrupted by critics with a counter event.

• 

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

• 

  Mirror in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. Young man with bound hands , Bronze figure by Richard Scheibe, 1953

• 

  Memorial plaque with the names of the shot officers

• 

  Inscription on the courtyard access of the Bendlerblock

On the site of the Bendlerblock, on the eastern edge of Hildebrandstrasse, a central memorial for the fallen of the Bundeswehr is set up. The monument was designed by the architect Andreas Meck and inaugurated on September 8, 2009 by the then Federal President Horst Köhler. ^[twelfth]

The courtyard of the Bendlerblock served several directors as a film set. In 2004 Jo Baier made the television film Stauffenberg With Sebastian Koch in the leading role, in which the shooting of the resistance fighters of July 20, 1944 was replaced in a scene at the original location. On the same occasion, the director Bryan Singer used the Honor Court in September and October 2007 to shoot the movie Operation Valkyrie-the Stauffenberg attack , in which Tom Cruise the Colonel i. G. Stauffenberg plays.

• Federal Ministry of Defense, Press and Information Stand (ed.): The bendler block . For s i 4 in cooperation with the military historical research office, 2nd up -to -date. Ed., May 2005.
• Reinhard Scholzen: A monument to the Bundeswehr. In: But, Forum for Culture Politics and History No. 469, September 2006, pp. 6–11.

1. ↑ Tirpitzufer . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstadt Education Association
2. ↑ Dorothea Zöbl: The peripheral center. Location and development of the federal and imperial authorities in the Groß-Berlin city room 1866/67–1914. (= Brandenburg historical studies , Volume 10). Verlag for 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. ↑ Großadmiral von-Koester bank . In: Luise.
6. ↑ Admiral-von-Schröder-Straße . In: Luise.
7. ↑ Skagerrakplatz . In: Luise.
8. ↑ First review Hitler […] on February 3, 1933 (at Hammerstein-Equord) . In: Hans-Adolf Jacobsen: 1939–1945 – The Second World War in Chronicle and Documents . Darmstadt 1959, here p. 81 f.
9. ↑ Erich Lindgen: Handbook of the disciplinary law for civil servants and judges in the federal and state governments: second volume Formal disciplinary law . De Gruyter, Berlin 1968, DNB 457437219 , S. 35 .
10. ↑ BMVG: The bendler block , S. 6.
11. ↑ Bundeswehrlöbnis Berlin Once at the Reichstag, once in the Bendler block In: Berliner Zeitung , July 16, 2012.
12. ↑ A new memorial for the fallen soldiers. In: Berliner Morgenpost from September 8, 2009.

52.50694444444444 13.361388888889 Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 25 ″ N , 13 ° 21 ′ 41 ″ O