One of Berlin’s strangest tourist attractions is a scrubby patch of land between the Holocaust memorial and a 1980s East German apartment complex.
Though there is nothing to see here except parked cars, walking tours pop up every few minutes to tell of what lies beneath: the reinforced concrete ruins of the “Führerbunker” where Adolf Hitler spent his last days, wed Eva Braun and then gave her a honeymoon to remember.
Somewhere on this site – perhaps next to the Volkswagen Golf? – Hitler’s body was drenched in petrol and set alight.
Now a Berlin businessman has taken this tourist fascination one step further.
Two years ago, he bought a second World War bunker down the street and hired a movie set designer to recreate Hitler’s private bunker room.
From this weekend, visitors can pay €12 to look at recreations of the Führer’s last desk and sofa, with a portrait of Friedrich the Great on the wall.
The bunker’s owner, Ennio Lenz – who has spent a reported €1 million on the project – insists it is not a “Hitler Show”.
“We’re not doing 10-minute Hitler tourism,” he said.
Before seeing the fake Hitler rooms, visitors are obliged to take a 90-minute tour, explaining the road to war and the Holocaust.
In addition, they will hear the real history of the bunker, built for 3,000 people adjacent to a major train station.
Reign of fear
By May 1945, four times that number were huddled here until it began to flood, forcing them up into the street – and into the crossfire of the final battle for Berlin.
The exhibition draws largely on privately-held material and includes an image of Hitler’s dead dog, Blondie.
The dictator poisoned his beloved hound to test one of the cyanide capsules he would eventually take himself, while simultaneously shooting himself.
Another image shows the remains of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, also burned after taking his own life.
“Looks like a roast chicken,” commented one visitor.
Ahead of Saturday’s opening, Berlin historians have delivered a scathing verdict of the new private museum.
They suggest visitors with an interest in the period visit one of the city’s many authentic bunkers.
Those fascinated by Hitler’s furniture can see his original desk, in context, in Berlin’s German Historical Museum.
A serious treatment of the Nazis’ reign of fear, meanwhile, is on offer at the nearby Topography of Terror museum. Its spokesman’s verdict on the fake Hitler bunker? “Disneyland.”
