“Burdened Places”: Exhibition on Nazi-era Buildings in Tempelhof-Schöneberg
Students at Freie Universität Berlin designed special exhibition at the Information Center Heavy Load-bearing Body
№ 120/2020 from Jul 07, 2020
Students in the master’s degree program in Public History at Freie Universität designed an exhibition about buildings in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district of Berlin that have a National Socialist past. The special exhibition “Burdened Places” is on display in the Information Center Heavy Load-Bearing Body on General-Papestraße/Loewenhardtdamm, 12101 Berlin (in Berlin-Tempelhof). In cooperation with a team from the Tempelhof-Schöneberg museums, the students did research on the history of National Socialist architecture in the district, developed an exhibition concept, and helped with its implementation. The exhibition tells the story of five buildings that stand for National Socialist everyday architecture beyond “Germania” planning. “Germania” was the name for Berlin as the capital of the German Reich, as part of National Socialist urban planning under the general building inspector Albert Speer. The exhibition will be on display through October 31, 2020.
Public tours with the curators are being planned for the fall. As soon as the dates have been set, they will be posted on the website of the Tempelhof-Schöneberg museums.
The buildings that were selected for the exhibition bear traces and symbols of National Socialism that after the war were either removed superficially or not at all. With photos and documents, the special exhibition tells the stories of churches and apartment buildings as well as administrative and war buildings. It provides insights into how Nazi-era architecture has been dealt with from 1945 to the present day. One example is the apartment building complex on Grazer Damm, which was constructed to survive war and where thousands of people still live today. In addition, the exhibition also features the high-rise bunker on Pallasstrasse, in which the technical facilities of the Telecommunications Office were to be housed during World War II and which today shapes the Schöneberg cityscape as a place of remembrance.
Time and Place of the Exhibition
- May 27, 2020 – October 31, 2020: Tuesday through Thursday, 2 to 6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, 2 to 6 p.m.
- Information Center Heavy Load-Bearing Body, General-Papestraße/Loewenhardtdamm, 12101 Berlin; subway station: Platz der Luftbrücke or S-Bahnhof Julius Leberbrücke.
- Free admission. The exhibition is not barrier free. Uneven ground on premises.
Further Information
Luise Fakler, Student, Freie Universität Berlin; cocurator of the exhibition, Email: fakler.luise@fu-berlin.de