Elephant in Berlin: flak

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Parks: Volkspark Friedrichshain

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This park is one of the best parks in all Berlin and it's also the oldest public park since 1840, the Berlin city council decided to construct it on the occasion of the centennial of Frederick the Great's ascension to the Prussian throne.

During the last century the shape of the park has always changed, due to the construction of Berlin's first urban hospital, Krankenhaus im Friedrichshain and to the WWII and the Cold war.

During the Second World War much of the park was bombed and destroyed , the Nazi military made use of the park, constructing Flak towers in 1941, as well as bunkers.

In 1946 the bunkers were destroyed, filled, and covered by over two million cubic meters of rubble from the ruins of destroyed buildings. The larger of the two hills became known as both "Mont Klamott" and "Große Bunkerberg", the "tall bunker mountain", and is 78 meters tall. The smaller hill, "Kleine Bunkerberg", the "small bunker mountain", has a height of 48 meters.

The park has monuments to Frederick the Great, the March Revolution of 1848, the 1918 Red Sailors' Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists and a Japanese Pavilion which included a Peace Bell dedicated to unity against nuclear war.

More infos: WIKI

Map: http://goo.gl/maps/tXKcw

All colours images are under CC Creative Commons (Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works), please refer to " darioj laganà | www.norte.it "

Monday, October 15, 2012

Humboldthain Flakturm

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The Flak tower of Humboldthain is one of the 3 towers on Berlin, built during the WWII by order of Hitler to defend the city after 1940.

It has been used also civilian shelter, with room for 10,000 civilians, and even a hospital ward, inside.

According to the end of the war, the tower was partially demolished; as most of these huge concrete structures, it has not been possible to fully demolish them (the interior walls can be of 3,5-4 meters).

Today the tower is fully inside the Humboldthain Park and one side of the tower has been filled with debris from the WWII collapsed buildings and is now a hill to access the highest point of the tower.

The interior can be visited (infos: Berlin Unterwelten)

Thanks to Berlino Explorer (http://www.berlino-explorer.com)