Hitler Official Residence

[Ahmend Studioz]

Whenthe military alliance of the North German Confederation was reorganised as a federal state with effect from July 1, 1867, the office of a Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler) was implemented at Berlin and staffed with the Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck. After the unification of Germany on January 18, 1871, by accession of the South German states, Bismarck became Reich Chancellor of the new German Empire.

In 1869, the Prussian state government had acquired the Rococo city palace of late Prince Radziwiłł on Wilhelmstrae No. 77 (former "Palais Schulenburg"), which from 1875 was refurbished as the official building of the Chancellery. It was inaugurated with the meetings of the Berlin Congress in July 1878, followed by the Congo Conference in 1884.

In the days of the Weimar Republic the Chancellery was significantly enlarged by the construction of a Modern southern annex finished in 1930. In 1932/33, while his nearby office on Wilhelmstrae No. 73 was renovated, the building also served as the residence of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, where he appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933. The Hitler Cabinet held few meetings here. In 1935, the architects Paul Troost and Leonhard Gall redesigned the interior as Hitler's domicile. They also added a large reception hall/ballroom and conservatory, officially known as the Festsaal mit Wintergarten in the garden area. The latter addition was unique because of the large cellar that led a further one-and-a-half meters down to an air-raid shelter known as the Vorbunker.[1] Once completed in 1936, it was officially called the "Reich Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter" until 1943, with the construction to expand the bunker complex with the addition of the Fhrerbunker, located one level below.[2] The two bunkers were connected by a stairway set at right angles which could be closed off from each other.[3]

In late January 1938, Adolf Hitler officially assigned his favourite architect, Albert Speer, to build the New Reich Chancellery around the corner on Vostrae, a western branch-off of Wilhelmstrae, requesting that the building be completed within a year. Hitler commented that Bismarck's Old Chancellery was "fit for a soap company"[4] and not suitable as headquarters of a Greater German Reich. It nevertheless remained his official residence, where Hitler lived in the so-called Fhrerwohnung ("Leader apartment"). The Old and New Chancellery shared a large garden area, with the underground Fhrerbunker, where Hitler ultimately committed suicide at the end of April 1945.

From Wilhelmsplatz an arriving diplomat drove through great gates into a court of honour. By way of an outside staircase he first entered a medium-sized reception room from which double doors almost seventeen feet high opened into a large hall clad in mosaic. He then ascended several steps, passed through a round room with domed ceiling, and saw before him a gallery 480 feet (150 m) long. Hitler was particularly impressed by my gallery because it was twice as long as the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Hitler was delighted: "On the long walk from the entrance to the reception hall they'll get a taste of the power and grandeur of the German Reich!" During the next several months he asked to see the plans again and again but interfered remarkably little in this building, even though it was designed for him personally. He let me work freely.

The series of rooms comprising the approach to Hitler's reception gallery were decorated with a rich variety of materials and colours, and totalled 221 m (725 ft) in length. The gallery itself was 147.5 m (484 ft) long. Hitler's own office was 400 square meters in size. From the outside, the chancellery had a stern, authoritarian appearance. From the Wilhelmplatz, guests would enter the Chancellery through the Court of Honour (Ehrenhof). The building's main entrance was flanked by two bronze statues by sculptor Arno Breker: "Wehrmacht" and "Die Partei" ("Armed Forces" and "The Party"). Hitler is said to have been greatly impressed by the building and was uncharacteristically free in his praise for Speer, lauding the architect as a "genius". The chancellor's great study was a particular favourite of the dictator. In it there stood a grand marble-topped table, which remained generally decorative up until 1944, when it served as an important part of the Nazi leader's military headquarters; the study being used for military conferences.[8] On the other hand, the Cabinet room was never used for its intended purpose.

The New Reich Chancellery suffered severe damage during the Battle of Berlin between April and May 1945 (in comparison, the Old Reich Chancellery was not as badly damaged). Andrei Gromyko, who would later become the Soviet foreign minister, visited the partially-destroyed structure a few weeks after the fighting in the city had completely ceased. He recalls, "We reached it not without difficulties. Ruined edifices, formless heaps of metal and ferro-concrete encumbered the way. To the very entrance of the Chancellery, the car could not approach. We had to reach it on foot..."[This quote needs a citation] He noted the New Reich Chancellery "...was almost destroyed... Only the walls remained, riddled by countless shrapnel, yawning by big shot-holes from shells. Ceilings survived only partly. Windows loomed black by emptiness."[This quote needs a citation]

After World War II in Europe ended, the remains in what was then East Berlin (the Soviet-occupied sector of a divided Berlin) were demolished by the order of the Soviet occupation forces. Parts of the building's marble walls were rumoured to have been used in the building of the Soviet war memorial located in Treptower Park, or to renovate and repair the nearby war-damaged Mohrenstrae U-Bahn subway station. Petrographic analyses of materials used for construction there did not confirm those rumours.[10] Some of the so-called "red marble" (actually limestone) obtained from the demolition of the New Reich Chancellery was also supposedly used in the construction of the Moscow Metro's palatial-style subway stations after the war.[citation needed] Also, it is alleged that a heater from one of Hitler's rooms was placed in a Protestant hospital located not too far away from the Reich Chancellery.[11]

While the western half of the plot was used by the East German government for the establishment of the so-called "Death-Strip" adjacent to the Berlin Wall in 1961 (when the barrier was being constructed), a Plattenbau apartment block, together with a kindergarten, was built on the eastern half (along Wilhelmstrae) during the 1980s.

During the 1930's most members of the Royal Family were living in southern Bavaria. On account of an agreement with the Bavarian state government in 1923, the Wittelsbachs had retained corporate ownership of a number of properties including several palaces and castles as well as large tracts of forest and agricultural land. They also retained a right of residency in several other palaces and properties owned by the Bavarian government. Members of the extended family had apartments in several residences. They moved back and forth among these residences depending upon the time of year and upon their various engagements.

King Rupert and Queen Antonia's official residence was the Leuchtenberg Palace. Its prominent location in central Munich was a symbol of Rupert's continuing importance in Bavarian public life. It was here that he had been born in 1869. The palace provided plenty of space for Rupert and Antonia's six children: Henry (born 1922), Irmingard (born 1923), Editha (born 1924), Hilda (born 1926), Gabrielle (born 1927), and Sophie (born 1935). Important family celebrations such as weddings were held at Schloss Nymphenburg, the royal summer palace on the outskirts of Munich.

For some years the royal family had spent their summers at Schloss Berchtesgaden on the Bavarian side of the border with Austria near Salzburg; Princesses Irmingard, Hilda, and Gabriele had been born there. In 1933, however, Rupert discontinued his summer visits to Berchtesgaden; he wanted to avoid any encounters with Adolf Hitler who had a summer home in the area, and who that year had been appointed Chancellor of the German Reich. Henceforward, Rupert and his family spent their summers at Schloss Hohenschwangau in the Bavarian Alps; this castle is famous as the childhood home of King Ludwig II of Bavaria who built Schloss Neuschwanstein only a few miles away.

About 25 km southwest of Munich the royal family maintained a home at Schloss Leutstetten. This large manorial house was at the centre of a farming estate bought by Rupert's father in 1875. In addition to the castle itself there were also several smaller houses where various aunts and uncles lived. Of all of the royal family's residences, Leutstetten was the one most like a home.

Rupert's son from his first marriage, Albert, lived with his wife Marita at Wildbad Kreuth, a country estate about 50 km south of Munich. They had four young children: Marie Gabrielle and Marie Charlotte (twins born 1931), Franz (born 1933), and Max (born 1937). Wildbad Kreuth was owned by Albert's uncle, Duke Ludwig Wilhelm in Bavaria. Here Albert developed his interest in the management of deer stocks.

Rupert's younger brother Franz and his family lived most of the year at Schloss Srvr. This large estate in western Hungary had been inherited by Rupert and Franz's mother Queen Mary IV and III. Rupert's sister Maria and her husband the Duke of Calabria (head of the Royal House of the Two Sicilies) lived at Villa Amsee in Lindau on the shores of the Bodensee. Rupert's unmarried sisters Hildegard and Helmtrud lived at Schloss Wildenwart. This castle (today the country residence of Prince Max) is located about 60 km southeast of Munich; it had originally been purchased by Rupert's great uncle King Francis I.

King Rupert had a long history of opposition to the Nazis dating back to Adolf Hitler's first attempt to seize power in 1923. At that time the social-democrat government of the German Weimar Republic was weak and unpopular. In Bavaria the Royal Family had retained its widespread popularity. Monarchist sentiment was particularly strong among those who opposed the federal German government and favoured a stronger, even independent, Bavaria. The many right-wing groups which rose up to oppose the threat of Communism also found it useful to claim the monarchist banner for themselves. A number of monarchists were associated with these right-wing groups, seeing in them a preventative against Communism and a first step towards a monarchist restoration.

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