Virtual bunker recreates Nazi nerve centre

What is now a forgotten side street in central Berlin was once the site of Adolf Hitler's bombastic new chancellery, the nerve centre of Nazi Germany and home to the infamous bunker where the dictator killed himself.

Wartime bombing and postwar planning wiped almost all architectural traces of Nazi Berlin from the cityscape. The few surviving examples of the regime's solid-sinister building style are the finance ministry, once Hermann Göring's aviation ministry, and Tempelhof airport, the facade of which still sports a few haughty Reich eagles.

Now German documentary-maker Christoph Neubauer has gathered all available archive material from the era - photographs, film footage and architectural plans - to recreate in virtual form Nazi Berlin in all its insufferable, fascinating pomp.

The research work was a surprising challenge: despite Nazi architecture's deliberate showiness and pathological need to overwhelm its beholder, Nazi authorities carefully controlled images of the interior of their buildings. For instance, only about a dozen images exist of the new chancellery's inner courtyard.

Despite the sometimes limited material, Neubauer has managed to make computer-generated recreations of the Wilhelmplatz, once Berlin's best address and the heart of the diplomatic mile, the new chancellery and the bunker beneath, all of which exist only in memory.

Viewers experience in three dimensions the architectural achievements of Hitler's in-house architect Albert Speer, as well as his architectural conceits, such as the long march visitors had to endure before reaching Hitler's office.

"The long journey from the foyer to the reception hall will surely demonstrate something of the greatness and the power of the German Reich," wrote Speer at the time.

The simulations also expose Speer's slavish devotion to Hitler's needs at the expense of others. While the dictator's chambers are lavish and roomy, the offices of ordinary worker bees are bleak, many without daylight. The layout of the buildings also reflects this blindness: getting from the top floor of one wing to the top floor of another required a laborious trek down to the basement.

Neubauer's film, Hitler's Bunker, explodes another enduring myth, propagated in films such as the recent Downfall, that the underground lair of Hitler's inner circle was a sweaty, claustrophobic prison.

"You wouldn't believe the amount of false representations that are floating around out there," said Neubauer to Spiegel Online. As his recreation shows, the bunker ceilings were not low, and the walls were plastered and painted, not bare brick.

Unsurprisingly, his pristine recreations of the unholiest sites in German history have attracted their share of controversy. Critics have accused him of making propaganda films for the neo-Nazi party, the NPD.

Neubauer rejects the claim and, to his credit, the narration accompanying the virtual tours provides the viewer with the necessary context for the impressive pictures.

Already Neubauer is planning the next stage of his project: employees at his production company are working to generate a version of the simulations for the online platform, Second Life. Soon you will be able to revisit the belly of the Nazi beast from the comfort of your own home.

 DVDs are available online and a video trailer can be viewed at www.der-fuehrerbunker.de/demos-e.htm