I mean, the reality is any official building in Germany that survived the war and/or was rebuilt, has ties to the the Nazis. They permeated every faction of life and and so even some small town city hall would have had swastikas etc adorning it at some point. While I certainly don’t support the glorification of the past, you also can’t completely excise it either. It will forever have some sort of link.
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They’re really huge and would be incredibly expensive to demolish. Indeed there are LOTS of better uses for the money it would take. So given that they are going to be there, Neo-Nats are going to fetishize them no matter what you do to them, even nothing. There just aren’t many uses for structures like these: There are few windows, the thick walls make it difficult to change the floorplans, and the doors are designed to admit people, not large ammounts of storage. So an aquarian is probably a fairly good use, but it is difficult to figure out what to do with them. I can’t imagine many people would want to live in a luxury condo with two small windows. Perhaps a data center?
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That seems like an opinion, not a concrete fact. It’s also not an actual answer, but okay.
That, I find extremely difficult to believe.
Humans haven’t yet created anything that’s actually indestructible; as others have mentioned, its more likely that it’s simply not ‘cost effective’ to the people who control the money.
That’s highly unfortunate, but the optics of actively attempting to profiting from such a property are both ghoulish and abhorrent.
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I think there should be a special category of Darwin award for Nazis who openly visit that part of Hamburg.
That flak tower is right next to the Millerntor-Stadion where St Pauli play their home games. There’s lots of Antifa around there.
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The wiki article points out that some of those towers were destroyed after the war, but it was very difficult so the post war government gave up.
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That’s an observation from living nearly 50 years in Germany.
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Phone is not letting me link the photo but one of the towers in Berlin in the Wikipedia article seems to have vegetation taking over. It may be an exaggeration of what is there.
It also might be the best way to tear it down. Just let the plants do it.
(Cursed updates hiding functionality- will fight that battle later)
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In a different discussion someone joked about letting the Mythbusters guys ‘go ham’ on it; that would certainly help expedite the destruction process.
Whatever ends up happening, profiting from the property is not ‘okay.’
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In a time when right-wing populism is resurgent (including, quite shamefully, in Germany) and WWII is almost completely faded from living memory, these buildings are no more ideologically neutral than the institutions of the Wermacht or Luftwaffe were. If you want to argue that they can be divorced from the Nazi regime, I’m not going to engage you on it any more than I would David Irving or other so-called “revisionist” historians of the Reich and the war who try to slide that argument by.
As long as these prominent and near-indestructible structures are allowed to stand, there’s an obligation to explain what their original purpose was and the regime that purpose served. They should not be allowed to remain abandoned and derelict. If they’re re-purposed, it should be either as a memorial/museum, an industrial structure that’s off-limits to the public (e.g. a data centre or energy storage facililty), or a public facility predicated on open access to all people regardless of race, creed, colour, religion, national origin, or economic class (a clear repudiation of Nazi ideology the structure first served.
That last condition allows for re-purposing as an aquarium, an arts and performance centre, a public library, or a community sports facility. It does not allow for a luxury housing development, a boutique hotel, or a new high-end shopping mall – the more so given how reluctant private property developers are to include prominent memorials and/or enforcement that discourage fascists looking for a shrine.
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Good post, but unlike a flag or, say, a statue of Jeff Davis, this is a giant fucking building. 
That said, I’m not sure what to think. I think the answer is either destroy it or make it a museum, but the idea of turning it into a hotel… Then again, old military structures in other countries have had this exact thing done. Or because it’s Germany it’s just not possible? Do German’s differentiate between army functionality and nazism of the time or are they too intertwined? (I have my opinion, but don’t want to make assumptions about what German’s feel)
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They’re not physically incapable of being destroyed. Indeed, as others have noted a few were described shortly after the war. But the occupying powers had literally TONS of explosives sitting around and for the most part, these were surrounded by rubble rather than occupied buildings and it was STILL very difficult. That is why they quit trying. Destroying them today, considering the increased safety precautions necessary would be prohibitively expensive. And that money could be certainly be used more productively.
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Thought experiment: Imagine making such an argument to the relatives of ethnic groups murdered by Hitler and his thugs.
Done. And?
I’m just not sure of the argument you’re making. Are you saying that any and all structures erected by Nazi Germany are of equal historical and emotional significance? Are you saying that turning an air raid shelter/flak tower into a hotel is the same thing as doing so with a concentration camp?
Thought experiment: Imagine making such an argument to the relatives of ethnic groups murdered by Hitler and his thugs.
I wouldn’t be comfortable going into such a place, whether a hotel or apartment.
One time I looked into an old tobacco can that was in the basement and saw a piece of chain. “Why save that, and in a can?”. Then I saw a note. It was in my father’s handwriting. A piece if chain use to chain German POWs in Manitoba, in response to Gernany chaining Allied POWs.
i’ve never been able to touch that chain.
I guess people in Germany don’t have the same feelings since they apparently can live with things leftover from the nazi era.
Of course, a different way to see it is distance. When we went to Europe in 1965, I was five, we saw endless historical things. But they were so very old that any bad things connected to them have been blunted. So they exist as history today. But WWII is still pretty recent, even as people who experienced it are fading. If we erase this stuff, it’s gone from the future, when people may want to know about it. And I’m not talking about those who believe in nazis.
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Uh oh, I think we’re in a time loop…
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Unless the location is really amazing, I can’t imagine that there would be much demand for this as a hotel, especially at “Luxury” prices. I bet that if you were going to use these as apartments for refugee resettlement, people would legitimately complain because it was a squalid, dank place to house them. If you wanted to be rid of these, burying them might be cheaper than razing them. But you know, there are buildings built by Nazis all over Europe. Nobody is talking about ripping up the Autobahns, or tearing down the Volkswagen factory because they were built by the Nazis. Tempelhof is no longer an airport, but my understanding is that they are reusing the building.
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Most Germans, especially those in the western part, are aware of the country’s “special responsibility” and find a balance between acknowledging the significance of those leftovers and living with them. But as the existence of the AfD and their showing in 2017 indicates, there’s a very significant portion of the populace (10%+, probably more like the usual Know-Nothing 27%) that is willfully trying to forget the lessons of that period. Turning a flak tower into a luxury hotel suits those right-wing populists just fine.
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It depends a lot on the location. If it’s in an area that is trendy and full of expensive apartments, then it almost has to be expensive. If it’s in a poor part of town then they’ll have trouble selling it without going through the effort of gentrifying the rest of the neighborhood.
And this is on top of all of the issues you have converting an old military bunker into something people will want to live in on a daily basis. Proper heating and cooling, electrical support for modern appliances, old water pipes, leaks, retrofitting in internet and TV cabling, parking, and so much more.
