Topography of Terror

In front of you is the Topography of Terror, one of Berlin's most uncomfortable and most necessary places. The site looks empty, yet decisions taken here cost millions of lives.

1The most feared address

At the former Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8, today Niederkirchnerstraße, the Gestapo, the secret state police, had its headquarters from 1933. The neighbouring buildings housed the SS leadership and, from 1939, the Reich Security Main Office. From here the persecution of opponents was planned, along with much of the deportation and murder of Europe's Jews. Prisoners were interrogated and tortured in the Gestapo's cellars.

2Forgotten ruins

The buildings were badly damaged in the war and demolished in the post-war years. For decades the land was a wasteland beside the Wall. In the 1980s a citizens' initiative began digging and uncovered the remains of the cellars. The current documentation centre, a sober building by the architect Ursula Wilms, opened in 2010.

Here, within a few metres, Germany's two 20th-century dictatorships meet: Nazi power beneath your feet and the East German Wall right in front of you.

3A piece of the original Wall

The stretch you see along the street is one of the longest original sections still standing in the city centre. The holes and exposed iron are the work of the “wall woodpeckers”, visitors who chipped off souvenirs in 1989 and 1990.

4What to look for

• The iron rods of the Wall, laid bare by the hammering of 1989.
• The remains of cellar walls, in the trench beside the Wall.
• The large building on the other side of the Wall, Göring's former Air Ministry, which survived the war.