Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus

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The Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus (Detlev Rohwedder House) is a building in

, a leading Nazi.

During the

German Finance Ministry

.

Design and construction

The building was designed by

).

With its seven storeys and total floor area of 112,000 square metres (1,210,000 sq ft), 2,800 rooms, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) of corridors, over 4,000 windows, 17 stairways, and with the stone coming from no fewer than 50 quarries, the vast building served the growing bureaucracy of the Luftwaffe, plus Germany's civil aviation authority which was also located there. Yet it took only 18 months to build, the army of labourers working double shifts and Sundays. The first 1,000 rooms were handed over in October 1935 after just eight months' construction. When completed, 4,000 bureaucrats and their secretaries were employed within its walls.

Post-war

The Air Ministry building was one of the few Nazi public buildings in central Berlin to escape serious damage during the Allied bombing offensive in 1944–45. After World War II ended in Europe, the huge structure was quickly repaired, with only the Ehrensaal (Hall of Honour) being substantially altered. It was remodelled into the Stalinist neo-classicist Festsaal (Festival Hall), with the enormous Eagle and Swastika that had adorned its end wall being removed.

Once the work was complete, the building was used by the

and other affiliated organizations of the GDR, hence its new name Haus der Ministerien (House of the Ministries).

Between 1950 and 1952 an extraordinary 18 metres (59 ft) long mural, made out of

.

After reunification

From 1991–95, after German reunification, it housed the Treuhand (Trust Establishment), which privatised former enterprises operated by the East German government. Its first chairman, Detlev Rohwedder, was murdered by Red Army Faction terrorists on 1 April 1991, and on 16 January 1992, the building was renamed the Detlev Rohwedder House (German: Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus) in his honour. From 1990, the Berlin branch office of the German Finance Ministry was also located there, and since 1999, following extensive refurbishment, the building has served as the Ministry's headquarters.

At the north (Leipziger Straße) end of the building, a plaque commemorates the protest meeting of 16 June 1953, from which stemmed the following day's East German uprising of 1953. In 1993, the nearby 1950s Lingner mural was joined by another scene set into the ground nearby: a huge blown-up photograph of 1953 protesters shortly before their gathering was suppressed.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus.

• German Finance Ministry brochure on the History of the "Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus" (in German)

52°30′31.31″N 13°23′2.4″E / 52.5086972°N 13.384000°E / 52.5086972; 13.384000