Voßstraße

:selfref|The title of this article contains the character ß. Where it is unavailable or not desired, the name may be represented as Vossstrasse or Voss Strasse. _de. Voßstraße ("Voss Strasse" or "Vossstrasse" in English [Martin Gilbert: "Holocaust Journey:Traveling in Search of the Past", Columbia University Press, 1999, p.27; Peter Hoffmann, "Hitler's Personal Security", Da Capo (2000), p. 169.] ); IPA2|ˈfɔsˌʃtʁaːsə) is a street in central Berlin, the capital of Germany. It runs east-west from Ebertstrasse to Wilhelmstrasse in the borough of Mitte, one street north of Leipziger Strasse and very close to Potsdamer Platz. It is best known for being the location of Hitler's new Reich Chancellery complex, [cite news|title=Germany starts laying the Holocaust to rest|date=2003-08-16|author=Kate Connolly|publisher=Daily Telegraph |url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/16/wholoc16.xml] and the bunker where he spent his last days.cite news|publisher=Deutsche Press-Agentur|date=2006-07-11|author=Ernest Gill|title=At last, a plaque marks site of Hitler's Bunker in Berlin |url=http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=53&story_id=31787]

History

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the area was the site of several mansions owned by members of the Prussian aristocracy, some of which were taken over by government departments. One of these was the home of Ferdinand August Hans Friedrich von Voß-Buch (1788–1871), a Prussian military officer who was at one time commander of the "Garde-Grenadier-Regiment Kaiser Alexander von Russland" which was stationed in Berlin, and who retired with the rank of General in 1854 and became a Count in 1864. His home was the "Marshall Palais" in Wilhelmstrasse (sometimes referred to as "Palais Voß" or the "Voßsche Palais"), built in 1736 by architect Johann Philipp Gerlach (1679-1748) and demolished in 1872, the year after Voß-Buch's death, to allow the creation of the street which was to bear his name. [cite web |url=http://www.luise-berlin.de/lexikon/Mitte/v/Vossstrasse.htm |title=Voßstraße |work=Straßennamen der Berliner Stadtbezirke ("Guide to Berlin street names") |language=German |publisher=Luisenstädtische Bildungsverein] (Another street under the same name in Berlin's district Tempelhof-Schöneberg was named after Johann Heinrich Voss). [So spelt in English. He has articles, with this spelling, both in the 1911 Britannica, and in the [http://www.search.eb.com/eb/article-9075757 present online edition] .] Among the notable buildings in the Voss Strasse in the mid-1930s were: on the north side, numbered from east to west; "Voßstraße" 1 - the Borsig Palais, on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse, built in 1875-1877 on part of the site of the former Marshall Palais, for the German businessman and manufacturer Albert Borsig (1829–1878), son of locomotive engineer August Borsig, although he never actually moved into it and died a year after its completion; 2 - the head office of Mitropa, a catering company which from 1916 until 2002 managed sleeping and dining cars throughout the German rail system; 3 - the Embassy of Bavaria; 4-5 - the Justice Ministry of the German Empire, Weimar Republic and Third Reich; 6 - the head office of the German Reich Railway Co; 10 - the Embassy of Württemberg; 11 - the Nazi Party's Berlin offices; 15 - the Bank of Delbrück Schickler & Co; 19 - the Embassy of Saxony.

On the south side, numbered from west to east; "Voßstraße" 20 - the former Reich Naval Office, which had relocated to the Bendlerblock in 1914; 22 - the Mosse Palais, home of the German Jewish publishing tycoon Hans Lachmann-Mosse (1885–1944); 24-32 - the rear of the enormous Jewish-owned Wertheim Department Store; 33-35 - more offices of the German Reich Railway Co. The other addresses were mostly residential properties.

In 1938 the entire north side of the street, except for the Borsig Palais ("Voßstraße" 1), was demolished to make way for the new Reich Chancellery building, built by Albert Speer for Adolf Hitler and opened in January 1939. Incorporating the Borsig Palais within its structure, the Chancellery extended back along the whole length of the Voss Strasse, a distance of 430 metres: its official address was "Voßstraße" 6. The building was severely damaged by Allied bombs in February 1945, and the ruins later demolished by the Soviet occupying forces. Hitler killed himself in the Führerbunker, a little further north, on 30 April 1945. [cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/475963.stm |publisher=BBC News |date=1999-10-15 |title=Hitler's 'suicide bunker' unearthed]

From 7 October 1949, Voss Strasse was located in East Berlin, which did little to develop the Potsdamer Platz area as it was in the sensitive border zone, along which the Berlin Wall would eventually divide the city. By 1956 there was only one surviving building in the entire length of Vossstrasse - part of the German Reich Railway Co. offices ("Vossstrasse" 33). When the Berlin Wall went up in August 1961, much of Voßstraße became stranded in no man's land. Today there is still little of note along the street, although it continues to attract curious visitors looking for the site of the Reich Chancellery and the Führerbunker. [cite news|publisher="The Age"| date=2006-04-23 |title=At the gates of shame |author=Frank Walker |url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/germany/at-the-gates-of-shame/2006/04/21/1145344274646.html]

In the aerial photograph on the right, taken in December 2003, Voss Strasse runs from top to bottom just to the right of centre. The Reich Chancellery ran the full length of the north (left) side, up to Wilhelmstrasse, the street running from left to right at the top of the picture. Today there are several GDR-era apartment blocks, built between 1986 and 1990, and some fenced-off waste land behind the apartment blocks along Wilhelmstrasse. On the south (right) side of Vossstrasse, the sole-surviving pre-war building, part of the German Reich Railway Co. offices ("Voßstraße" 33), can be seen, mostly surrounded by the empty site of the Wertheim Department Store. Note also the concrete "lid" over the U-Bahn line.

Legacy

Some of the stones from the new Reich Chancellery on Voss Strasse were later used for the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin-Treptow, as well as for the red marble walls in the Subway Station U-Bahnhof "Mohrenstraße" (formerly "Otto-Grotewohl-Straße", before that "Thälmannplatz" and prior to that "Kaiserhof"). [cite news|publisher="The Guardian"|date=2005-03-30 |title= Fascism in ruins |url=http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1448182,00.html |author=Frances Stonor Saunders]

ee also

* Voss (surname)

References

Further reading

* "Lonely Planet: Berlin", 2005 Lonely Planet guidebook. Has a section on "Ghosts of the Voßstrasse"
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* cite book|title=Berlin: The Politics of Order 1737-1989|publisher=Rizzoli International
* Publications|date=1990|url=http://www.alanbalfour.com/books/berlin_politics/chapter4/

External links

* [http://www.albert-speers-berlin.de/voss_interactive_eng.htm 3D-animated Voßstraße with interactive map]