Cruel Childhood Tour POI #6 The Topography of Terror

Located at Niederkirchnerstraße 8, 10963 Berlin, The Topography of Terror opened to the public as a museum on May 7, 2010. Prior to its unveiling as a site of remembrance of the horrors of the Nazi Regime, the location of the Topography of Terror served as a central location of Nazi terror and control. Through 1933 to 1945, the land served as the headquarters of the Gestapo, the high command and security service of the Nazi SS, as well as the main office of the Reich Security from 1939. The Topography of Terror is a permanent exhibition that focuses on the war crimes committed by the Gestapo and SS during the Third Reich. It is separated into five sections that cover the rise of the Nazi Party, their institutions of terror, persecution and extermination by the Reich, Nazi occupation of other territories, and the end of the war and postwar era. The land on which the exhibition rests was only transformed into a site of remembrance in the early 1990s, and a permanent museum was not proposed until 2005. While the Topography of Terror has remained one of the most popular tourist destinations in Berlin, with around half-a-million people visiting each year, there is an undeniable challenge with presenting the history of such a violent and oppressive regime. Although many have praised the exhibits position in Germany’s complicated relationship with its history, others have found the site to be a difficult reminder of Nazi crimes, especially as the site chose to focus on Nazi perpetrators rather than their victims. Journalist Layla Dawson for the Architectural Review wrote critically of this decision, stating: “Should a 'dirty' history be cleaned-up to this extent? The imprisoned, tortured and murdered, once held in the cellars, have been relegated to minor roles. However well-meaning its intentions, this architecture projects an obsession with order, control and, ultimately, a lack of humanity.” The Topography of Terror stands as a complicated but important reminder of a horrific time in history, and serves as a difficult reminder of how easy and attractive fascism can be.

This destination is the last stop on the Cruel Childhood: the Experiences of Youth Minorities in Nazi Berlin Walking Tour.

The Topography of Terror is located on land that served as the centre point of government control in Nazi Germany. The Third Reich controlled every aspect of life within Berlin, including the ways children were raised and educated. In particular, the Third Reich was concerned with children who they considered to be Aryan, or racially pure and ethnically German. In order to properly educate these children, the Nazi Party released a series of laws in 1936 that established that membership to the Hitler Youth organization was mandatory, and an unconditional duty to be fulfilled by strong German children.[1] Hitler Youth was intended to create a generation of Nazi supporters that did not question the ideology of the party and hated anyone deemed to be an enemy of the state. Boys were expected to participate in physical education and, in many cases, went on to be soldiers in the Wehrmacht or in the Nazi SS. In Michael H. Kater's 2004 monograph Hitler Youth, he addresses the ways that the Hitler Youth organization not only made children complicit in, but in many cases also willing participants in Nazi war crimes.[2] German girls were subject to a different form of conditioning that emphasized their place in the Lebensborn project, and as mothers to the new Volk. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote "In the education of the girl the final goal always to be kept in mind is that she is one day to be a mother."[3] Furthermore, Hitler addressed German girls personally, writing: "Remember, little girl, that one day you must be a German mother".[4] The word 'must' reveals the deep connection between Nazi racial ideals, sexism, and plans for the next generation of Germans. Hitler Youth deeply affected the mentally of an entire generation in the aftermath of the war. A 2015 study by the University of California found that children raised under the Nazi Regime and participated in Hitler Youth were far more anti-Semitic than Germans born before or after the Nazi Party was in power.[5] The vehement anti-Semitism encouraged by the Nazi Party is not isolated to World War II, and 2018, with the rise of the Alt-Right and other neo-Nazi groups, younger people are being drawn to fascism and have been dubbed the New Hitler Youth.[6] It is crucial that the alarming history of the Nazi Party, and their grip on youth not be forgotten, this is why we ask that participants in the tour respectfully wander through the Topography of Terror on their own time, and reflect upon the lasting impact of the Nazi Party, their ideologies, and how childhood in Nazi Berlin shaped a generation.

William L. Shirer Talks About the Hitler Youth (1945)

Concluding Remarks

Children living in Berlin during the reign of the Nazi Party were in precarious, and sometimes life-threatening positions for over a decade. The Nazi Regime was one founded on powerful ideologies that were intended to establish the "Thousand Year Reich". Hitler understood that the most vulnerable and malleable citizens within his empire were children and teens, and in order to secure the loyalty of the next generation, he targeted youth. Events and ideas that shaped the lives of children in Nazi Berlin, such as the Kindertransport and youth resistance groups and youth gangs, reveal the ways youths were able to resist and survive Nazi rule. However, this tour also addressed the struggles that youth endured during their day to day life in the Third Reich. Saint Hedwig's Cathedral, and the Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz, offer site of impactful moments in children's lives, where they were forced to conform to the Nazis' hegemonic culture through their education and religious expression. The education of youths was crucial to the Nazi Regime, in order to install their ideologies into the next generation, shown through the education system and the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls. Furthermore, the ways we remember the struggles of children and adults who suffered under the Third Reich is complicated, evidenced by the controversies surrounding the memorials at the Topography of Terror, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. While these sites may invoke complicated feelings within their viewers, it is crucial that the histories of youth who survived and perished within Nazi Germany is remembered, and moreover, is actively taught to ensure that a safe childhood can remain a protected rite of passage for generations to come, and that the horrors endured by children living under the Third Reich are never experienced again.

Selected Bibliography

Connolly, Kate. May 2010. "Nazi control room reopens as Topography of Terror museum in Berlin." The Guardian.

Dawson, Layla. "Topography of Terror has washed away too much dirt in presenting its Nazi history." The Architectural Review 228, no. 1361 (2010):29

Kater, Michael H. 2004. Hitler Youth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

McDevitt, Johnny. 3 March 2018. "New Hitler Youth is Enemy at the Gates." The Times (London, England).

[1] Law on the Hitler Youth (December 1, 1936). In United States Chief Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1946. Volume 3, Document 001-PS – Document 1406-PS. Document 1392-PS, p. 972-73.

[2] Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004)

[3] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. James Murphy (London: Hurst and Blackett Ltd., 1939), 322

[4] Ibid., 23

[5] Nico Voigtlander & Hans-Joachim Voth "Nazi indoctrination and anti-Semitic beliefs in

Germany" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112, no. 26 (2015): 7931

[6] Johnny McDevitt, "New Hitler Youth is Enemy at the Gates," The Times (London, England), 3 March 2018, 31.

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