On a lovely Sunday afternoon in August, the federal ministries of the German capital of Berlin held their annual open day. We were just looking for some undemanding diversion from work. Obviously, we checked the information home page for all the events. The German Ministry of Finance wooed visitors with international organic street food in the garden. Now that was something. Also, they had a talk with Mr. Schäuble, the finance minister. And it will also be possible to take part in a guided tour through the historic building! There would be chances to see more of the Ministry of Finance architecture than from outside. That’s for us, we thought: we love historic buildings and street food!
1930s architecture for Nazi Bureaucrats
The Ministry of Finance architecture is clearly in the style of the Nazi era. It was built in the 1930s, after all. German architect Ernst Sagebiel, who also built the now abandoned airport in Berlin-Tempelhof, planned it. Its first use was as a representative building for the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, the Aviation Ministry of the Third Reich. The huge ministry was already in use within two years. That was just in time for the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936.
Contrary to all the surrounding buildings, allied bombs somehow did not destroy the building in spite of its enormous size. After the war it was used as living quarters by the Soviet military, and later as administrative offices of the GDR.
The building saw some major historical events. In one of the smaller assembly rooms some important Third Reich officials pitched the outline for the Wannsee Conference. And then, in 1949, the GDR was proclaimed in another one of the conference halls.
The German Ministry of Finance moves in
In 1999 the building came to house the German Ministry of Finance. It was then that most ministries moved here from the previous German capital of Bonn. It is still the biggest office building in Europe with 1600 offices, 17 staircases and a total length of 7 km of aisles!
“Some employees agreed to clean up their offices, so that you can have a look inside!”
the guide casually remarks.
Curiously we peek into the cubicles of the public servants. They are pretty small, because the German Ministry of Finance has been a listed building since the 1990s. That meant that the original 1930s room plan has to remain even nowadays. Only during GDR times in between, walls were freely added, changed and moved.
The aisles on the other hand are astonishingly wide. They were designed for three air force officers passing each other without difficulties.
And then our group files into the Finance Minister’s corridor, where taking pictures is not okay. After passing some offices we reach the anteroom:
“Documents for M – to be picked up by the driver” declares a large sign on the table.
– Who is M? –
The actual centre of power is somewhat larger than the other offices we saw and pretty much non-descript.
Apart from the guided tour through the edifices we also saw a stunt show by German customs officials. We found it sort of boring, but here you go:
And yes, we had some really good street food as well. After all, Berlin has more to offer than that famous Berlin Curry Wurst. We left before M arrived.
If you ever are in Berlin at the end of August, do check on the Open Day of the Ministries for unexpected discoveries and probably some good street food!
And if you are there for the architecture, do consider excursions to the Bauhaus school in Dessau, and another Bauhaus site. The Bauhaus Memorial in Bernau was a modernist building to house the Workers’ Union school.
NB: We had no sponsoring for this travel blog article about the German Ministry of Finance architecture.
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