‘Hitler Disney’ forces Berlin to relive past
Exhibition analyses how Hitler turned ordinary Germans into murderers OFFICE BUNKER
More than 70 years after Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker in the final days of World War II, an exhibition in the capital examines how he became a Nazi and what turned ordinary Germans into murderers during the Third Reich.
For decades it was taboo in Germany to focus on Hitler, although that has begun to change with the 2004 film, Downfall, chronicling the dictator’s last days, and an exhibition about him in 2010.
The exhibition Hitler — how could it happen is set in a bunker in Berlin that was used by civilians during World War II bombing raids — close to the bunker where Hitler lived while Berlin was being bombed and which is not accessible to the public.
It examines Hitler’s life from his childhood in Austria and time as a painter to his experience as a soldier during World War I and his subsequent rise to power. Other exhibits focus on concentration camps, pogroms and the Holocaust that killed six million Jews.
It ends with a controversial reconstruction of the bunker room where Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945 — replete with grandfather clock, floral sofa and an oxygen tank. The exhibit is behind glass and is monitored by camera, with visitors forbidden to take photographs.
Exhibition curator Wieland Giebel, 67, said he had been accused of “Hitler Disney” for putting the room on show. But he said the exhibition focused on the crimes by Hitler’s regime, adding, “This room is where the crimes ended, where everything ended, so that’s why we’re showing it.”
He said the exhibition attempted to answer how World War II and the Holocaust came about.
“After World War I, a lot of Germans felt humiliated due to the Versailles treaty,” Mr Giebel said, referring to the 1919 accord that forced Germany to make reparation payments. “At the same time, there was antiSemitism in Europe and not just in Germany... Hitler built on this,” he said.