Other Documentation Centers: Berlin and Berchtesgaden
Copyright, January, 2003, All Rights Reserved
by William Cracraft
The Nuremberg Documentation Center is one of three in Germany. A small center that exhaustively documents the era opened in Berchtesgaden in 2000, near Hitler's infamous Berghof in the Bavarian Alps. The site was so closely associated with the Nazi era local officials felt they had to do something to fend off "a certain sort of pseudo-romantic National Socialism tourism," said Hans Christian Taeubrich, director of the Nuremberg Documentation Center.
The third documentation center will be in Berlin on the site of the old Gestapo headquarters, formerly located in the Prince Albrecht Palace. When the site was cleared in the mid-80s, the basement of the headquarters was found intact, complete with cells and torture devices. A temporary exhibition was opened, called Topography of Terror, documenting the state-sanctioned criminal activities of the SS and Gestapo. This is being converted to a permanent exhibit in a new building being erected on the site, due to open in 2004.