Chronicles – The Year 1999 Our activities since 1997

Up to now, the members of Berlin Underworlds have spent 3.988 Working Hours on a voluntary basis to do up and to renovate both our installations, Gesundbrunnen Subway Bunker and Blochplatz Civil Shelter.

A special tour for members into the long-distance heating system's tunnel of Berlin's Power Supply Contractor BEWAG at Mierendorffplatz, Berlin-Charlottenburg.

Extensive Exploration and Documentation of the “Goebbels Bunker” on the site of the future Holocaust Memorial. At the same time, the “Fahrer Bunker” at Ebertstraße, a surviving subterranean complex of the former Reich Chancellery, is explored and documented by members of the association.

A special visit for members to the crypts beneath Parochial Church, Berlin-Mitte.

A special inspection for members of the Air Raid Shelters beneath Littenstraße and Alexanderplatz, Berlin-Mitte.

Exposing and Opening of a blasted Air Raid Shelter in Chausseestraße, Berlin-Mitte. The “Berliner Zeitung” comments: “With an axe in the hand into a Shelter – 80 members of a Berlin-based association explore the Underground”.

First Night of “Priwjet 99”. Ingrid Hammer, Artistic Director of this performance, produces an unconventional theatre play, in cooperation with “Tiefenenttrümmerung” Theatre Company within the facilities of Gesundbrunnen Subway Bunker. The audience may stroll from one room to another, while listening to diverse actors. The production is based upon diaries from the Second World War. As a kind of contrast to these historic materials, the director presents experiences of the second and third post-war generation.

The exhibition “Nights after the day” by Gerald Ramm and Christoph Neubauer is opened on World Peace day within the facilities of Gesundbrunnen Subway Bunker. The visitors are confronted with paintings by Neubauer that express in a rather emotional way the dreadful events during the last days of World War II in April and May 1945. They encounter also some personal belongings of German and Soviet Soldiers which have been collected by Gerald Ramm over the years in the woodlands of Berlin and Brandenburg where he was excavating the bodies of the dead and was transporting them to official War Memorial Cemeteries. He also reconstructs the fate of six individual German and Soviet Soldiers.

“Day of the Open Monument”. Berlin Underworlds offer guided tours into the cellars of the former Central Telegraph Office (Haupttelegraphenamt) in Oranienburger Straße, Berlin-Mitte. This building was used as the central distributor of the Berlin Rohrpost (Pneumatic Dispatch) System up to the 1980s. Some significant relics, the machinery for instance, are still existing. These guided tours are organized in cooperation with the “Museum of Communications” in Leipziger Straße, Berlin-Mitte.

The other day, the association opens – together with the Technical University and the Industrial Estate Company “GSG” – the AEG Experimental Subway Tunnel in Ackerstraße and Voltastraße, Berlin Wedding, to the public. It was the first Underground Traffic tunnel in Continental Europe. More than 1.100 visitors join us during these events.

A special visit for members to the subterranean structures at Berlin Olympic Stadium.

Presentation of some new publications concerning Berlin's underworlds within the facilities of Gesundbrunnen Subway Bunker: “The North-South S-Bahn Line – From a Ghost Tunnel to a Modern City Railway” (revised edition) – “Dark Worlds – Bunker, Tunnels and Vaults beneath Berlin” (4th, extended edition), “Secret Places in Berlin – an unconventional Guide” by Christoph Stollowsky.

One of the association's working groups opens, by permission of the Municipal Authorities, a so-called “Mother and Child” Air Raid Shelter in Humboldthain Park which was blasted off by French Pioneers in 1947. “Berliner Morgenpost” comments: “Advance into forgotten Bunker Worlds!”.

First special tour for members to Fort Hahneberg situated in Staaken, Berlin-Spandau.

First regular guided tours of Gesundbrunnen Subway Bunker by Berlin Underworlds' Association in the course of the “Berlin – Open City” Festival. “Berliner Morgenpost” comments: “A Success for the Bunker Kissers and Concrete Romantics – the “Schaustelle” (a Tourist Organization) leads into the Underworlds for the first time!”.

The Association is acknowledged as a non-profit organization by the Berlin “Revenue Office of Corporations”.

Rescue and Transportation of two so-called “One-Man” Bunkers from a property in Frohnau, Berlin-Reinickendorf. They will be established in Brunnenstraße, just in front of the southern entrance to U 8 Subway Line Station Gesundbrunnen. Up to the definitive permission by the authorities, the bunkers will be stored in a depot at the Department of Horticultural Affairs, Berlin-Wedding.

A Special Visit for Members to the Air Raid Shelter in Reinhardtstraße, Berlin-Mitte.

Gesundbrunnen Subway Bunker is granted the status of a “historic landmark” by the City's Office for the Preservation of Historic Buildings and Monuments.

A special visit for members to the abandoned U 8 Subway Line Ghost Station at Oranienplatz and to the Air Raid Shelter near by at Dresdener Straße, Berlin-Kreuzberg.

A special visit for members to the Pneumatic Dispatch machinery within the facilities of the former Central Telegraph Office (HTA) in Oranienburger Straße, Berlin-Mitte.

A special inspection for members of the “blind tunnels” beneath the Westhafen Shipping Route, U 7 Subway Station Jungfernheide.

The association has about 70 members.