A walk to the Bundesarchiv in the Lichterfelde area of Berlin.
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Lecturer in Chinese History // University of Leeds
A walk to the Bundesarchiv in the Lichterfelde area of Berlin.
Adam Cathcart 
Bundesarchiv….in English….that’s civilised. Far out.
Is that two more of Arno Breker’s Grecian homo-erotic semi- sculphural bodies either side of the pillar?? The paganistic/non-christian element in Nazi aesthetic cultural production. Wish I could provide the reference here, but the book is in the Shenzhen library.
Very good question, KT. To my knowledge, this building — which is on the grounds of the Bundesarchive and may be slated to be torn down in the next year or so — was put up during the Nazi era. I don’t know about Arno Breker’s involvement specifically, but the building is a gymnasium and certainly the figures show his influence.
Adam. After traversing tons of garbage on a net search here is my reference:
Karla Poewe New Religions and the Nazis Routledge NY & London 2006
And an acceptable sort of review by an Australian Baptist. The book is really good and quite unsensationalist, if I recall.
http://www.phc.edu/gj_new_religions_and_the_nazis.php
Gymnasium…..the very word rings a ton of body- perfect connotations in my mind, but I came from a British school background where the gym was the site for canings and other indignities for the rebellious.
This building was built long time before Hitler came to power in Germany.
As Arno Brekers sculptures also survived the US army’s use of this former “Kadettenschule”, they now decorate the Bundesarchiv.
( http://me.in-berlin.de/~v12/mcfa/stattfahrt/andrew.html )
Very fortunate to get this answer, Werner, thank you! Now one walks past the statues to get to the archive; whereas before one used to walk past the plaque about the Americans occupying the former army school.
There is also an incorrect tendency at work by people like myself to imagine that if a building looks like it could have been put up from 1933-1945, then it was, to the exclusion of construction which had actually taken place during the Weimar or even late Wilhelmine era.