Commerce instead of memory

In Hamburg, an elite residential complex was built on the site of the Gestapo building. It is picked by anti -fascists

The multifunctional Stadthöfe complex with an area of ​​100 thousand square meters was built in the very center of Hamburg. Its owners - a large developer company Quantum Immobilien - offer to buy 88 luxury apartments and rent a total of 15 thousand square meters of office premises. In addition, the complex has a hotel for 126 rooms, restaurants, bars and boutiques. Advertising booklets in a mixture of German and French describe the complex in terms like “eternal pleasure”.

Since 1814, the Hamburg Town Hall was in this place. In December 1935, the headquarters of the Gestapo was located here. The basement of the buildings was equipped for interrogations, where the arrested anti -fascists or simply suspects of disloyalty to Hitler was tortured and killed. In 1943, most of the building was destroyed after the bombing. In Germany, there is even a mobile exhibition telling what happened in this town hall at a time when the Nazis were in power.

After the Second World War, the building was rebuilt, and the city construction department in Hamburg is located in it. In 2009, the Senate of Hamburg sold the building of Quantum Immobilien; The deal meant that the company would allocate about a thousand square meters in a new complex under the center of memory of the Gestapo victims.

In fact, the area that Quantum Immobilien allocated under the center amounted to 70 square meters adjacent to the bookstore. In addition, Stadthöfe has two memorial boards in memory of the Gestapo victims and three bronze memorial stones on the gangstone in front of the main entrance.

On Tuesday, January 30, a anti-fascist demonstration was held in front of the complex, dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the election of Adolf Hitler to the post of chancellor. Several hundred people took part in it; They held in their hands the portraits of those killed in the Gestapo building and projected their portraits on the walls of Stadthöf. Has the rally under the slogan “Commerce instead of memory? Never!"; Protesters accused the authorities of the city and developers of insulting the memory of the victims of Nazism. They were especially outraged by the forged sign “Welcome to Stadthöfe”, which, according to the protesters, stylistically resembles the slogan “Labor releases”, which was located on the gates of many concentration camps.

“None of those who were delivered here for interrogation came out unharmed,” said the Metlef Baada rally, whose father was tortured in the Gestapo of Hamburg in 1933, told The Guardian. “We are in debt to the dead.”

The Hamburg authorities promised that they would work on the “suitable memorable concept” of the updated building. The development company has not yet reacted to the protest.

Zhanna Baitelova