House of the Wannsee Conference

The Heckeshorn Air Raid Protection School

In 1938, the Ministry of Aviation engaged the Zehlendorf architect Eduard Jobst Siedler to design the Air Raid Protection School (Reichsluftschutzschule) at no. 80 Am Großen Wannsee. Air raid wardens from all over the Reich were trained here. Workers' representative Oskar Hippe remembers working on the large building site at Heckeshorn; his firm alone employed 16 work gangs. 32 of the workers had been Social Democrats and trade unionists.  They often openly criticised the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Workers’ Front) and united against Nazis in the workplace. Some even had their automatic subscriptions to the Deutsche Arbeitsfront paid back to them at the end of the month. 

 
Opening of the Air Raid Protection School
with Hermann Göring, May 23, 1939  

The facility in Wannsee basically resembled the contemporary "comrades' settlement":  terraced houses with prominent rooves, winding paths and landscaped grounds. The 49 hectare site comprised accommodation blocks for the trainees, but also numerous auxiliary buildings including a school building, a welfare building, lecture theatres, administration and garages. On 11th May 1939, the Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer) reported the grand official opening of the Air Raid Protection School in Wannsee. 

Neighbours were annoyed about the new residents. There were complaints about the noise and smell of the early morning buses, their drivers summoning the teams with long hoots of the horn. These complaints were rejected on the grounds that residents' rights could be curtailed with respect to firms operating for the good of the Reich. Being told that the disturbances would cease finally placated the most stubborn plaintiff. In 1946/47, the buildings of the former air-raid protection school were used as a tuberculosis hospital, and they later became the Heckeshorn Lung Hospital. 

Instruction for the use of gasmasks

The 25 metre high command bunker, which still remains today, was built near the administration building, and was the first secure bunker in Berlin. Initially it was used for training air raid wardens, but during the war it protected prominent Nazis. It was not accessible to the general public. From 1943 onwards, during the Allied bombardment of Berlin, it was used by the Luftwaffe. On 28th April 1945, troops from the Volkssturm (German Territorial Army) were brought in. The SS and Wehrmacht troops had made Wannsee into a fortress. Barges moored at the Pfaueninsel contained provisions for the troops, and the SS took up positions in the woods, where they had hidden cases of supplies. 

The bunker in Heckeshorn today

The bunker is still standing today, as it  would be too expensive to pull it down. In 1948, during the blockade, it supported a post office radio mast, later superseded by the one on the Schäferberg. The bunker acted as radio headquarters during the Luftbrücke (air bridge) and was therefore exempt from the regular power cuts. The hospitals in Wannsee also benefited, being always supplied with electricity. From 1982, the bunker was converted into an auxiliary hospital within a nuclear protection bunker designed for about 500 people in the case of environmental disaster. This is still its role today. The bunker itself belongs to the Federal Office for Civil Security, but the ground belongs to Zehlendorf Hospital.

Update: September 16,  2004