Hello everyone! Following our adventure into a huge subterranean Nazi base, my sister and I were heading back to civilisation when we stumbled across this place rather accidentally. I actually had a completely different place in mind for my next adventure, but I'm quite lucky that we found this place instead because rather sadly, some parts of it have already been flattened and there were even a couple of construction vehicles, the instruments of vandals, on site waiting to move onto what was left. The devil isn't red, he's flourescent yellow, with a hard hat! To get the most out of this visit, keeping in mind the soon-to-be-setting sun, and my cameras battery being lower than ideal, we started at the side of the building furthest from the developers, where we assumed it would be a little more untouched. The place was huge. We'd never see it all. But ultimately we couldn't stay away.
As of 1945, this place was swarming with Russian soldiers, and their tanks. But as with most Russian military buildings in East Germany, this sprawling complex was used for the German war effort first!
But what, you might ask, could the Nazis possibly have used this space for? What use to them is this colossal space that the Soviets thought ideal for one of their tank divisions?
The answer is, a launderette, of course!
It sounds ridiculous. It certainly isn't what one thinks of when they look at huge German military ruins and ponder the previous goings-on during a time of fascist dictatorship.
But it does make sense if you look at the Nazis, because let's be honest, they knew how to dress.
Hitler figured out early on that if he was going to be a dick then he might as well look good while doing it. At least that way, even if his empire fell, he'd still come out on top when suggested as an option in games of Fuck/Marry/Kill.
This is valuable knowledge that seemingly died with him, as evidenced by the current British Prime Minister who looks a bit like Ellen Degeneres if she gained loads of weight and then decided to lose it, but instead of losing it by going on a diet, decided instead to lose it through heroin addiction, but then ran out of heroin and went into withdrawals. Whereas Hitler was like "Nein, if we are going to take over the world, we must look our sexiest!"
But I digress! Let's slip inside!
Upon entry, there's the curiously morbid sight of a plush toy rabbit, having seemingly been set on fire and then lynched by a piece of string. I personally love it. Obviously this wasn't the work of the Nazis or the Soviets, but of visitors who have come here since and tried to do something creative. There's graffiti too, but that's just more of the same usual characterless tagging. This is different.
But hanging cuddly toys aside, what I loved the most about this place was that in spite of all the vandalism, the original Soviet propaganda murals had somehow survived.
Look at this! That's a genuine Soviet mural above the door! Around the side of the door is just modern day, edgy teenage bullshit that I can see anywhere, so ignore that, but the soldier saluting is a brilliant find! This is so awesome! To think, this is a surviving example of how the Soviet Union decorated their barracks. This is history preserved right here, and someday soon it will be destroyed.
So this place was constructed in 1939, and in 1942 the Nazis relocated the army garment office here to avoid the bombs falling on their current base of operations in Berlin. Around 1,300 people worked here, dry cleaning, pressing, ironing and repairing Nazi uniforms, so that they could look their best as they went around invading foreign lands.
In April 1945, the Russians came along, took one look at the Nazi launderette and said "What you doing, bro? That's not how you win a war," and decided to make it into a barracks instead. They moved in the "6th Guards Mechanised Division," who reorganised and became the "6th Guards Motor Rifle Division" in 1957. Curiously their antics included the decorating of their walls with newspapers.
Check it out! Russian newspapers from 1986! "Международн обозрение" means "International Review." I'm not fluent in Russian yet, but it seems to be about politics, between the Soviet Union and America.
The brightly coloured Snowman was to be a recurring doodle throughout the complex. I won't point it out every time I see it but feel free to down a shot when you do.
In 1982 the 6th Guards Motor Rifle Division became the 90th Guards Tank Division. It consisted of various tank regiments, air defence missile regiments, motor rifle regiments and other supporting units. Various regiments always seemed to be coming and going to and from other divisions. I'm not 100% clued up on the organisation of the Russian military, or the organisation of any military for that matter, so while I could go into details on the changes that were made, it would all just be regurgitating information and figures, and it's all rather samey. In 1958 they swapped anti-aircraft artillery regiments with another division. It's just stuff like that. Suffice it to say, this place housed a lot of artillery, and also a lot of Russian soldiers.
Historically, this division in its earlier incarnations saw successes and failures during World War 2, taking part in the Battle of Moscow in 1941 and in the recapture of Mozhaysk from the Germans in 1942. It also took part in the Battles of Rzhev, which accumulated such high losses for the Russians that they referred to it as the Rzhev Meat Grinder. Russian history is starting to fascinate me somewhat, and I'm sure I'll get into it in more depth when I start blogging about locations over there.
In 1961 the Motor Rifle Division added a missile battalion to its ranks, and a year later they launched an Equipment Maintenance & Recovery Battalion. Soon after that another tank battalion was formed. An anti-tank artillery battalion was added in 1968, and a chemical defence battalion in 1972. It was the Cold War after all, so they were preparing for the possibility of war with the west, by making all the progress that scared the crap out of the west, resulting in them preparing for war too. But as we all know, for all that preparation, the war never actually happened. However, if it wasn't for all that preparation, I wouldn't have so many bunkers to blog about, so there is that.
Germany was eventually reuinfied and in 1992 the tank division stationed here moved back to Russia. This place was just left to rot, although there are plans to convert it into around 650 apartments.
The various interior windows around this larger hall make me wonder if this was some sort of dining area for the troops.
Again, quite morbidly, there's a semi-cremated dolls head staring up from the floor. This one actually caught me by surprise because as you can see, its pretty dark! We were navigating with torch light and suddenly we noticed a disfigured human head looking up at us from the floor!
Much of traversing the building involved squeezing through holes in the walls that had been boarded up but then smashed down again. It was almost as if trespassers and the powers that be were keeping this place in a constant flux of accessibility.
I'm quite fond of this. Presumably at one time this was a toilet area, but the tinted glass window is actually made up of glass blocks.
Some graffiti here reads "FCO ist ein hurensohn."
I'm not as clued up on German as I am in Russian, so any German I see has been run through an online translator, which I understand can be a little too litteral sometimes, but this is a pretty basic sentence that means "FCO is the son of a whore." Lovely.
It's nice to see that wall scrawlings retain their eloquence no matter where one travels.
However, unlike your typical graffiti, some of this is actually pretty artistic.
Here's the shower room, where the Russian soldiers all got naked.
We found some stairs that headed both upwards and downwards. We opted for the cellar first.
The cellar, similarly huge and labyrinthian, is actually flooded. I found myself standing precariously on the rubble of the stuff that had been casually flung down here, but unable to go any further.
There's an old bed down here though! Cool!
We made our way to the next floor, but were halted by the unmistakable sound of footsteps treading carefully across the rubble strewn floor of the hallway that awaited us. Human presence. How depressing. Was it security? Urban explorers? The ghost of Hitler searching for someone to iron his spectral hooded cloak? I personally didn't want to find out, and decided to put some distance between me and the mysterious other visitor to these premises. We went up another flight of stairs. Initially we came to a dead end, but a teeny little hole brought us out into the attic.
The attic was huge, and similarly covered in graffiti. As we entered, I listened for the "cooing" of my arch nemesis, the dreaded pigeon. But none were roosting here, thankfully.
We came across this door, with a big cartoon bear holding a notice with Russian text. I realised that this was not graffiti or street art, but more of that vintage Soviet decor. But why did a Soviet barracks have a dopey-looking cartoon bear? Perhaps it would help if I found out what the Russian text says.
Someone has defaced it, much to my annoyance, but at the top it says "Объявление," which means "Announcement," so it's basically the header. Below that it says "Товарищи," which means "Comrades." And then the graffiti obstructs most of it, although perhaps someone fluent in Russian could recognise the words in spite of what has been defaced.
Towards the bottom it looks like it says "носить с собой" which means "Bring with you," and then theres something unreadable followed by "обувь" which is shoes.
So basically this notice is advising people to enter with some specific kind of footwear.
Entering brought me face-to-thigh with this huge giant, dare I say sexy, nightmare clown.
"Art is a game. Still the struggle is real. Lets play." I'm going to assume that the text is part of the clown art, but it could just be a coincidence.
Up above the clown was a doorway with some German text. Something about pigeons and sparrows.
At least the cartoon bear is starting to make sense. This part of the attic is the old gymnasium, and I bet the bear is some kind of sports mascot, telling people to bring appropriate stuff.
A Soviet Military facility having a gym isn't at all unusual. They often gave their workplaces recreational spaces, and lets face it, it's nice to have that sort of job perk. However I do find the placement of the gym in the attic to be quite peculiar.
Up here the Russian soldiers passed the time in between preparing for a war that never came.
I thought at first that this might be some of the original German signage, but the fact that it translates to "Graveyard of Cuddlies," it's fair to say it's graffiti, and has less to do with the Nazis and more to do with all the cuddly toys hanging from the rafters by their necks.
Again, I have to applaud their creativity. At least now we know what Sid got up to after Toy Story.
This is pretty cool. Vintage soviet gym equipment. Or kink furniture. You decide.
There's some pretty cool graffiti up here. It's not particularly artistic but it's better than the poorly drawn genitals that grace the walls of most abandoned places.
"Hell is empty. All the devils are here."
"They want to stay blind and live in their normal fantasy world, so let them?"
I did wonder if these were song lyrics, and maybe they are, but I havent been able to find anything.
Maybe its just a nice little dig at ignorant people.
There's this huge elevator shaft, which would have been used to transport equipment, but that pretty much ended the attic part of this building. It was time to head back downstairs and see if our fellow visitor had gone.
"Life is beautiful when you're lucky."
There's some more gym equipment here, in considerably worse condition.
I'm not sure what this says exactly. I ran it through a translator and it came back long-winded. But translators are pretty flawed, often too literal, and I'm sure it comes across a bit more eloquently when translated properly by someone fluent in German. Google gave me "The motivation to approach the property protected in our society in a visually creative act."
So... it summarises graffiti.
"The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind a touch of Hell."
I'm starting to ponder the meaning behind all this, because it all seems to have the same poetic, whimsical yet dark tone to it. It feels like I'm wandering around some huge immersive art piece and that I'm meant to be concluding something from it.
So, digs at people living in their "normal" fantasy world, a world that is beautiful if you dont mind a slice of Hell. Hell is, of course, empty because all the devils walk among us.
And if you're lucky, life is beautiful. Lucky, I guess, if you're blind and living in a fantasy world.
It feels like I'm on the same train of thought that led me to forbidden tourism to begin with, waaaay back in 2010. It's all about the humans and their silly normality. But normality is just a performance, and maybe the trick to being truly happy is to not conform.
At least that's my interpretation. I'm pretty non-conforming but I dont feel like I've ever had a choice in the matter. Humans are fairly notorious for outcasting people for the crime of being somehow different. They're basically angry kids with a difficult jigsaw puzzle, wondering why the piece wont slot in where they want it to go, but rather than say "Perhaps it goes somewhere else in the picture" they throw the piece away. It's the piece that's wrong, not the person doing the puzzle.
Ooooh we're getting deep with this one. Look, a spider eating a cake!
Look! It's adorable! And I'm guessing by the wallpaper that this was someones office.
There's also a helicopter, carrying what looks like a chandelier.
"Politics is acting for ugly people."
So as you can probably guess from the buildings external shot, there are overhead bridges that connect it to other buildings. However when we got to one, we found it bricked off, which is odd. That's a perfectly good walkway now made into some kind of bizarre exterior decoration. Still theres some cool art here, and someone has written "Cos I got nothing to lose" in big friendly letters.
Someone has also drawn an alien saying "Hi mum" and someone else has drawn the mother alien responding.
Theres a nice view from up here, overlooking the courtyard that once would have had regular tank traffic. But waaaay over in the distance is another walkway to the next building. I wonder if that one is accessible.
Now heres an impressive sight. Rather than write on the walls, they've put up a huge flag that reads "The call that the paradise makes is broken."
I love it. It certainly echoes more of the same sentiment as the graffiti.
But here's something awesome! Buried under the graffiti are Soviet propaganda murals. One side of the doorway shows the weapons, and the military industry. The other side depicts a woman tending to her crops, and the farming industry.
This is amazing! It's a shame these have been defaced, although given the history, the Germans probably aren't too fussed about vandalising Russian murals. Germanys reunification is actually pretty recent, and from what I understand, the period that East Germany had under Soviet control isn't something they look back on fondly.
Success! The other connecting walkway wasn't bricked up!
But the sun was setting, and my battery was low. I knew that there wasn't much more I'd be able to see. Fortunately this block had some amazing street art, and I managed to snap up most of it with what little light remained!
It's not clear because of the lighting, but that's a black couple with their backs to the viewer, in an embrace.
And then there's this loveable little nugget of wisdom. "Love is free. It is not cheap."
This translates to "Paving stones for the Bull Pigs!" But it only rhymes in German. It seems to be written protest to the development of these premises, which have become something of an art gallery.
I'm not sure if this couple hugging is a Soviet mural or street art.
This is pretty cool though. However the best piece in the entire building was this painting of Jack Nicholson framed in a doorway.
How amazing is this???
We made our way back downstairs to ground level. The sun was setting, so we decided to call it a day.
But in conclusion, I'm glad we stopped by this place! Here is where the Nazis had their clothes cleaned, and after that, it's where the Soviets kept their tanks. It's now a gallery of street art but its days are numbered and I am immensely happy to have seen some old Soviet propaganda wall murals before they're torn down and lost forever.
Shame they didn't leave any tanks behind too though!
That's really all I've got. I'd like to go back and see the rest of it, but I doubt it's still there. Next time, I'm going to be looking at an abandoned train station over on the home blog, but back here I'll be covering the location that lured me to Germany in the first place. How exciting. In the meantime, share this blog on your platform of choice, and follow my Instagram, like my Facebook page and follow my Twitter.
Thanks for reading!
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