Company Logo - Home Link

How to get to Hitler’s Bunker

Updated: March 11, 2023

This post is a guide to finding the location of Hitler's last bunker in Berlin with a brief history of the bunker.

Today, it is a parking lot in the middle of unremarkable residential apartment buildings. This location is a part of just about every walking tour that covers downtown Berlin. 


HOW TO FIND HITLER'S BUNKER

Firstly, we need to start by stating that you can't find the bunker. It no longer exists.

What you are actually looking for is its former location in the back of the Reich Chancellory Gardens, today a parking lot.

We recommend using this Google map for exact directions to the bunker location.

The bunker location is between Potsdamer Platz and Brandenburger Tor, just a block away from the Holocaust Memorial.

This location is a part of just about every walking tour that covers downtown Berlin. 

Today, you will find some typical 1980's East German concrete slab residential buildings.

The more privileged citizens of the German Democratic Republic, particularly members of the higher administration of the GDR, used to live in these buildings.  

If you come during the day, you will likely find a walking tour group standing in the parking lot, all trying to get a glimpse of an information board.

The board was installed by “Berliner Unterwelten”, which runs the bunker tours

Under the parking lot was one entrance to Hitler’s former bunker, the so-called “Führerbunker” (“Leader’s bunker”).

It's just there, underneath the ground, inaccessible for a good reason. There are, however, other bunkers throughout Berlin, which can be visited on a tour. 


BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BUNKER

What is known today as the Führerbunker was a pair of underground concrete air raid shelters. 

The first was a temporary shelter built for Hitler and his staff in 1936 as part of a project that also called for the creation of a large reception hall for the old chancellery.

By Christoph Neubauer - Christoph Neubauer Verlag (Standbild aus der DVD „Albert Speers Berlin“), CC BY-SA 3.0,

Its roof was 2 meters below the hall. 

The second, and deeper bunker (roughly 9 meters below the gardens), was built in 1944, and this is where Hitler and his staff relocated to as the Battle of Berlin raged on. 

This air-raid shelter was the center of the Third Reich’s government from January 16, 1945, when Hitler retreated into the bunker.

It was used until Mai 2nd 1945, when General Helmuth Weidling, commander of the Berlin Defense Area, surrendered to General Chuikov of the Soviet Army.

The bunker was a highly sophisticated product of German war technology.

ADN-ZB/Archiv Berlin Der sogenannte "Führerbunker" im Garten der im II. Weltkrieg zerstörten Reichskanzlei. Links der Eingang, in der Mitte der Bombenunterstand für die Wache. Aufn. Juli 1947

It had 30 rooms on 2,700 square feet (250 square meters) and several exits, one to the garden of the New Reich Chancellery, where the parking lot is now.

The facility was 5 meters below the surface, which in Berlin also means below the groundwater, so there was a lot of pumping necessary.

The cover and the walls were made of two layers of armored concrete and the ventilation had a filter system against lethal gas.

The bunker was independent of the Berlin grid as it had its own diesel generator.

By Christoph Neubauer - Christoph Neubauer Verlag (Standbild aus der DVD „Der Fuehrerbunker“), CC BY-SA 3.0,

When Hitler arrived in the bunker in January 1945 as the Anglo-American air raids became fiercer, he took with him his adjutants and his staff as well as his closest assistant Martin Bormann.

Eva Braun, Hitler’s companion, joined him in February.

In April, Josef Goebbels, minister of public enlightenment propaganda and head of the NSADP, the Nazi party, in Berlin, arrived with his wife and 6 children.

During the last days of the month of April, Hitler learned about the hopeless situation of the German army and about Heinrich Himmler’s attempts to negotiate with the Western allies.

Von US Army - Stars and Stripes, the official US Army magazine., Gemeinfrei,

Heinrich Himmler was the leader of the SS and at the end of the war, he was an important commander of the army in the Rhine Valley.  

In the early hours of April 29th, Hitler married Eva Braun and then dictated his last will and a political testament to his secretary Traudl Junge.

In his will, he stipulated his body and Eva Braun’s to be cremated and organized his private bequest.

In his political testament, he expressed his intent to choose death rather than 'fall into the hands of enemies'.

He named a new government, namely Josef Goebbels as his successor as the Chancellor of the Reich.

Even though Hitler had always been referred to as the “Führer” (“Leader”), the Constitution of the Weimar Republic of 1919 had never been abolished and his official title was Chancellor of the Reich.

On April 30th, 1945, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun took their lives and were cremated in the garden of the New Reich Chancellery.

Josef Goebbels's term as chancellor was very short: On May 1st, he and his wife Magda Goebbels poisoned their children with potassium cyanide and committed suicide.

The next day, Berlin surrendered and the Soviet Army occupied all government buildings and the bunker.

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-M1204-319, Berlin, Reichskanzlei, gesprengter Führerbunker.jpg

The Soviets tried unsuccessfully to blow up the bunker, but they managed to destroy all the facilities at the surface.

The residential buildings and the parking lot were designed to cover most of the area of the former bunker in the hope that people forget about it.

After the German Democratic Republic collapsed, the idea is rather to discuss things openly.

But also today, there are people such as Wolfgang Benz, a leading scholar on anti-Semitism, opting for total coverage: “There is nothing to remember and nothing to learn”.

In the year 2004, the German movie (with Italy, Russia, and Austria) “Downfall” (“Der Untergang”) about the last days in the bunker was released.

It is based on the memories of his secretary Traudl Junge and the works of a German historian.

At the end of her life, Traudl Junge agreed to talk to the Austrian artist André Heller, who lost Jewish family members in the death camps.

The documentary “Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary” (Im toten Winkel”) is partly integrated into the movie.

Only steps away is Peter Eisenman’s famous Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe.

+++Join us on our pay-what-you-like walking tours of Berlin to learn more!+++

We also offer a free self-guided tour of Third Reich sights in Berlin.  

About The Author

Stephen Pickhardt

Stephen is the CEO of Free Tours by Foot and has overseen the transformation of a local walking tour company into a global tour community and traveler’s advice platform. He has personally led thousands of group tours in the US and Europe, and is an expert in trip planning and sightseeing, with a focus on budget travelers. Stephen has been published and featured in dozens of publications including The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Yahoo, Washington.org, and more.
Updated: March 11th, 2023
Back to Top
cross