Nazi¹ fortress² becomes tourist attraction

Long considered an ugly Nazi relic³, a half-destroyed concrete fortress in Berlin now has become an addition to the German capital's tourist map.

Since April regular guided tours(有向导的游览) have taken curious visitors into the vast World War II structure to see the turret⁴ interiors and the effect of two failed attempts to blow it up after the war.

It is a part of a growing trend in Germany to show a broader view of the war and include German suffering after years of sole attention to the evils of the Nazis⁵.

Tours pass thick walls that resisted bombs and Russian artillery⁶, bare halls and staircases where civilians⁷ sheltered and deep shafts⁸ which carried anti-aircraft shells from the basement to the rooftop guns seven floors above.

Visitors can also marvel⁹ at technology well advanced for its time. The gun steering¹⁰, for example, was fully¹¹ automated¹². A radar¹³ tower 300 yards away tracked enemy aircraft and fed signals along cables still visible clinging to the walls.

The fortress is one of six that Adolf Hitler ordered to be built in the German capital to defend it from air attack. His command in September 1940 came just days after Berlin came under a three-hour barrage(拦河坝, 堰, 阻塞, (敌军前进的)弹幕射击) from Allied¹⁴ planes.

Hitler himself sketched¹⁵ the form the defenses should take with 120-foot-high turrets¹⁷ and guns at each corner.

Financial constraints¹⁸ eventually limited the number to three fortresses¹⁹, completed by April 1942, although two further structures were built in Hamburg and Vienna.

Each complex(综合性建筑) could hold around 15,000 civilians and their 8 foot-6-inch walls were deemed impenetrable.

The post-war Allied occupiers in Berlin decided²⁰ to destroy most military structures. The British and Russians managed to bring down two of the complexes after several failed attempts.

However, the French were unable to destroy the fortress in their northern Berlin sector²¹, leaving two towers and 1.6 million cubic yards of debris²². The latter was partly landscaped(美化), but the remaining structure has been largely untouched for 50 years.

The Berlin Underworlds Association already runs tours of nearby wartime and Cold War shelters, but preparing the half-demolished air defense¹⁶ fortress for visitors was a task of a different order. It took thousands of hours of volunteer labor²³ to ready the building for show.

The bunkers may not be so well visited as the glass dome²⁴ on the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, but interest is growing. Last year 25,000 visited the site compared to 8,000 in 2001.

 柏林市内有一座已经损毁过半的混凝土堡垒，长期以来它一直被视作令人讨厌的纳粹遗迹，而如今它却成为德国首都旅游地图上新增的景点。

从四月份开始，导游团经常将好奇的游客带往这个巨大的二战建筑物，参观炮楼的内部结构和战后两次想要炸毁它却没有成功的尝试给炮楼带来的影响。

在德国，人们渐渐开始用更宽容的眼光来看待那场战争，其中包括那些多年来专门关注纳粹罪行而痛苦不堪的德国人。

参观纳粹堡垒时，会经过用来抵挡炸弹和俄国大炮的厚墙，曾经是市民们藏身之地的空荡荡的大厅和楼梯，还有很深的坑道，那是用来将防空炮弹从地下室搬到七层上的屋顶，供上面的枪炮使用。

游客们会很惊讶的看到那个年代相当先进的技术，比如全自动的射击操纵装置。300码开外的一座雷达监视塔能够追踪敌机，并能通过至今可见的固定在墙上的电缆反馈信号。

这是阿道夫·希特勒为了保护德国首都免遭空袭而下令修建的六座堡垒之一。1940年9月，柏林遭到盟军长达3小时的空袭。几天之后，希特勒发出了这条命令。

希特勒亲自草拟了防御设施的结构图，图中炮楼有120英尺高，而且每个角落都安有枪炮。

财政紧张最终使堡垒的数量缩减为3个，并于1942年4月完工，尽管此后在汉堡和维也纳又修建了两座同样的建筑。

每座堡垒大约能容纳15000名平民，8英尺6英寸厚的墙壁被认为是难以穿透的。

战后柏林的盟军占领者们决定摧毁绝大多数军事设施。在多次尝试失败后，英国人和俄国人终于推倒了其中两座堡垒。

然而，在北柏林，法国人却没法摧毁这座堡垒，留下了两座炮楼和160万立方码的残骸。后者有部分被人为的修饰过，但残存的建筑已经有五十年没有改变过了。

柏林的“大地联盟”（Underworlds Association）已经开发了新的旅游项目，景点就是附近那些战时和冷战期间留下的防御设施，但是想要把已经毁损过半的防空堡垒呈现在游客面前是一项非同寻常的任务。这座建筑在准备迎接游客之前，需要数千小时的义务劳动。

这座堡垒可能不会像德国国会大厦顶上的玻璃圆屋顶那样吸引众多游客，但人们对它的兴趣正在上升。与2001年的8000名游客相比，去年有25000人参观了这个遗址。