The heavy load body: Berlin's secret legacy of Nazi city planning!

The heavy load body: Berlin's secret legacy of Nazi city planning!

On March 31, 2025, a striking building in Berlin is reminiscent of the grandiose but deeply problematic plans of the National Socialists: the heavy burden body. The massive concrete cylinder is located at the intersection of Dudenstraße, General-Pape-Straße and Loewenhardtdamm and was built between 1941 and 1942 under the direction of the famous architect Albert Speer, who acted as the main architect for Adolf Hitler. This structure should serve to check the load -bearing capacity of the soil in order to create the basics for a monumental triumphal arch, which should be three times the size of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

The original project was part of a huge urban design project that was started in 1937. Speer's vision provided for a radical redesign of Berlin, including a 7-kilometer long and 120 meter wide north-south axis. Here the triumphal arch was planned as an impressive sign of the power and size of the National Socialist regime at the end of this axis. But the plans were abruptly ended by the Second World War.

meaning and construction

The heavy load body itself has a diameter of 21 meters and a height of 14 meters. It weighs about 12,650 tons and stands on a foundation that measures 11 meters in diameter and is 18.2 meters deep. This cylinder was not only an architectural experiment, but also an important scientific instrument that served to measure the soil reduction, which was caused by the immense weight of the cylinder. These measurements were stopped in 1944 after the war.

The construction costs amounted to 400,000 Reichsmarks, which today corresponds to around 1.69 million euros. Interestingly, the work on the heavy burden body was carried out by French prisoners of war in forced labor camps, which reveals a lot about the methods of the Nazi regime.

historical relevance and monument status

After the war, the heavy burden body was used by the Technical University of Berlin for the data collection for the geological foundations of the city by 1977. A removal of the cylinder was considered, but proved to be impractical due to its massive dimensions and the immediate vicinity of railway tracks and residential buildings. The heavy load body has been a listed building since 1995 and is considered the only visible relic of National Socialist urban planning.

Visitors have the opportunity to visit the monument and take part in tours that usually take place on the first Sunday of the month at 1 p.m. in the nearby Sa prison Papestraße.

The history of the heavy burden body illustrates the ambitions of the National Socialists to convert Berlin into a monumental design capital. The buildings of this era preserved, such as the Olympic Stadium and the Tempelhof Airport, testify to the architectural demands and ideological objectives of the regime, which rejected modern influences and was strongly based on classic styles. The remains of this past, including the heavy burden body, therefore remain not only part of the cityscape, but also a memory of a dark epoch of history. wikipedia explains that ... Tip Berlin informs …