Beelitz-Heilstätten
HAUNTED BY HISTORY
Everybody and their dog knows about Beelitz-Heilstätten, which is why I hadn’t written about it before. Not everyone has a dog, though. Some have other pets, less inquisitive or knowledgeable than dogs. So this is for the goldfish.
Beelitz is where Hitler and Honecker were treated for injuries/ailments sustained in World War I and East Germany’s last days, respectively.
The huge military hospital complex is abandoned now, shrouded in mystery, haunting, eerie, waiting to see what fate holds for it next…
A swarm of flies rose to greet me on my maiden visit, buzzing about me furiously as if to guard the secrets of the past. I’d just stepped into the flaky corridor, long and well lit by the grace of sunshine and contemporary window frames with glass intact. Glass is not normally intact in such places.
The flies went berserk, in my face, my eyes, my mouth. I tried swatting the fuckers away but there were too many of them, probably still feasting on the flesh of a discarded patient and angry at the rare disturbance.
I had to withdraw from the infuriated cloud and then it struck me: These were no ordinary flies. They were Hitler’s henchmen, his henchflies if you will, guarding the entrance to the site were he was once at his most vulnerable, preserving the stillness and serenity for him, and driving visitors from rooting around in the past where the past had no wish to be disturbed. Fucking Nazi flies.
But damn it, I wasn’t going to be dissuaded by flies, Nazis or not. I regrouped, gathered myself, and plunged through the swarm, swatting wildly even as the fuckers followed me. Eventually they desisted, left me on my way, and returned to gorging on whatever dead thing had been lying in the corridor.
I hurried on, there’s a lot to see. And smell. The smell of disinfectant still lingers in the operating rooms, permeating through the airy corridors, a caustic whiff in sharp contrast to the gentle palettes of old paint flaking off the walls and fantastic window frames. Beelitz’s dusty tiled corridors really are quite beautiful, and the abundance of fading glory and subtle shades make it a photographer’s dream.
It’s not quite forgotten – some of the buildings have been painstakingly restored – but the rest of the site, once home to more than 60 buildings, is in various stages of decay or preservation. I guess there just isn’t enough money to preserve them all, and it’s not something someone will do unless there’s something in it for them.
Its history begins in 1898, when Berlin’s health insurance authority bought around 140 hectares here to build a tuberculosis sanatorium and nursing home. The newly built 600-bed capacity treatment center opened in early 1902, with separate facilities for men and women.
It was expanded over the following years to cater for Berlin’s sickly population, but all the patients were kicked out on August 3rd, 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war, when it was taken over by the Red Cross and 1,525 beds were made available for the new patients.
Hitler was among 12,586 patients to be treated here during the war, the poor blighter injuring his thigh after some inconsiderate buffoon threw a grenade at the Battle of the Somme. I’m sure he wasn’t complaining as he recuperated in nice peaceful surroundings under the supervision of the Beelitz Mädels.
Of course Hitler was a nobody then, so the nurses probably just ignored him and made fun of his Austrian accent. The real heroes were off fighting at the front and not whining in luxurious hospitals. He managed to while away almost two months at Beelitz until December 1916.
The hospital went back to catering for civilians again in 1920 and it underwent further expansion. Another 200 hectares were purchased in 1928 and by the following year there were 1,338 beds available, two-thirds of them for lung treatments.
The next war saw it commandeered to care for wounded soldiers again. Of course, Hitler was a big wig by then, and indirectly responsible for sending new patients back to his old stomping ground. Not that he had been doing much stomping with his gammy thigh.
The Soviets took over after the war, as is their wont. The Red Army took over anything that could be taken over. How they managed to do it all is beyond me.
Beelitz became the largest Soviet military hospital outside the USSR, and they weren’t all that keen to let it go either – they didn’t leave until 1994.
The seriously ill Erich Honecker was admitted here with liver cancer in December 1990, having just seen his country cease to exist. He fled with his wife Margot to Moscow three months later as the vultures of justice began to circle. The Russians returned him, but Honecker’s story is too long to get into here. He died in Chile in 1994.
Beelitz lost its raison d’être with the departure of the Russians that same year. Investors stepped in and duly went bust in 2001. More recently it seems to have fallen into the hands of people who are committed to preserving the buildings somewhat.
Those buildings have seen some heavy shit. In July 2008, Anja, a 20-year-old model was beaten with a frying pan and strangled to death by a fetish photographer, who then had sex with her corpse. It was all part of a sex game apparently, sadomasochism gone wrong.
“Something got out of control there. My client didn’t want that,” the killer’s solicitor said.
It got out of control a few years before that, too, when the “Beast of Beelitz” was on the loose.
He murdered five women and a baby between 1989-91, and tried to kill at least three more – he attacked one woman and left her seriously injured, as were two 12-year-old girls in a separate knife attack. He sexually abused most of his victims.
He was Wolfgang Schmidt, a former police employee, who should have been caught a lot sooner but for the incompetence of his former colleagues. One of the victims was the wife of a Russian doctor working at Beelitz. After killing her three-month old son Stanislaw by smashing his head off a tree stump, he gagged the screaming mother with a bra, strangled her and had sex with her corpse. Must be something in the air.
Schmidt was very tall and had a penchant for pink women’s underwear, earning him the nickname “Rosa Riese” (pink giant). Sometimes he left it at the crime scene. He was eventually caught when two joggers found him masturbating while wearing women’s clothing in the forest.
That was 1991. If the Russians hadn’t enough reasons to leave already with that nutjob hanging around outside…
They left three years later. Some traces remain, like the murals on the walls, graffiti in the attics and the iconic Soviet soldier standing guard outside, but otherwise the ghosts roaming Beelitz have the place to themselves. They like it that way.
LOCATION AND ACCESS (HOW TO FIND GUIDE)
What: Beelitz-Heilstätten, former TB clinic and sanatorium turned military hospital during the first and second world wars, and kept on as same afterwards by the victorious Russians. Hitler and Honecker were its most famous patients but there were plenty of others too.
Where: Beelitz-Heilstätten, 14547 Beelitz, Germany. Simple, huh?
How to get there: You can get a regional train directly from Ostbahnhof, Alexanderplatz, Friedrichstraße, Hauptbahnhof usw. It takes 50 minutes from Alex. Get off at the conveniently named Beelitz-Heilstätten Bahnhof. You’ll know you’re on the right track when you arrive at the train station – it too is derelict.If you turn left when you’re coming out of the station (south east), you’ll find the women’s clinic on your right, and the men’s clinic to your left. That’s the one with the stone-faced Soviet guard out the front. Take no notice of him. He looks severe but he doesn’t move. If you turn right out of the station and take the road in a northwesterly direction, you’ll find the women’s TB clinic on your left and the men’s on your right, where you’ll also find the so called “Whitney Houston House.” Here’s a very handy map that will give you an overview of the complex. And here’s a map of the area so you don’t get lost.
Getting in: Well, this is the thing. Some of the buildings are ridiculously easy to get into, with doors open practically inviting you to enter, while others are securely boarded up and locked making entry very tricky indeed. Most of the locked-up buildings (and better preserved ones) are to the left of the main road. The ones to the right were no challenge at all, apart from the flies. Of course, it’s always the locked buildings that are the most tempting to enter. Why is it locked up? Imagine the treasures inside! So use your discretion. You’re not going to get into all the buildings, but you’ll probably see enough for a satisfactory outing. I crawled around the drainage tunnels under one building hoping to find a way in, only to emerge in another building I’d already explored. On another two occasions I’d to get in through windows, first by balancing on a metal beam over three meter drop, and then by climbing boarding and squeezing in through a gap on top. It’s worth it though. Just make sure if you’re climbing in somewhere, that you’ll be able to climb out again. It’s good, but it ain’t that good.
When to go: Go during the week, when you’re less likely to run into tour groups. If you really wanted to avoid them you could check their site to see when they’re visiting to plan around it.Otherwise go early in the day, giving yourself plenty of time and daylight to explore. It’s not really the place to come for parties at night.
Difficulty rating: 5/10. Getting here is piss easy, getting into some of the buildings easier still, but some of those buildings are stubbornly difficult to get into – if not impossible without actually breaking and entering (very much illegal and in no way encouraged) – which jacks up the difficulty rating a little bit.
Who to bring: Yes, this can be a romantic adventure for those of a romantic nature so certainly bring along your wives, girlfriends, husbands and boyfriends. What the hell, bring them all! It’s certainly a good idea to bring someone along to call for help if you get stuck in a tunnel or a roof collapses on your head.
What to bring: Dirty clothes. Do not wear your Sunday best or (as I did) new shoes (the only pair of shoes I had that did not make me feel like a tramp when I met real humans). But definitely bring dirty clothes. It’s worth it. As usual, bring a camera, a couple of beers and something to eat. There are no shops in Beelitz-Heilstätten so you have to bring your own supplies if you want to avoid going thirsty/hungry. And don’t forget – as I always do – to bring a torch. Scrabbling around in tunnels in the dark may sound like fun but, well, maybe it doesn’t sound like much fun now that I think about it.
Dangers: Again, like in most of these places, some of the buildings are in a sorry state, and you don’t want them falling on you. Use your discretion and be fucking careful. If a building looks like it might collapse it means it might collapse. And as always, be on the look out for wardens, security guards, Polizei and that sort of thing.
Disclaimer
The person referred to as “I” in this post is not necessarily me, nor does “I” refer to anyone in particular. The only thing that can be said in all certainty about “I” is that it’s the letter after “H” in the Roman alphabet. Its appearance throughout this post is probably coincidental. In fact, I, like H, or even this sentence, may not exist at all.
Filed 4/10/2012 | Updated 22/8/2014