Sportpalast

Pallasstraße 35

About

The Sport Palace—a famous 1930s sports arena used for cycling races and boxing fights—gained notoriety when Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels called for "total war" here in 1939. Although it survived the bombing raids of World War II, the Sportpalast was eventually knocked down in the 1970s to make way for an enormous council housing block known by locals as the Welfare Palace. Interestingly, the tower block incorporates an enormous Second World War air-raid shelter in its lower floors, as the shelter proved completely impossible to knock down. The shelter was also used as the backdrop for film director Wim Wenders' cult movie Wings of Desire.

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