ENTER THE BUNKER

SJ Naudé writes about how a Nazi-era concrete structure in Berlin became part of his fiction.

WORDS SJ NAUDÉ

WHEN YOU FIRST VISITED BERLIN IN 1999, THE FIRST PLACE YOU WENT TO SEE WAS A BUNKER: THE HOCHBUNKER ON PALLASSTRASSE. Hardly a place that would top most tourists’ list: a concrete colossus, graffiti- and water-stained, partially overgrown with ivy, sitting underneath a block of ’70s social housing – the latter crouching over the grey structure without touching it. You first encountered this structure when watching, as an entranced adolescent, the Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire, in which it features fleetingly. You’d rather not see the film again; its somewhat overblown imagery might impress you less than when you were 17 and easily hypnotised by continental auteurs. The bunker itself, unmediated by film, has, however, never disappointed you. So there you stood, and have stood many times since, witnessing…

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Visi (Digital) - 1 Issue, VISI 92

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