page_title: Zoo Tower
section_title: Usage during the war
hierarchical_section_title: Zoo Tower / Usage during the war
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Zentralbild II. Weltkrieg 1939-1945 Flugzeugabwehr auf dem Flakturm am Zoo in Berlin Vierlingsflak der Luftwaffen-Flakartillerie in Feuerbereitschaft. 16.4.1942 Aufnahme: Pilz
context_page_description: The Zoo flak tower was a fortified flak tower that existed in Berlin from 1941 to 1947. It was one of several flak towers that protected Berlin from Allied bomber raids. Its primary role was as a gun platform to protect the government building district of Berlin; in addition, the Hochbunker was designed to be used as a civilian air-raid shelter. It also contained a hospital and a radio transmitter for use by the German leadership, and provided secure storage facilities for art treasures.
  During the Battle of Berlin, it acted as a citadel and by depressing its large anti-aircraft artillery, its garrison was able to provide support for ground operations against Soviet Red Army.
context_section_description: The primary purpose of the Flak Towers was to protect Berlin. Together with the Luftwaffe and a well organised fire brigade, the Berlin flak towers prevented the levels of the aerial attack damage that the RAF and the USAAF expected to occur, and had occurred in other German cities. The RAF Bomber Command had been endeavouring to ignite firestorms in Berlin, but had been unable to do so.
  The hospital facility, within the G tower, was used  to treat wounded soldiers, shipped back from the front line. Luftwaffe ace Hans-Ulrich Rudel had his leg amputated there in February 1945.
  As the bombing continued, the facility was also used to store art treasures to keep them safe. The Zoo tower in particular stored the Kaiser Wilhelm coin collection, the Nefertiti bust, the disassembled Pergamon Altar from Pergamon, and other major treasures of the Berlin museums.
  There had been the option to use the Tower as a command facility for the defence of Berlin, by General Hellmuth Reymann, the Reich  Commissioner in charge of the city's defence effort. Reymann had refused to move his headquarters there. Goebbels' headquarters was inside the tower, though he himself stayed in the Führerbunker in his final days.
caption: German soldiers on quad-mounted 2-cm-Flak, 16 April 1942
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