Borsig Palace

In 1933 it became the residence of Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, where dramatic scenes relating to the Night of the Long Knives would play out just one year later.

Statues of Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, James Watt, George Stephenson and Karl Friedrich Schinkel were positioned in niches on the upper floor to symbolize technological progress.

During this period the building was also referred to as the "Reich complaint unit," since von Papen and his closest associates formed a conservative resistance group to Nazi dictatorship.

[3] During the "Night of the Long Knives," a purge of Sturmabteilung (SA) leadership, Hitler took the occasion to have various other political opponents arrested or executed.

Bose, the Vice-Chancellery press secretary, was forced into a conference room – allegedly to be interrogated – and shot from behind ten times as he took a seat.

[6] In 1937 Speer was commissioned to build the enormous New Reich Chancellery, which was to take up the entire block, including the corner of Voßstraße and Wilhelmstraße where the Borsig Palace stood.

The entire complex was severely damaged in World War II, first by Allied bombing and then subsequent fires in the Battle of Berlin.

Today, the former grounds of the Palais Borsig and the nearby Führerbunker, are occupied by nine-storey apartment blocks, a Chinese restaurant, and a parking lot (pictured).