Oh What A Time... - #186 Recycled Berlin Buildings & The Invention of Vaseline (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

This week we’re taking a look at buildings which have had an interesting second life in Germany’s capital; East Germany’s Palast der Republik, what became of Albert Speer’s New Reich Chancellery and lastly the Museumsinsel or Museum Island.Elsewhere, there’s lots of chat about chapped lips and final poses (Oh What A Pose?) for archaeologists this week. If you want to add to the conversation: [e-mail] from now on Part 1 is released on Monday and Part 2 on Wednesday - but if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, Whatter Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else. Add free. Plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the O Watertime Group chat. Plus, if you become an O Watertime All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate

where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O Watertime. Hello and welcome to Oh, what a time, the history podcast that asks the question, how on earth would I have achieved my mantle, my status, as having the softest lips in showbiz in the pre-vaseline chapstick or lip-cell age? Now, I don't need to tell Tom and Chris that I've got a lovely set of soft lips, but that is because I grease them up, I cream them up. Well, there we have it.

That's the most unpleasant sentence. ever here. So early in the show as well. I'm quite pleased you corrected greased them up into cream them up. I mean, creaming them up is hardly a godsend. Neither are good. But I just thought, what was happening

if you had dry lips in 1700? Just had to live with it? Fruit? Maybe there's some kind of fruit, not too acidic fruit, might have offered that. What would be like a nice soft fruit? Like a mushed up banana, some of that might be nice.

Or just rubbed in? Well, you've ever seen a monkey with chap? lips. Now, that is a good point. Thank you. And they're outdoors all the time. Well, did you know this? That Vaseline was invented in 1859.

That was the dawn of the Vaseline age. Okay, so we've had nice soft lips for 160 years then. 167 years. Okay. And about 50,000 years before that where humans were walking around with chapped lips. Which lends further credence to my point that if I went back in time on the one day time machine, I'm not in a snogging mood. People are not cleaning their teeth.

They're not flossing. And now we know that their lips are husks. Horrible rough lips. Also, I'm married as well. That's the other reason. It'd be like kissing pebble dash. Exactly. But this is, this is the good night sweet art conundrum. If you went back to 65 million

years ago, Tom, and got off of the velociraptor, are you cheating on Claire? Well, firstly, it's the last thing I ever do. Yeah. So the information is not getting back to her. That's true. As I lean in and the Veloceraptor opens its mouth, I know I've made a mistake.

Unless you both get fossilised and then you get discovered by an archaeologist snogging a voluctor. Yes. What a way to be discovered. It's a human skeleton snogging a velocir-uropter skeleton. Let me give you this situation, Ellis. The people of Pompeii live in their lives. There's a married couple, Barbara and Jeff. Barbara goes away for the weekend during that weekend the eruption of Pompeii.

Jeff is snogging his sidepiece. And when Barbara returns to the remain, she finds Jeff's frozen in a lover's clinch. Is she heartbroken or is she thinking, well, that's justice. I would say, and I think this is completely understandable, her emotions are mixed. Yes. She's probably lost her house.

Her husband has been fossilised. as has his infidelity. I mean, one an enormous thing to land on your plate. Here's a question that I don't think anyone's been asked before. Okay, you're in Pompeii, in ancient Rome. You see the volcano erupting. You know you've got one second to choose the pose in which you're going to remain for all eternity

until discovered by future archaeologists. What pose are you going for? Oh, the pose bodybuilders used to shore fill that. Are you pushing mud onto your stomach It suggests that you're better built as well Because that will be I want to be the most ripped fossil in history What about the pose that Bruce Forsyth used to open

The Generation game with? Oh yeah, the sort of thinking man pose Yeah I think I'm just going I want to give a sort of learned impression So I'm going big open book But for people who like a laugh

And if they're particularly observant They'll notice that book is upside down So both worlds are being served. People can say he died as he lived. Making a joke, certainly not reading a book. It's a very good question. Let's ask our listeners, what pose would you take? Let's say the ash cloud is descending.

You've got about 15 seconds to take to strike a pose. What are you going for? I'm interested. Do get in contact with the show. And actually, the subject of Pompeii. Well, what a pose? Oh, what a pose? But actually, the subject,

of Pompey is perfect in regards to what we're discussing today, isn't it? The ruined city. No chance of it being brought back to life. However, in today's episode, we are going to be talking about recycled buildings. That's what we're going to be talking about. Well, I've got, can I just say my issue with that link? Like Pompeii is a ruined city and today it is a ruined city. Well, that's my point. I'm saying unfortunately Pompeii had no chance to be recycled. Oh, I see. Okay. It's the of a good link. Ours is a far more optimistic look on the world. Okay, fine.

So today we're talking about buildings that got recycled for different purposes. I like as Tom says, Pompeii, which is a ruined city now, as it was then. What are you guys going to be talking about today? So I've actually got personal experience of what I'm talking about. So it's the big question of whether Hitler's Berlin Chancery, the Reich Chancellery, the new Wright Chancery, as it was recycled for the stone recycled, for Soviet War memorials. There's been debate raging on this for years,

and Dr. Daryl Leworthy, our historian, provides the definitive answer this week. I am going to be discussing what happened to a lot of East German buildings after the Wall Kingdom. And I'm also going to be taking it to Berlin to talk about the renewal of a sort of rather unusual museum and a fascinating backstory

which is about World War II and the renewal of Berlin generally. But before we get into that, how about a little bit of correspondence? Does that sound good? Perfect. Yes, please. So, you sent us some correspondence, have you? Well, let's take a look at you then. Our first email today is from Justin Hales, and it says, bridge painting comedy legend.

Now, I think it was the last episode I talked about, we did an episode on awful jobs from the past, basically, and I talked about the experience of being a bridge painter and how difficult. difficult this would be. Well, Justin has an interesting fact regarding a celebrity. Now, do you, are you aware of a hugely well-known celebrity who worked as a rigour and bridge painter previously? Are you aware of this? He was an actor, yes. Do you know who this is, Chris? Is he American? He's not American. Okay, I'll tell you what it says here. Hello, Little Legends. A full-timer here and subscriber from day one. Justin, thank you very much. Following on from your fantastic episode on Tough Gigs,

I thought you would be interested to know that Paul Hogan, the comedy legend, from here in Australia, started his career as a rigour and bridge painter on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Wow. So that's Paul Hay. Crocodile Dundee.

Exactly, Paul Hogan from Crocodile Dundee. After being told by his bridge painting buddies, he was hilarious. He entered a new talent competition called New Faces on Aussie TV, a path that would lead him to creating Crocodile Dundee, being nominated for a BAFTA award, winning a Golden Globe Award,

and hosting the Academy Awards. Anyway, love the show. Keep making great stuff. Love from Australia, Justin Hales. So there you go. Isn't that amazing? So Paul Hogan did this job that we all agreed none of us would be cut out for,

painting huge bridges and building huge bridges around Australia. What a sort of unusual move into acting that is. Well, there you go. Paul Hogan, bridge painter. Great fact. Thank you very much. And thank you for signing up from day one and being a supporter from the off, Justin.

We really appreciate your support. Anyone else has any facts they want to send our way. Well, can I just throw one your way? Yes, please do. A celebrity who had an interesting job. Steve Busemi, the actor, was a firefighter. He was a firefighter. He volunteered during 9-11, I think.

That's it. Really? I've always found that quite interesting. So Paul Hogan Bridgepain said there must be more celebrities with interesting, maybe tough jobs. Yeah. I think part of the attraction of Crocodile Dundee, of Paul Hogan was that he had had a normal life.

Yes. And every man. Yeah. So he wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't like Miley Cyrus. This is that, what I'm about to say is going to sound dumb. But I, I find it hard to believe Paul Hogan was playing a character. I don't think he was acting. Yeah. They actually looked at what he was really like. He said, Paul, you need to tone that down a bit and then we can do crocodile dungeon. They just put cameras on him for three months

and then they cut a film together from footage. I've got a few unusual career paths for household names here if you're interested. I won't do too many because people might want to send in their own. Christopher Walken, do you know what he did? This is a good game. Something to do with horses. He was a lion tamer. Wow.

In a travelling circus at just 16 years old. There you go. Whoopi Goldberg. Was he actually a nun? Yeah. It's going to be my guess. Not a nun. Although Church would have come into it,

she was a beauty technician and morgue cosmetician prepping bodies for burial. Oh, wow. There you go. Let's do one more. Let's go for, oh, he's a good one here. I like this one here.

What was Rod Stewart? Was he, was an amateur footballer? He was on the books at Arsenal, I think, at one point. Well, that is not what's here. The iconic rock star made ends me early on by working as a grave digger at Hivegate Cemetery in London. Yeah. Wow.

I reckon I could be a grave digger. I just think I could just get on with it. And also, you're not attending the funeral. So it's not, I think being an undertake would be quite depressing, wouldn't it? Yes. But just dig in the hole. I mean, obviously, in the UK, seven months of the year,

you're going to be wet. So you need a decent, you know, a decent set of waterproofs. But yeah, I think I could do that. Apparently the pub that serves the best Guinness in the world is a pub called the Grave Diggers in Dublin. And it's called the Grave Diggers because it would be open all night. long so that the grave diggers in the middle of their shift could go there and have a pint of Guinness and then go back to digging graves.

I always like the fact that the pubs near Borough Market in London are open at about 5am so that market traders can have a pint because they've often been working for hours by that point. I always think, yeah, I'm not my. I never want a pint at 5am. You're getting an easy jet flight from London Luton or you can work in all night. Barrowmark. My pint window, I would say, is between 8pm and midnight. That's it.

So past midnight, I need to start having smaller drinks before heading home. And before 8pm, I'm going to fall asleep if I have a pint, basically. So it's a very small window on which I can have a pint. That's it. You can never be a market trader. Absolutely. I'm also not convinced you'd be a good grave digger, incidentally, Ellis, before we get into the proper history.

I know you've said that with confidence that you just get on with it. but what makes you think you'd be good at that at digging a massive hole in time for a service to end? I'm very motivated under tight deadlines. Okay. And imagine the hearse turning up and I haven't finished digging the grave. And it's too shallow. I just don't think I could let people down like that.

This is how I'm imagining. I'm imagining it. You're stood in the hole hurriedly digging it and then you dig it past a point where you can get out again. again. I know you're stuck in the grave waiting for the... There's that awkward moment

where the coffin arrives and you're looking up from the hole saying, I'm sorry, can somebody get me out? Yeah. I'd be a grave digger if I had a grave digging

power with me. I wouldn't do it on my own. Oh, yeah. You've got to have a podcast on. You've got to keep the banter up. I'd be too scared to be on my own. Alone in a graveyard overnight.

I couldn't do that. Well, Ross Stewart would be quite fun, wouldn't it? Yeah. Can he use hopes and dreams. about how he's going to be a massive rock star and you're saying, of course you are, Rod. Stop singing, Rod.

What a gravey ass. It's inappropriate. Right. If you want to get in contact with the show about any thing that you've heard so far, here's how. All right, you horrible luck. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show.

You can email us at hello at oldwattetime.com. and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh What a Time Pod. Now clear off. Okay, one of the benefits of subscribing to our show on Patreon is yes, sure. You get early release episodes, two bonus episodes every month. But the most important benefit, if you are an Oh What Time All-Timer is, we will figure out where in history you may have been based on your name. This week we have Andrew Gardner.

Gardner by name? Yeah, that's what I think just got out of the Gardner in just insert a year, 2006. There you go. Well, you know, Andrew Gardner sounds like Secretary of Defence, doesn't he? Yeah, no, that's good.

2009. Yeah. But there was not a lot going on. He's the person who took the Harriet Jump Jet out of sort of commission. And you're like, they were useful in battle as Harriet Jump Jet. What happens in them?

Andrew Gardner got rid of them. Andrew Gardner got rid of them. Oh, yes. He was, Very briefly at the Foreign Office. Responsible for huge cuts to the Ministry of Defense budget. All these years later, they're still not recovered from. Yeah, the Gardner cuts, Gardner's Axe.

It also sounds to me a bit like the real name of someone who's in a boy band who is normally referred to as something like... Abbs. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, fun fact, Abbs' real name is Andrew Garland. Andrew Gardner. Exactly.

He's got a lightning strike sort of shaved into it. And his mum and dad refer to him as Andrew. His dad is a vicar. And his mother is a dinner lady at the local primary school. More abs, facts.

Andrew Gardner also feels like someone go, do you remember Andrew Gardner? And you go, I think I... Big Brother, too? I think I remember. It's a sort of name that you sort of vaguely you feel they might have been in your past.

And that applies to everyone. And nobody can confidently say they didn't know Andrew Gardner. Yeah, I think, did he was in second. Yeah, blonde kid, secondary school. If you had to check into a hotel under a fake name, it's a great name, Andrew Gardner. Yeah, that's a really good one. And no one's got a question or remember Andrew Gardner, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a good name. That's a great, yeah, brilliant fake name. So much better than Betty Boo. Or abs. Or abs, exactly. So there you are, Andrew. You can choose. You can be someone who can go undercover in a B&B in Britain.

Or you can be an ex-boy band member. Or what was it? Secretary of State. Is that what you work with Scalph? Yeah. Secretary of State for Defence. There you go. It's a name that does everything.

If you want us to riff on your name and decide where you're from from history, then you can sign up to our patron and here's how. Hello again, you horrible lot. Enjoying the show. Well, why not show the love by becoming a Patreon supporter today? For a mere handful of farthings, you can get ad-free shows, two bonus subscriber episodes each month, access to all the past bonus eps, first dibs on live tickets, and even help decide what subjects the boys cover next. Your support makes everything possible, so sign up today at...

Patreon.com slash oh what's the time or oh what's the time.com. What are you waiting for? Stop dawdling. Right, this week we are talking about recycled buildings. Gentlemen, what will you be telling us all about? I'm talking about buildings that had been part of the East German communist regime or what happened to them. I'm going to be talking about the renewal of an unusual museum in Berlin and a group of women who did something genuinely incredible after World War II. Let's start with Albert Spears's New Reich Chancellery, the HQ of the Nazi Third Reich. Have you boys been to Berlin?

It's my favourite city in the world. I've never been to Berlin. I was made to go to a stag in Berlin, but it was the week my daughter was born. And so, like, the great guy I am, I decided to be with my wife when she went into labour as opposed to my friend Simon Staggdo. So no.

And also Wales failed to qualify for Euro 2024, which was the other time I was going to get to go to Berlin. So no, sadly not. So I have been to Berlin and I absolutely love it. I think it's just one of the great cities. There's just so much history and so much to be enjoyed. It's a brilliant city.

Great food. Massive parks, which you can cycle around. And it's just great. It's a really cool place. Go to Berlin if you haven't been, a fantastic place. I think one of the really cool things about Berlin as well is like you just go on a walk in random direction, don't even look at the map and you'll come across something like a striking symbol of the 20th century. You'll see bullet holes in buildings. You'll see amazing monuments. And one of the most... I think also it's fair to say it's gone from strength to strength

since the Nazis have left as well, which has been good. I think that's been a really good thing for the city. You know, and it's like in the way that London 2012 was like the limit. picks was massive for London. Hitler dying and the Nazis leaving was really good for Berlin. An absolute net positive I think. And that's not just Tom who thinks out, that's everyone at the O'Whorter Time team. Actual historians back that up as well.

Kicked off a real period of renewal. Completely. So one of the big claims, and this is actually when I first went to Berlin, it was something I was really interested to see for myself. And I actually thought it was completely true. as we'll hear, it's not necessarily. The claim repeated was that Albert Spears' New Right Chancellery,

the big HQ that Hitler had built. When it was knocked down and demolished after the Second World War, they took the red marble and granite that had been used in it, and the Soviets recycled it into post-war monuments. They also used it in Yuvan stations, even supposedly they took some back to Russia and put some in the Moscow metro. But how much of this is actually true?

And again, I think when I first went to Berlin, It was like, 2008. This was again in the Lonely Planet Age. Oh, of course. Yeah. When that was, for some reason, I didn't think to check any of this on the internet. It came almost exclusively from Lonely Planet Guides. That would be a weird question to have to ask is your side returns being completed saying,

can I just ask, are these Nazi bricks? Where have these come from? Before you finish that wall, can you just tell me the backstory? Let's go back to why Hitler built it. So there was an original old Reich chancellery on Wilhelmstrasser and in the heart of Berlin's Mitter district, which dated back to Imperial Germany. And this old right chancelry had been used once

by figures like Otto von Bismarck. But in 1938, with Germany under Nazi rule, Hitler, and as we covered recently, actually people would have heard recently an episode we did actually a year ago, which was like the Hitler biography, the review that I did. You will know having listened to that, that Hitler was an enormous narcissist, and that narcissism extended to the architecture of the Reich he wanted to build.

And so Hitler wanted a building worthy of his 1,000-year empire that he was building. So he got his favorite architect, Albert Speer, to design something brand new. And that result was the New Reich Chancellery, which was an enormous structure. And it was intended to project power and ultimately to be really intimidating. And it's a great thing to Google, because you can see, It's so obvious what he's trying to do, create a structure that just dominates you, huge doorways and just overbearing architecture. So you had the New Wright Chancery and the Olderite Chancery,

and they were linked by a large garden. And later in the war, under this garden, would be dug the Furibunker, which is the underground complex where Hitler would eventually kill himself in 1945. When I first went to Berlin, we just got a random, whatever, the 2000. equivalent of Airbnb was, like a random apartment. And I got there that night and I was like, right, I'm going to look out, look where all the big things I want to see, like walk around and try and figure out where everything would have been in the Second World War.

And when I got my map, I realized that the flats I was staying in were built by East Germany on top of the old Furo bunker. Wow. And that's what they actually did. Where he died? Yeah. It was actually famously, if you've ever been to Berlin and seen where the Furebunker was, there's just a signpost outside, like some signage.

And there's some flats behind that signage. And that's where I was saying it was right over the top. And they did that on purpose because they wanted to turn that, rather than have that area turn into like a site of pilgrimage for future Nazis. They wanted to make it as anonymous as possible. Wow. The whole area where the Wright Chancer was and the New Right Chancery and the Fuhrer bunker is just like a random housing estate with like a Chinese restaurant underneath.

You know, the Nazis refer to the Third Reich as the thousand-year Reich, because he wanted a thousand-year-long empire, which, I mean, as far as politicians, it's pretty ambitious, isn't it, to be empowered. You've got to back yourself, haven't you? I mean, you know, nowadays, in the, in British politics, you get people saying, well, you need two terms to enact proper change, which is eight, you know, eight or nine years. It's a bit like when Arsenfengar was manager of Nagoya Grompersites in

in Japan. Did he say he wanted a 1,000 year, right? This is an absolutely incredible link already, Ellis, by the way. No, no, but he was told by the chairman of the club that he was part of a 100-year plan. What is happening in years 90 to 100? Yeah, you were for West Ham. Dracking the funds would cope with the ownership saying, no, it's fine, but in 90 years' time,

we're going to have a team that is definitely ready to challenge for the Premier League. His first signing was a three-month-old from Senegal, wasn't it? So Hitler's building the new Reich Chancery. His brief to Speer was like, there's no budget, spend as much money as you want, but the building must be solid and you have to finish it on time. So Spear employed around 4,500. workers laboured around the clock in shifts and finished 48 hours ahead of schedule,

having spent over, in modern terms, 500 million euros. That is hilariously close. He must have been getting a bit nervous. Getting towards that deadline, the Hitler said, it has to be done on time and you're two days away. Are you stressed, Albert? Have you seen my fucking boss? The guy with a little moustache.

Yeah, him. The really angry guy. He's not chilled. Yeah. So this building was intended to last for centuries, maybe even a thousand years. It lasted for six. Started construction in 1939. It's gone by 1945. But right at the tail end in April and May, 1945, during the final catastrophic Battle of Berlin. So was it destroyed by bombs? Is that what happened, basically? Yeah. So the New Reich Chancery was almost entirely destroyed in the Battle of Berlin. So the Soviets were shelling windows, the collapsed ceilings. large sections of it were reduced to rubble

but the husk of the building you can still see pictures of it at the end of the war. It was relatively there but it was large, you couldn't occupy it. It was just absolutely smashed. Yeah. So, but when the war ended, the site lay in the Soviet zone of occupation.

The one thing Hitler couldn't occupy. It was his own building. He set out to occupy all of Europe. He didn't, not even the right chance or he by the end. The Red Army completed what the war had begun. The structure was level. and the rubble cleared, and it's from this moment that the recycling stories began. So the two most famous claims about what happened to the rubble of the Wright Chancery

involve great Soviet war memorials in, firstly, at the Tiergarden in central Berlin, and Tremtower Park in the city's east. Both the story goes were built from the Chanceries, marble and granite. However, testing tells a different story. So the stone at Treptower Park has been analysed and did not come from, the right chancery. So that part of the myth is simply wrong. And actually that's the one, I don't know if you've been there, but this is an enormous Soviet war memorial. It's like gardens that stretch on and on. There's huge statues in the middle of them. And I think I'm right

in saying there's actually some red marble used in that. And I remember from my lonely planet guide that, oh, that red stuff is rumoured that that's the stuff that's come from the right chancery. But testing says that it didn't come from the right chancery. Okay. But there's also, the Soviet War Memorial in Tiergarten and this one is harder to pin down because some of its stone was almost certainly repurposed from the rubble of the bombed out Berlin but no one knows for certain

if that rubble came from the chancery itself it may be in there frustratingly but we don't know for certain however there is an interesting truth lurking behind all of this which is that the Nazi regime had for some time been quarrying and

stockpiling vast quantities of stone for an even more ambitious project, Wilter haupstout Germania, which was Hitler's plan to rebuild Berlin as the world capital of the Third Reich. Do you've ever seen the film Downfall? There's a scene right at the start of the film where he's pouring over these grand plans for how he creates the world capital in Berlin. So they actually had a lot of that stone quarried already. It was being stockpiled for this future vision of the capital that was never built.

But the stone was there, and it came from quarries across Germany, from Lower Saxony, Solberg, Rudersdorf, and even from Sweden as well. Much of it was hewned by forced labourers from the concentration camps at Saxonhausenhausen, Buchanvold and Matthausen. When the war ended, the Red Army took control of these huge stockpiles, and it was this stone quarried for the Reich that never finished being built. That's the stone that the Soviets used in their memorial. There is an element of truth to this myth in that the stone intended for Nazi Berlin really did end up in Soviet monuments. It just wasn't the stone that had already been built into the Chancery first. So from the Soviet perspective, the symbolism was deliberate,

the message unmistakable out of the rubble of the evil of Nazism, we are building our future. But in the West, the story took a different shape as the Cold War began to deepen. It became politically convenient to talk about Soviet monuments as a continuation of Nazi architecture, i.e., you've got one dictatorship melting into the next. And the recycled chancery story kind of fit that narrative neatly and might be one of the reasons why it ran on so rapidly.

And this is also one of the reasons why it's been so hard to shift. But there's another interesting element of Nazi architecture that has genuinely been recycled. And for that, we have to leave Berlin and go to Bordeaux. because between 1941 and 1943, the Germans built an enormous submarine base on the French Atlantic coast,

and one of the five along that coast designed to protect the U-boat fleet from Allied air attack. And the Bordeaux Penn could house 11 U-boats side by side behind walls of super-thick, reinforced concrete, and it was so thick, designed that way so that Allied

bombs couldn't even scratch them. And after the war, as anyone who's been to like the northern and western coast of France will see, there's a lot of these Nazi infrastructure is still knocking around because it's simply too big and too solid to be demolished and so it remains to this day.

And actually, the Nazi submarine base in Bordeaux was reopened as La Basins de Lumiers, which is the world's largest digital art gallery in June 2020. I went there last summer. Did you? Did you? Yeah, yeah, I was in Bordeaux last summer.

It's an absolutely extraordinary building. It's huge. And that's it, look like a submarine base? That's exactly what it looks like. It looks like something from a war film. It's so I, so describe it. What does it work then?

It's obviously on the sea front, obviously. Yeah. Is it like, how does it work? I was there with some family friends who thought that it was closer than it was. So we walked it, which took about half an hour. And yeah, the kids were getting a bit grumpy by the time we got there.

But it's so big, you can see it from miles away. And it's just this. enormous, really imposing submarine base, submarine bunker. So from the outside, it looks, I wouldn't say it looks derelict, but coming towards it, it just looks like a relic from the Second World War,

but then you get around the other side to the entrance. Yeah. And it's this huge sort of, it's very digital, sort of, there's lots of digital projections of, you know, various artists' work and things. It's a really, really impressive place. And I came away from it feeling quite positive that the French decided to do something very positive with such a, like a vile aspect of their history. It's enormous. Like it is absolutely massive.

And I thought, I thought it's quite a, quite a cool thing to do with something like that. Absolutely. But I don't know what they were doing with it before 2020. Chris? I don't have the answer to that. But I guess like so many, I mean, I've been to Normandy. like so much of that Nazi infrastructure, like the watchtowers and like the bunkers,

you can still see them around there. And even in the South Coast of England, I remember growing up, I went to scouts. We used to stay in campsites down the south of England and used to still see watch posts and things like that. Yeah. And we were in holiday, we were on holiday near Bordeaux last summer.

There's loads of them on the beach, those sort of Nazi watchtowers and things, which are now often just full of sand and pebbles. and things. You can climb into them. They're still there. They're sort of, you know, because it's less than 100 years ago.

They're still in relatively good condition. So it's quite creepy. And when you climbed into them, were you pretending to be on the Allied side? What were you planning to do? I did a bit of both. What voice were you putting on, Ellis? Because this is crucial.

Just a little bit of both. A little bit of both. You be on one side, your kids on the other. That's genuinely fascinating. And you are right, Ellis. There is something, and I think you said it as well, Chris. about that choice to breathe hope and renewal into something which is so awful. Yeah.

Or at least it comes from a regime which is so awful. Yeah. That's an admirable choice, isn't it, to do that? And it's amazing. I love the fact that it's now come this place of art and expression and all this sort of stuff. I mean, obviously, if it was up to me, it would be an enormous podcasting. There'd be 100,000 mics in there, just people podcast. constantly around the clock.

Was walls thick enough that Netflix and all the rivals cannot stop us? Yeah. Walls thick enough which meant that none of it could be sent via weed transfer to anyone because the internet was absolutely impossible to use. That was genuinely fascinating, Chris. What an interesting...

Yeah, it's fascinating. One more thing about Berlin and the Fuhrer bunker, which is the underground bunker where Hitler killed himself. So the Soviets after the Second World War, Again, this is a Nazi megastructure that couldn't be destroyed. They tried to blow it up, but basically because this was where it was going to protect the Nazi top brass towards the end of the war, by its very nature, it was almost indestructible. And after the Second World War, the Soviets were able to kind of blow the roof off.

But because they couldn't destroy all of it, they just kind of just filled it in with that bit of water and just buried the whole thing. So it's still under there to this day. And I know they didn't want to turn it into a shrine, but as this is the plot, place where the Second World War came to a close. Isn't that just a fascinating part of history that's kind of underground? I don't know what you'd do with it. But if it was a museum, wouldn't you want to go see that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I think that the Second World War was such a harrowing experience. That I think, you know, a lot of our international institutions came out in the Second World War. because there was this enormous feeling from the general public and also from politicians that it couldn't happen again

and that you needed to start the global order again to prevent another, you know, a third world war but so you just didn't want any reminders of it and you didn't want to create things that could lead to Nazi martyrdom. Turning into a shrine. And I think that, yeah, and I think that now, you know, 80, you know, over 80,

years later, I think we've got a slightly different, we have a slightly different perspective, but certainly I understand it back then. It's interesting, isn't it? I think that art gallery is a great example of, like, how do you deal with these buildings at the pile? Like, how do you breathe new life into them? Is it even possible? And in some cases, yes, it is.

It's fascinating, isn't it? How we deal with this? Very briefly, what was your point you made there, Chris? Because I must admit, I was thinking about a joke about Ellis blowing the roof off, and I wish I couldn't quite make work. so I missed and then I agreed to something and I hadn't realised I didn't know what I'd agreed to so what was it you'd said?

You'll have to listen back Tom. No, I do want to know. I just want to check that I haven't agreed to something I really shouldn't agree with. You've agreed to something absolutely terrible. I said the furibunker, the infrastructure in which Hitler killed himself, was just buried under the ground

and like, that was intentional. But wouldn't, it's such a famous historical relic that should it be opened up into a museum? No, I'm. I'm all for, I'd actually like to retract my year from earlier and replace it with, no, I'm glad it's been, it's been buried. I think it's one of those places that I wouldn't, as you say, is that that worry it becomes a shrine and a mecca for people who, you know, agree with those viewpoints. And I think it's a sort of, yeah, it's what a certain things I think are our best forgotten and moved on from. And that is not a place.

Well, unfortunately, much like Mastermind, I must take your first answer. Imagine if Dominic Sunbrook said that on the rest of his story Sorry, mate, I was just thinking about a pun What was that? Did you, Julius Caesar did what? I was actually, and it's just the only thing that could blow the roof off Is you doing stand-up And isn't it great that you're doing the Royal Albert Hall

And I was going to give you a chance to plug your gig? Oh, yeah, it's all positive. It's just so funny that you weren't listed as Chris's opinions on Nazis. It happened to be about Hitler. It's a very good point. Okay, next time, when we're talking about Nazi Germany, I have to listen. That's the end of part one.

If you want part two, right now you can get it plus bonus episodes as well. Head to patreon.com forward slash oh water time or we'll see you on Wednesday. Bye. Oh, what's time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else. Add free plus access to our full. archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets, and access to the Oh What a Time group chat.

Plus if you become an O Water Time All-Timer, myself Tom and Ellis will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash oh what a time.