Remnants of Nazi Germany's Concrete Empire

The following clips are of two surviving examples of Nazi Germany's enormous flakturms (flak towers) found in, respectively, Berlin and Vienna. While like most Nazi military structures flakturms embodied the Nazi pursuit of, both literal and metaphysical, borders and boundaries between themselves and their 'enemies', on a more practical level the towers, generally, fulfilled several important roles, including: the principle role of anti-aircraft towers; air raid shelters for up to 30,000 people; storage facilities; and defensive strongpoints. Indeed, the towers in Berlin proved to be impregnable even to the largest Soviet weapons, and provided significant assistance for German troops by using their heavy flak guns in a ground support role.