In 1930, an ultra-modern high-rise grew on what was then Hamburg's largest construction site - today's Brahms Kontor. The client is a folkish anti-Semitic trade union. Offices are still located there today.
by Dirk Hempel
In the summer of 1930, Hamburg's largest construction site is in full swing. Viewers feel transported to Chicago or to New York. Opposite the music hall, Europe's tallest steel skeleton building is growing, with eight elevators, its own pneumatic tube system, telex and telephone switchboard. Light-flooded open-plan offices for around 1,000 employees and magnificent lounges in the Art Deco style are being built on hundreds of square meters. The twelve-storey building will be more than 50 meters high, its front on the Holstenwall, which integrates an existing administration building, measures 230 meters. One of the most modern office buildings of the time is being built here.
The client is the reactionary DHV
But the developer of the high-rise is a politically backward-looking group:the German National Clerks' Association (DHV), a ethnically anti-Semitic white-collar workers' union with more than 300,000 members that accepts neither Jews nor women. The DHV also has its own business school, savings bank, health insurance company, insurance company, housing association and employment agency. The union is one of those anti-democratic mass organizations that not only look after the needs of their members, but also fight the Weimar Republic politically and culturally. In doing so, the DHV uses the most modern means, including lobbying and the use of the media.
"Only books by purely German authors"
After the completion of its German headquarters in March 1931, the DHV also accommodated its culture and press department on Holstenwall. It consists of publishing houses in which well-known authors from the right-wing spectrum such as Ernst Jiinger and Hans Friedrich Blunck publish. Magazines and the "Deutschnationale Buchhandlung" are also part of it. A book club sells, as one advertisement pithy announces, "only books by purely German authors who are rooted in healthy, strong German culture." They carry titles such as "Nordic blood revenge" or "The North Germans". Training spreads the reactionary ideology of the DHV.
Trutzburg or "un-German" architecture?
The brick colossus on the Holstenwall with its austere facades and sculptures by well-known Hamburg artists is "a symbol of the power and size of the DHV", as the press stated at the time, a "citadel of the conservative revolution". Even if the members do not hide the borrowings from artistic and technical modernity, the steel skeleton is reviled as "un-German", for example, the management of the right-wing workers' organization presents its headquarters as a "memorial and landmark of the world of ideas" of the DHV, as a "fortress". , in which one also believes in a future savior of Germany. Architectural experts, on the other hand, praise the modern combination of the "Gothic formal spirit" with a new objectivity, and see parallels with the Hamburg Kontorhaus architecture of the early 1920s.
Despite the expectations of its leaders, the DHV was dissolved during the National Socialist period and the high-rise was left to the NS organization Deutsche Arbeitsfront. It was largely spared from the Allied bombing raids during World War II. That's why the British occupying power used the building after the capitulation, before the new Hamburg police headquarters moved in.
Klettermaxe and Helmut Schmidt make headlines here
A room of historical importance. During the great storm surge of 1962, the crisis team of the police authority worked here under the direction of Helmut Schmidt.The high-rise hit the headlines again in 1953 when "Klettermaxe", a well-known film artist, hung on a large Hamburg flag on the ninth floor. The crowd disperses in shock when the flag tears down. But the stuntman saves himself with a swing into the open window. During the devastating storm surge in February 1962, the then Senator for the Interior, Helmut Schmidt, directed the largest aid and rescue operation in the Federal Republic from here, held briefings in the so-called senators' room, ordered military helicopters, and directed the fire brigade and police.
From the DAG building to the Brahms office
The stairwell of the office building presents itself as magnificent and inviting.Since 1956, the former DHV headquarters has belonged to the German Employees' Union (DAG). Today, an asset management company is marketing its successor organization, ver.di, under the name "Brahms Kontor" as an office building. The mighty brick building is known to many Hamburgers to this day as the former DAG building. In fact, apart from its location on Johannes-Brahms-Platz, the building has nothing to do with the famous composer.
As an example of the outstanding architecture of the Weimar Republic, the building has been a listed building since 2003. Between 2005 and 2012 it was extensively renovated, partially gutted and rebuilt on the inside, and since then it has once again shone in the splendor of art deco lights and magnificent colored tiles.
The Brahms Kontor also serves as a film backdrop time and time again. In autumn 2014, for example, the arcades, the magnificent foyer and the conference floor could be seen for 780 seconds in the Hollywood thriller "A Most Wanted Man", which was partly shot in Hamburg. In the meantime, there have been reports of plans to move the US consulate from the Alster to Johannes-Brahms-Platz, but these have fallen through.