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The Bendler Block from 1945 to the Present

Since the 1950s, the Bendler Block has housed mainly federal and state administrative bodies and the German Resistance Memorial Center. In 1993, most of the Bendler Block became the second office complex of the Federal Ministry of Defence.

Since July 20, 1952, a memorial ceremony has been held every year in what is now the commemorative courtyard of the German Resistance Memorial Center, in remembrance of the resistance against National Socialism. In March 1952, the Berlin Senate passed a resolution to erect a memorial stone commemorating the resistance against National Socialism. Richard Scheibe's bronze statue of a young man with his hands tied was unveiled on July 19, 1953. The sculpture was installed on a pedestal with an inscription by the art historian Edwin Redslob.

The sculptor Richard Scheibe had created works in the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and during the National Socialist dictatorship. These included a female figure who had broken the chains around her tied hands, to commemorate the reintegration of the Saar territory into the German Reich in 1935. His sculpture "The Thinker" was included in the National Socialists' 1938 Great German Art Exhibition in Munich, and purchased by Hitler for 10,000 reichsmarks. In 1944, Scheibe was placed on the Reich Propaganda Ministry's exemption list from military service for important artists. He expressed his support for continuing the war as late as April 1945. It remains unclear why an artist with such a background was commissioned to create a memorial to the resistance against National Socialism in 1952.

In 1955, Bendlerstraße was renamed Stauffenbergstraße. A commemorative plaque with the names of the officers murdered during the night of July 20, 1944 was installed on the south side of the commemorative courtyard in July 1960. The commemorative courtyard in its present form was designed by the sculptor Erich Reusch in 1980. The statue of the young man was placed on the ground and the pedestal inscription was cast in a bronze plaque. Two long bronze transverse ground sculptures were added, along with a short information text on the stone wall of the courtyard entrance.

A first small exhibition on the military resistance was installed in 1968. Since 1989, the German Resistance Memorial Center's permanent exhibition has been a central site of remembrance in Germany, providing extensive documentation of the motives, aims, and forms of the fight against the National Socialist dictatorship.