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Hitler’s Hospital: The Phantom Sanatorium
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Hitler’s Hospital: The Phantom Sanatorium

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Twenty-five hauntingly beautiful images of an abandoned sanatorium in Germany.

Rusty railings, vine-covered abandoned buildings, collapsing roofs, and empty corridors with walls covered in graffiti and slowly peeling paint are what remains of the gigantic Beelitz-Heilstätten abandoned hospital. Beelitz was built in the late 19th century to help rehabilitate the growing number of tuberculosis patients in the expanding city of Berlin. During the Great War, Beelitz-Heilstätten was turned into a military hospital and was where a young Adolf Hitler was treated for a thigh injury from a grenade blast during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Hitler was not the only dictator to recuperate at the creepy houses of Beelitz-Heilstätten. In 1990 GDR leader Erich Honecker received treatment for liver cancer, and after he was deposed following the fall of East Germany, he used Beelitz-Heilstätten as his starting point in his flight to Russia to escape prosecution. The haunted houses of Beelitz-Heilstätten remain serene and eminently peaceful…in spite of its past.

Cool fact: The abandoned houses was used as a filming location for Roman Polanski’s Oscar winner ‘The Pianist’ and the 2008 film ‘Valkyrie’ starring Tom Cruise.
I am often inspired by quotes & verses to create my image titles and have included them where applicable to each photograph of this abandoned place. All images were photographed on October 19th,2013.

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Source: ronazevedo.com

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    “Facing Fear”

    Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”

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    ‘No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge’ ~Kahlil Gibran

    “Die Bestie von Beelitz”

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    The years 1989 to 1990 brought terror to the women living in the area as a serial killer began to murder workers of Beelitz and residents of the area. He became known as Die Bestie von Beelitz (The Beast of Beelitz). The killer often left his own left pink lingerie on the corpse, and sometimes used it to strangle or gag the victims while they were raped. In March of 1990 one of the most heinous of his crimes was committed…a wife of one of the senior physicians at the hospital was taking her infant son on a stroll through the forest when the killer grabbed the child and crushed his head on a tree. The screaming mother was gagged with a brassiere and strangled. In August of 1990 two joggers were attacked by the killer, however one was able to overpower the man and take him to the police. He was identified as Wolfgang Schmidt, and given a 15 year sentence in prison and detention in a psychiatric hospital. A movie about the killer was released in 2008, named Der Rosa Riese (The Pink Giant – in reference to his trademark lingerie).

    “Don’t Look Back”

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    ‘Never look backwards or you’ll fall down the stairs.’
    ~Rudyard Kipling

    “What Lies Within”

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    ‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.’

    “Benevolent Light”

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    ‘Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space. It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe. It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished.’ ~Michael Strassfeld

    “Light Of Life”

    “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
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    “Broken Places”

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    ‘The world breaks everyone, and afterword many are stronger in the broken places.’ – Ernest Hemingway

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    ‘For darkness restores what light cannot repair.’ ~Joseph Brodsky

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    ‘Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in.’ ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, “Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers”, 1827

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    “Escape The Madness”

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    “Phantom Sanatorium”

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    “Potentiality”

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    ‘No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.’ ~George Chakiris

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    “Wide Open”

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    ‘The windows of my soul I throw wide open to the sun.’ ~John Greenleaf Whittier

    “Sufficient Light”

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    ‘In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.’ ~Blaise Pascal

    “Darkness Waits”

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    ‘Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always gotten there first, and is waiting for it.’ ~ Terry Pratchett

    “Surmounting Fear”

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    Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “In order to learn the important lessons in life, one must, each day, surmount a fear.”

    “Whatever May Pass”

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    “Within A Dream”

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    ‘All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.’ ~Edgar Allen Poe

    “When All Else Fades”

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    RonAzevedo

    RonAzevedo

    Author, Community member

    Read more »

    CBS-LA recently named Ron Azevedo as one of the 'Most Artistic Photographers in Orange County' for his worldwide approach to photography.  From the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine to the abandoned sanitorium Beelitz-Heilstätten of Berlin, Ron strives to waken viewers to the diversity of the world and to cultures so different from our own.   Born in Southern California, Ron spent his youth in the mountains of Big Bear Lake before moving to the San Clemente beach community where he & his family have resided for the past 30 years.   Taking up photography at the age of 9, Ron pursued his passion for photography throughout his youth before delving into the world of cinematography at Columbia College of Motion Pictures & Television Arts & Sciences.   Ron worked for an NBC affiliate as a video tape editor & cameraman. Ron has been published numerous times and he received recognition from National Geographic for his Aspen, Colorado work.   Having been juried for a third consecutive year, Ron will exhibit his work at the prestigious Laguna Beach Festival of Arts in the Summer of 2014 and is represented by the Forest & Ocean Gallery in Laguna Beach.   Ron's collectors are worldwide, and they include Silvaris Capital Management of London England and CBS's Criminal Minds actress, A.J. Cook.   Diane Arbus once said, "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.”  Ron enjoys sharing his photographic 'secrets' with his viewers and he delivers them to buyers on rich archival paper. 

    Read less »
    RonAzevedo

    RonAzevedo

    Author, Community member

    CBS-LA recently named Ron Azevedo as one of the 'Most Artistic Photographers in Orange County' for his worldwide approach to photography.  From the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine to the abandoned sanitorium Beelitz-Heilstätten of Berlin, Ron strives to waken viewers to the diversity of the world and to cultures so different from our own.   Born in Southern California, Ron spent his youth in the mountains of Big Bear Lake before moving to the San Clemente beach community where he & his family have resided for the past 30 years.   Taking up photography at the age of 9, Ron pursued his passion for photography throughout his youth before delving into the world of cinematography at Columbia College of Motion Pictures & Television Arts & Sciences.   Ron worked for an NBC affiliate as a video tape editor & cameraman. Ron has been published numerous times and he received recognition from National Geographic for his Aspen, Colorado work.   Having been juried for a third consecutive year, Ron will exhibit his work at the prestigious Laguna Beach Festival of Arts in the Summer of 2014 and is represented by the Forest & Ocean Gallery in Laguna Beach.   Ron's collectors are worldwide, and they include Silvaris Capital Management of London England and CBS's Criminal Minds actress, A.J. Cook.   Diane Arbus once said, "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.”  Ron enjoys sharing his photographic 'secrets' with his viewers and he delivers them to buyers on rich archival paper. 

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