Augarten Flakturm |
During WWII a number of AAA towers were built by the Germans. The purpose of these towers was to raise the guns above the surrounding buildings and given them a better shot at allied bombers. The towers were built with 3.5m reinforced concrete walls and were considered invulnerable to bombing. Right there are two major flaws in the plan: 1. Even if the guns could see the bombers, they lacked the range to get a shell anywhere near them, and 2. the allied grand slam[a] bombs had broken much thicker reinforced concrete.
Despite this the towers were built, and they duly proceeded to have next to no influence on the war.
Post-war however, it turned out that they were next to impossible to demolish - the permission to drop grand slam bombs for civil engineering purposes probably being denied by the authorities. The towers were kept as memorials. (As a sidenote, the original Nazi builders had envisioned this as well - although they had expected the towers to be memorials to the victory of National Socialism and not to its defeat.)
 | Close up of the gun tower. Each AAA tower complex consisted of two towers, the gun tower where the AAA guns were fitted, and the fire control tower. |
 | The fire control tower. |
 | Access to the tower is forbidden, but it still houses some birds of unknown political affiliation. |
 | The gun tower seen at a distance. |
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More information about the towers can be found on Wikipedia[b].