Standing at **58 meters tall**, just a bit taller than the **Leaning Tower of Pisa**, but with significantly more mass, the **St.

Pauli bunker** in **Hamburg, Germany**, has been a prominent feature of the city's skyline for over **80 years**.

Constructed using forced labor during **Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime**, it is a relic of one of the darkest periods in Germany’s history.

However, this massive concrete structure has undergone a surprising transformation.

The revamped **Hamburg Bunker** now houses **two restaurants**, a **five-story Hard Rock Hotel**, and a newly constructed **pyramid-like rooftop bar and garden** with greenery cascading over the concrete facade.

The **REVERB by Hard Rock** is a fitting addition to a city with a rich musical history – this is, after all, where **The Beatles** began their career in the early 1960s.

The **Karoviertel neighborhood**, where the fortress-like bunker is located, is a trendy area filled with stylish coffee shops, vintage stores, and the **Knust nightclub** in a repurposed abattoir.

Rooms in the **134-key REVERB** range from **180 euros** for a classic room, which includes amenities such as a **55-inch flatscreen TV** and an **Alexa in-room assistant**, to **269 euros** for a suite with sweeping citywide views.

The hotel also features modern details you’d expect in any hip hotel, such as **self-check-in**, **smart technology**, and **co-working spaces**.

You don’t have to be a hotel guest to enjoy the bunker’s amenities.

On the ground level, there’s the **Constant Grind coffee shop and bar**, and a **Rock Shop** for those seeking Hard Rock merchandise.

**Bar-restaurant Karo & Paul**, by German TV chef **Frank Rosin**, opened as a bar in April 2024 and occupies the first three levels of the building.

The restaurant area is still coming soon.

The restaurant **La Sala** – Spanish for living room – is open for business on the fifth floor, offering lofty views and an international menu.

Finally, at the top is the **Green Beanie rooftop garden**, with a bar and walkway looping around the building, which can be accessed by the public for free.

The Hamburg bunker was one of eight **flak towers** – above-ground anti-aircraft bunkers that also served as air raid shelters – which Germany built after British air raids on Berlin in 1940.

The history the Hamburg Bunker carries is heavy, but a **76,000-tonne concrete behemoth** with walls **2.

5 meters thick** can’t be easily demolished or ignored.

The only flak tower to have been completely destroyed is the one at Berlin’s zoo, as the others are in heavily populated areas where the explosives involved would pose too great a risk.

“The idea of raising the height of the building with greenery was to add something peaceful and positive to this massive block leftover from the Nazi dictatorship,” **Anita Engels**, from the **Hilldegarden neighborhood association** which supported the project, told AFP.

The association has helped with this new chapter in the Hamburg flak tower’s history by collecting testimonies from people who lived in the wartime bunker as well as records of the hundreds of forced laborers who built it.