According to Albert Speer, Hitler?s ambitious architect and all-too-capable Minister of Armaments and War Production, the final performance by the Berlin Philharmonic before this distinguished orchestra abandoned Berlin in May 1945 opened with Brünnhilde?s last aria?the vengeful valkyrie sings of setting fire to Valhalla?and the finale from Wagner?s Götterdämmerung. 

Ullstein Bild/Getty Images. Image Courtesy of Laurence King Publishing

According to Albert Speer, Hitler?s ambitious architect and all-too-capable Minister of Armaments and War Production, the final performance by the Berlin Philharmonic before this distinguished orchestra abandoned Berlin in May 1945 opened with Brünnhilde?s last aria?the vengeful valkyrie sings of setting fire to Valhalla?and the finale from Wagner?s Götterdämmerung. As the Russians neared Berlin that spring, Adolf Hitler continued to toy with plans, and a vast model, of Germania, the new German capital that was to be built over Berlin after the ultimate victory of the Third Reich. At the heart of this bombastic new city stood the colossal domed Volkshalle, a gigantic play on the ancient Roman Pantheon. Speer had based his design on a sketch of the Roman temple made by Hitler himself in 1925, while in 1938 Hitler had made a point of visiting the Pantheon on an official trip to Rome. The Pantheon had been created for an empire that survived four centuries. The Volkshalle would go one better: it was to symbolize an empire...