a ten-storey ultra-modern office building, years ahead of its time, containing Germany's first artificial ventilation system, and whose elegance and clean lines won it much praise. However, despite a Woolworths store on its ground floor, a major travel company housed on the floor above, and a restaurant offering fine views over the city from the top floor, the economic situation of the time meant that it would not be followed by more buildings in that vein: no further redevelopment in the immediate vicinity of Potsdamer Platz occurred prior to World War II, and so Columbushaus would always seem out of place in that location. Nevertheless, its exact position showed that the platz was starting to be opened out: the former hotel had mostly stood on a large flagged area laid out in front of it, indicating that the new building curved away from the existing street line; this would have enabled future street widening to take place. Hitler and Germania plans Columbushaus was completed and opened in January 1933, the same month that the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) came to power. Hitler had big plans for Berlin, to transform it into the Welthauptstadt (World Capital) Germania, to be realised by his architect friend Albert Speer (1905–81). Under these plans the immediate vicinity of Potsdamer Platz would have got off fairly lightly, although the Potsdamer Bahnhof (and the Anhalter Bahnhof a short distance away) would have lost their function. The new North-South Axis, the linchpin of the scheme, would have severed their approach tracks, leaving both termini stranded on the wrong side of it. All trains arriving in Berlin would have run into either of two vast new stations located on the Ringbahn to the north and south of the centre respectively, to be known as Nordbahnhof (North Station) and Südbahnhof (South Station), located at Wedding and Südkreuz. In Speer's plan the former Anhalter Bahnhof was earmarked to become a public swimming pool; the intended fate of the Potsdamer Bahnhof has not been documented. Meanwhile, the North-South Axis would have cut a giant swathe passing just to the west of Potsdamer Platz, some 5 km long and up to 100 m wide, and lined with Nazi government edifices on a gargantuan scale. The eastern half of the former Millionaires' Quarter, including Stüler's Matthiaskirche, would have been totally eradicated. New U-Bahn and S-Bahn lines were planned to run directly beneath almost