The space next to the Martin-Gropius-Bau, opposite the Federal Ministry of Finance and behind the most central surviving section of the Wall has been a building site since around 1993, before which it was a wasteland, before which it was an ornate Prussian palace containing the headquarters of the SS and the Gestapo. It therefore housed the office of Reinhard Heydrich, the notorious head of the SS assassinated by the Czech resistance in 1942.

Some kind of museum, information centre or memorial to those tortured on the site has been planned since 1993, but squabbles and funding problems have prevented various ideas from being realised. Instead there is the ridiculously named Topography of Terror, an open-air exhibition that recounts the horrific crimes of the SS in the form of short texts and photos. Its temporary nature is beginning to harden into a fixed tourist attraction, though some building activity is going on, and a permanent structure is slowly taking shape.