Each of the Allies (USA, Britain, France and Russia) had been alloted (in the Potsdam Agreement) a share ("Zone") of the former Reich to administer. For this purpose, we had set up the Control Commission (Germany) to govern our share (the northern slice of the Western "half").
This is the Kamergericht in Berlin Schoneberg built 1913, the seat of the Prussian Supreme Court. In 1945 it was one of very few public buildings still standing in Berlin and was thus requisitioned by the victorious Allies to house the Allied Control Council, the governing body of the four occupation zones (American, British, Russian and French). By 1948 relations had deteriorated badly and the Russians finally walked out over the issue of currency reform. The various functions divested themselves to the 4 different zones, leaving only the Berlin Air Safety Centre in this vast labyrinth of a building.
After I left the RAF in 1973 I joined Dan-Air (flying 1-11s) which did a lot of very profitable business flying chartered holiday work out of West Berlin (that was banned to all but US, British and French airlines). We were encouraged to attend the Air Safety Centre to be briefed on the "politics" of how it was run and in particular what was involved in obtaining permission for out of hours extensions for delayed incoming flights.
The Centre was commanded by 4 Air Force officers of Colonel rank from each of the allied powers. Their subordinates, of captain or major rank, sat at the four corners of what appeared to be a large dining table, awaiting notification of a previously agreed aircraft movement from Berlin ATC, either into or our of West Berlin via one of the three Air Corridors. The centre one of these was British responsibility, so our man would then retrieve the card from his rack with that flight's details, and pass it across to his Russian equivalent who would check it and then stamp it with a large Cyrillic imprint, which acknowledged the information but reminded the reader that the Soviet Government did not guarantee the safety of the flight! He then passed the card back to the RAF officer who placed it in the approved rack, and thus the business of the Safety Centre was carried out.
All this of course left a great deal of time for other pursuits, pleasurable or otherwise. Thus the USAF Major was enjoying a baseball game on a portable TV, the French Capitaine was wreathed in Gauloises smoke as he read Le Figaro, the Russian was amending a large technical manual, and the RAF Flight Lieutenant studying for a promotion exam. He explained that they were trying to teach the Russian officer the British game of darts, but the state of disrepair of the wall surrounding the dartboard testified to a certain lack of success.
The Squadron Leader showing us around introduced us to each of them in turn before then taking us on a conducted tour of the building. He showed us into what seemed to be large ante room, in which indeed the Safety Centre threw the odd social function, but had previously been the main court room. Here it was that the Nazis had dragged the various people arrested following the aborted attempt on Hitler's life in 1944, after they had "assisted" the Gestapo in its inquiries.
Evidently the Fuhrer had insisted that after being found guilty (no ifs or buts of course), sentence (death by hanging by piano wire) was to be carried out within 2 hours of being convicted. Given the day and night raids then being experienced, this was often easier said than done (the normal place of execution at Plotzensee being near Tegel and the court being near Tempelhof). An order from the Fuhrer was of course to be obeyed without fail, so he then led us down into the basement of the building. There, in what was one of the minor court rooms, was a crude wooden beam braced out from one of the walls. He told us that if you examined the top of it from a pair of stepladders there were plainly to be seen the grooves formed by the wires from which hung those who had been condemned upstairs. We took his word for it!
Since unification the building has once again become the Supreme Court of the State of Berlin:-
Allied Control Council - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia