There are five gates to hell in the world and one of them is in my neighbourhood. This information I have from my neighbour C. who studies bioinformatics and knows about those things. After New Year we went to visit this gate to hell as it seemed a fresh way to start 2021.
The entrance finds itself at Alboinplatz where there is the dead ice hole called Blanke Helle. There are a few dead ice holes in Alt-Tempelhof. They are a left-over from the Ice Age and this is also why Alt-Tempelhof is called (probably ironically) "Tempelhofer Switzerland". I don't know exactly how deep Blanke Helle is but I found one description that said "unfathomably deep".
What makes Blanke Helle so particular is the enormous sculpture of an ox overlooking the pond. It was made in the 1930s by the sculptor Paul Mersmann as part of a job creation measure for unemployed artists. Allegedly he hid a pamphlet against the Nazis signed by many artists in a small ampoule inside the ox.
The ox refers to the mythology around Blanke Helle. "Hel" is the Germanic goddess of fertility and the underworld. According to the legend, the goddess sent bulls up through the dead ice hole as harvest helpers in return for offerings. One year, the monk forgot about the offerings and the ox came back to devour him.
My friend C is courageous and ran down the flanks towards the pond. S and I had our cameras ready to photograph in case the gate would open up.
