Hitler's bunker is now just a parking lot. But it's a 'dark tourism' attraction anyway

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BERLIN — On a Wednesday afternoon in late August, I traveled to a tourist attraction in the heart of Germany's capital. If I had no context, it would have seemed like a really weird place for tourists to congregate. It's a parking lot, surrounded by apartment buildings. On one side is Mimi Tea, a boba tea shop that has a cutesy cartoon bear on its storefront.

But the tourists don't come here for boba tea. They come here because buried beneath this dull patch of pavement lies the remains of a dark place of historical significance. It was underground here that, 80 years ago, one of the world's most infamous villains swallowed a cyanide capsule and fired a bullet into his brain. It was here that Adolf Hitler