Hitler's Plans for Global Domination by Jochen Thies

Author:Jochen Thies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

ARCHITECTURE AND THE THIRD REICH

The issue of Hitler’s relationship to architecture, even with the knowledge that he was the main individual responsible for planning large buildings, cannot be closed without considering several consequences of that relationship for the structure of the Third Reich. Many new questions have come to light because the problems of architecture include a problem similar to that of the confessions, namely that the new plans for cities no longer provided for the construction of new churches. This chapter may also show that a scientific positivist approach, limited to the determination of capacity and actual size, is unable to adequately grasp the National Socialist system. The utopia, the attempt to achieve the impossible, is not just a constant to be observed, within the study of Hitler, but rather distinguishes the Nazi system in its totality.

If the construction projects are quantified and the end of 1941 is taken as the time frame, there is a list of fifty German cities which were to be extensively rebuilt, that included practically all the large German cities.1 In addition to that, there were the enormous projects in the five “Führer cities,” and the extension of German harbors, with Trondheim in occupied Norway to be the largest German naval port of the future.2 Plans for war memorials and mausoleums at the borders of the new “Germanic Empire”3 must also be included, as well as the unknown needs inside the conquered territories of the Soviet Union. Even with all of this, however, only the tip of the iceberg has been recorded, because all the way down to the level of the Gauleiter and mayors, the Nazis were under the influence of a frenetic construction mania during the first years of the war.4 The Gauleiter were dreaming of an embassy in Berlin,5 and the regional capitals wanted a public square that followed the example of Berlin, with huge halls and parade grounds.6 But the private residential sector must also be mentioned here, as must the streets and motorways in the hoped-for empire, as well as Thingstätten,7 the common use buildings for military and paramilitary purposes in a new society where the term “civilian” was no longer used. A huge KdF fleet8 was to give the new Germanic global citizen a permanent Nuremberg experience at sea, and the global resort Prora on Rügen island, as well as other spas,9 were meant to do the same on land. At the same time, a strong automobile industry would allow for tourist trips to the Crimea.10 But life in the country was waiting for thorough changes and for a new meaning for the term “Lebensraum.” Long before the completion of the large building projects, which was to take place by 1950, by the middle of the 1940’s the re-armament of the three branches of the military was to be complete, because in addition to the operation in the East, preparations were also taking place for tasks in the future colonies.11

The reality of the situation was quite different,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.