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Nazi architecture

Nazi architecture is the architecture promoted by the Third Reich from 1933 until its fall in 1945. It is characterized by three forms: a stripped-down neoclassicism (typified by the designs of Albert Speer); a vernacular style that drew inspiration from traditional rural architecture, especially alpine; and a utilitarian style followed for major infrastructure projects and industrial or military complexes. Nazi ideology took a pluralist attitude to architecture; however, Adolf Hitler himself believed that form should follow function and wrote against “stupid imitations of the past”.

Architecture in the era of National Socialism describes building projects, architecture and urban planning as a German embodiment of the prevailing in this time styles of neoclassicism , the Homeland Security architecture and the designated outside of Germany style of traditionalism . Beyond the representative power architecture, a number of structural and architectural developments in a transformed form continued beyond the end of the war.

The crowning achievement of this movement was to be Welthauptstadt Germania, the projected renewal of the German capital Berlin following the Nazis’ victory in World War II. Speer, who oversaw the project, produced most of the plans for the new city. Only a small portion of the “World Capital” was ever built between 1937 and 1943. The plan’s core features included the creation of a great neoclassical city based on an East-West axis with the Berlin victory column at its centre. Major Nazi buildings like the Reichstag or the Große Halle (never built) would adjoin wide boulevards. A great number of historic buildings in the city were demolished in the planned construction zones. However, with defeat of the Third Reich, the work was never started.

General
The rulers and their architects and planners claimed to have developed a “National Socialist style ” based on the inherited fund of European construction typology and morphology. At the same time, contemporary trends as well as personal suggestions of the German dictator Adolf Hitler were processed in the widest possible framework. Characteristic was the official rejection of the ” modern “, as the Bauhaus style was called. This rejection manifested z. B. in the prohibition of the Bauhaus and the expulsion of its representatives. In the propaganda, the sober, plain, functionalist language of forms that went back to the Bauhaus in the 1920s was described as soulless, “cultural Bolshevist” and “un-German.” Folkish elements, as in the Thingspiel movement and the Thingstätten built especially from 1933 to 1935, were preferred in the early days of the regime and are also reflected in the SS architecture of the Nazi order castles . In addition, the greater involvement of landscape conservation and nature conservation in architectural planning was emphasized and, to some extent personified by Alwin Seifert , also implemented.

However, Paul Schultze-Naumburg , the main representative of Homeland Security Architecture , fell in disgrace with Hitler in 1935. Albert Speer became a “star architect of the Third Reich ” with a neoclassical language of form borrowing elements of the modern age, such as traditional architectural ideas and forms, and a rationalized construction technique. In terms of technical and industrial facilities, the architecture of National Socialism also understood the requirement of functionality as a mark of technological progress. Christoph Hackelsberger compared the formal language of the Atlantic Wall with Expressionist architecture. A dogmatic “Gleichschaltung” of building in the Third Reich did not take place, but rather expressed itself by disregarding divergent architects in the state large-scale construction contract award. Thus, even after 1933, many private and industrial buildings were still inspired by the style of international modernism.

According to Weihsmann, there are six formal aesthetic tendencies within the building sector:

Classicism for propaganda, state and party buildings,
Homeland Security for settlements and religious castles,
moderate modernity for residential and administrative buildings,
pathetic functionalism for barracks, military buildings and industrial buildings,
Revised functionalism for sports buildings and stadiums,
New objectivity for engineering, industrial and factory buildings.
According to Weihsmann, there is no uniform art doctrine in the formal appearances; a specific urbanistic doctrine was unmistakable. Realized projects were for example

Party and government buildings
Places of worship ( Thingstätten , eg in Heidelberg )
Schools and quarters for the political and military elite
Urban, open-plan and traffic planning
Village (re) design in the context of “home care”
Settlement plans for newly developed settlement areas in the “Greater German Reich”
Homes of the Hitler Youth and other Nazi communities
Industrial Buildings and Infrastructure ( Reich Motorways , Bridges, Dams)
Even painters with architectural ambitions, Adolf Hitler measured the greatness of an epoch in the testimonies of their culture; the larger they were, the more sublime was the epoch in his view. Characteristic of the importance Hitler attributed to architecture were his words on the occasion of the first architecture and art exhibition in the “House of German Art” in Munich on January 22, 1938:

“When nations experience great times inwardly, they also shape these times outwardly. Your word is more convincing than the spoken word. It is the word of stone! ”

– Adolf Hitler : quotes after H. Weihsmann: Building under the swastika. Architecture of the downfall . 1998, p. 19

Within 15 years, he wanted to rebuild the entire country and took personal influence on numerous construction projects. His personal favorite architects were Paul Ludwig Troost , after whose death Ludwig Ruff , later Albert Speer and Hermann Giesler , who, for example, transformed Hitler’s favorite city of Linz (in which he spent some teenage years) on the largest scale. The “Word of Stone” was propagandistically propagated (eg with appropriate films). The more advanced and hopeless the course of the war and the less realistic the actual realization, the more immeasurable became the plans: gigantomanic buildings, broad staircases , massive pillars, long and dead straight thoroughfares (so-called “axes”) and excessive plans without any practical purpose, such as the planned one “Hall of the People” in Berlin. The “reorganization plans” demanded exorbitant means of money, structural steel (which soon became more important for armaments tasks), natural stones (brought from all over Europe) and workers for the German Reich only with means of state compulsory economy and exploitation of neighboring states ( forced labor ) were to win. Here is one of Hitler’s motives for the war of aggression . Incidentally, as Weihsmann notes, the uniformity and megalomania of Hitler’s blueprints had led to the self-destruction of German inner cities even without the bombing. To bomb attacks on Berlin remarks by Hitler are handed down, after which he actually welcomed them to create space for the planned new buildings. And even the destruction of the buildings was taken into account, yes, they were built with the express purpose of even appearing as ruins “impressive in millennia” (so-called ” Ruin Value Theory “) – which is confirmed, at least until today.

Berlin was to be rebuilt magnificently by the General Building Inspector for the imperial capital into the imperial capital Germania and become a city with eight million inhabitants, Munich as ” capital of the movement ” and Nuremberg as “city of the Reichsparteitages “, Linz become an outstanding European cultural center and Hamburg the European world trade center , Hitler wanted entire districts to be laid so that his broad boulevards and sumptuous buildings would find a place. The “recovery of the German cities” was to be achieved by means of “extermination measures”, “gutting out” and “surface cleansing”, whereby no account was taken of existing structures that did not conform to the ideal. Thus, a population-selective control was intended (elimination of Jews and “asocial”, smashing politically unreliable workers quarters in the inner cities). The regime-loyal youth, however, should grow up in an ideologically perfect framework. In the early days of the regime emerged in various places in Germany NSDAP-Ordensburgen and Adolf-Hitler-schools propagandistic transfigured was the establishment of recreation centers of power by joy organization like the seaside resort Prora .

But not only in the German Reich , but also in the areas to be conquered, for example in the so-called ” Generalgouvernement “, cities were to be developed and redesigned. Europe was to be criss-crossed with a network of broad-gauge railways , and plans for futuristic one-way railways such as the Alwegbahn are still in wartime. Himmler as ” Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationality ” wanted to create cities and villages for the new German settlers in the east and connect them with the best roads. He envisioned the idea of an Eastern Europe populated by “Germanic defense farmers” (at the same time peasants and soldiers); the energy supply was to be ensured by decentralized wind turbines according to the technical concepts of Ulrich W. Hütter . Heinrich Himmler planned from 1935 the expansion of the Wewelsburg near Paderborn as a “cult site” for its Schutzstaffel . Responsible architect was Hermann Bartels .

The complete transformation of the cities and the construction and completion of the “places of worship” and magnificent buildings by the National Socialists were prevented by the course of the Second World War . In parallel, as early as 1940/1941, a large number of specialist publications had been submitted on the detail aspects of reconstruction. These efforts were coordinated from 1943 in a central ” workforce for the reconstruction of bomb-busted cities ” under the direction of Albert Speer, which in fact also included a military defeat. The architects represented here and their planning and structural considerations played an important role – with the exception of Speer himself – decades after the end of the war. Their modernist plans came almost without exception, without Nazi symbolism and representative “power architecture” to bear, Representatives of a reconstruction in the home style were discredited with reference to its use in the Nazi era .

Legacies of the representative architecture under National Socialism are in many German cities very often still in existing use as administrative buildings, ruins thereof u. a. to be seen at the Nuremberg Nazi Party Rally Grounds , in Weimar and in Munich. As stony monuments of a will to power, they were supposed to transport the ideology of National Socialism and act accordingly as propaganda. The monumentality, the ascetic façade design and the cultic-sacral staging of the buildings served this purpose. The dimension of size, underpinned by record data on construction time, dimensions and material, should be an expression of a higher culture, the superiority of the Aryan race . Thus, the claim of subjugation of the Third Reich was articulated architecturally. The individual disappeared from the sheer structural size and mass, the individual was subordinated architecturally and urbanistically to the regulated collective of the masses, the national community and the party (“intimidation architecture”). A powerful presence should be possible in these controlled communities. The cultic-sacral component can be understood by the altar-like lecterns for Hitler, the best example of these altars is the Pergamon altar modeled on the construction of the Führer’s gallery on the Zeppelin field in Nuremberg.

Added to this is the design of the facades, for which the art-on-building law was enacted. The design was oriented towards the purpose of the buildings. Thus, for the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), for the Reichsmarschalls and for the soldier’s hall in barely ornamented military tools and weapons were presented.

In another sense as representative of the Nazi regime, the concentration camp buildings and today’s memorial sites, which were mostly erected by prisoners in forced labor , are perceived.

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Examples
Sorted by the period of origin:

” Führerbau ” on Königsplatz in Munich (1933-1937 by Paul Ludwig Troost)
House of Art in Munich (1933-1937 by Paul Ludwig Troost)
Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg (1933-1938 by Albert Speer)
NS-Ordensburg Sonthofen (1934 by Hermann Giesler)
Olympic Stadium (1934-1936 by Werner March) and ” Reichssportfeld ” in Berlin
SS Junker School in Bad Tölz (1934 original location, 1936 new building on the Flinthöhe)
Army and Air Force News School in Halle (Saale) (1934-1937 by Ernst Sagebiel)
Administration building of the Reichspostdirektion or upper post office Karlsruhe (1934-1938 by Hermann Billing)
Redevelopment of the village Alt Rehse for the Hartmannbund to build up the Führerschool of the German Medical Association (reconstruction between 1934 and 1939)
Reichsbank building in Berlin (1934-1940 by Heinrich Wolff), today part of the Federal Foreign Office
NS-Ordensburg Vogelsang (from 1934 by Clemens Klotz)
Reich Ministry of Aviation in Berlin (1935/1936 by Ernst Sagebiel), today Federal Ministry of Finance
Residential area Südvorstadt in Pirna (1935-1938)
Building of the Central Cemetery in Bochum (1935-1939)
Congress hall at the Nuremberg Nazi Party Rally Grounds (1935-1940, unfinished, by Ludwig and Franz Ruff), today Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds
Hall Bridge Rudolphstein , Reichsautobahn Bridge (1936 by Fritz Limpert and Paul Bonatz)
Planning for the conversion of Berlin to the world capital Germania since 1936/1937 by the General Building Inspector
Wehrkreisdienstgebäude in Kassel (1936-1938 by Ernst Wendel), today Federal Social Court
KdF – seaside resort Prora on the island of Rügen (1936-1939, unfinished, by Clemens Klotz)
Tempelhof Airport in Berlin (1936-1941 by Ernst Sagebiel)
Academy for Youth Leadership in Braunschweig (1937-1939 by Erich zu Putlitz)
SS barracks at the Nuremberg Nazi Party Rally Grounds (1937-1940 by Franz Ruff), today Federal Office for Migration and Refugees
Kreissparkasse in Schwäbisch Hall (1937-1941 by Eduard Krüger)
Gauforum Weimar (1937-1945, unfinished, by Hermann Giesler)
Sacred Heart Church in Eschweiler (1938/1939)
New Reich Chancellery in Berlin (1938/1939 by Albert Speer)
Power Station Marbach (Block I) (1938-1942)
Lehrerbildungsanstalt Trier (1939/40), today old buildings of the Schneidershof site of the University of Trier
Italian Embassy in Berlin (1939-1941 by Friedrich Hetzelt)
Advanced development of the Poznań Castle to the “Führerresidenz” (1940-1944 by Franz Böhmer)
Casino building at the naval port in Flensburg-Mürwik (1944)

Urban Planning Plans
In general plans for the cities of Munich , Linz , Nuremberg and Hamburg , the power claim of the National Socialists was to be manifested. In 1940, a total of 27 cities had been designated as new design cities by personal decrees of Hitler.

Berlin
From the late 1930s, large parts, above all the southern city center of Berlin, were to become a ” Reich capital Germania ” with a north-south boulevard with the triumphal arch and the large south station at the south and the fame hall and the large north station at the north end centrally intersecting east-west axis and other particularly striking buildings.

Nuremberg
In Nuremberg should be created in the partially completed Nazi Party Rally Grounds, among other things, the German Stadium , in which fighting games, a kind of Olympic Games of the National Socialists, should take place. It had a planned capacity of 400,000 people. Hitler said of this stadium: “In 1940, the Olympic Games will be in Tokyo again, but then forever in this stadium.” In Nuremberg were due to the Nazi Party Rally gigantic mustering areas for divisions of the German Wehrmacht , the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and the Hitler Youth planned. Hitler planned to take off here gigantic parades of associations of the Wehrmacht.

Munich
For Munich, it was planned to erect a 214.5 meter high monument on the grounds of the main station , which was to commemorate the Hitler coup of 1923. In addition, a train station over one kilometer long was to be built in Munich for the broad gauge railway. For this construction project, several streets and the surrounding rows of houses would have been leveled and used. The broad gauge railway was to connect Berlin with other cities and the conquered eastern territories.

Munich should also become a kind of capital of German art; For this purpose, further museums were planned in addition to the already completed ” House of German Art “. Commissioned architect was Paul Ludwig Troost .

Hamburg
For Hamburg, a gigantic suspension bridge over the Elbe was planned. It was to be built west of Hamburg- Altona , because Hamburg was to become again a kind of world trade center in which goods or raw materials from the German colonies arrived overseas, which England should return to Germany, after they had to be given due to the Versailles Treaty . Here you should be able to see the new German size and strength. This bridge was to surpass the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco . It would have become the largest suspension bridge in the world. Fritz Todt designed the new suspension bridge in 1937, the opening year of the Golden Gate Bridge. But it turned out that because of the underground, the cantilevered area between the pillars could not be longer than the Golden Gate Bridge. The pylons would not have been anchored in a sand-surfacing area like this. With a length of 700 meters and a pier height of 150 meters, it would not have been able to overshadow its role model. Therefore, it should have at least, according to Hitler’s specifications, a larger road surface. Since the bridge had been moved far out of the center of Hamburg – only here the Elbe stream expanded to make such a length possible at all – the traffic flows had to be redistributed. Between 1938 and 1944 architect Konstanty Gutschow worked out the new buildings along with new traffic routes. This would have given Hamburg a completely new look. On the right bank of the Elbe, the model of a bridge pier was built on a scale of 1:10. In addition, a 250 meter high skyscraper of the NSDAP was provided. As the National Socialists planned to overshadow all buildings from antiquity, a new, larger port was also planned for Hamburg, on which the cruise ships were to invest their strength through joy . Commissioned architect in Hamburg was also Konstanty Gutschow, who had already planned the route and the bridges for the newly planned motorway Hamburg-Berlin . (In some cases, these brick bridges were already in operation until the beginning of the Second World War). After the war Gutschow worked in hospital construction (eg Hospital on Helgoland and Medical University Hannover ).

Linz
In Linz Hitler wanted to spend his retirement. Therefore, he planned here a gigantic estate and the largest art and picture gallery in the world, the ” Führer Museum “. Linz was to become the cultural center of Europe in this way – a ” German Budapest ” on the Danube , because it would be “an unforgivable parody if the descendants of Attila and his Huns possessed the most beautiful city on the Nibelungen stream” (quote Hitler, after the Book if Hitler had won the war from Ralph Giordano ). The paintings for the gallery should be contributed from other German museums or “acquired” abroad. Among other things, this was due to the art theft in occupied Europe after World War II, in which the museum director Hans Posse was also involved on Hitler’s orders. However, because the expansion faltered because of the war, the artworks were stored in the salvage site salt mine Altaussee .

Further plans for the expansion of Linz as a ” Führer’s City ” provided for a boulevard “Zu den Lauben” with picture galleries, museums and a theater in monumental architecture, at the northeastern end a “Hitler Center”, where the gallery was to stand with a huge column front. Intended were

Monumental development of the two banks of the Danube as a political and administrative center (see also Nibelungen Bridge , bridgehead building )
Relocation of the western railway line to the south, new construction of the passenger station to make room for the boulevard
Junction of the Reichsautobahn
New construction of the port
Construction of two more Danube bridges
Expansion of the Reichswerke Hermann Goering and the nitrogen works
Realization of a large-scale housing program for the industrial workers (see also Hitler Buildings )
Like other concentration camps , new camps such as the Mauthausen concentration camp were built near natural stone deposits, since this material was needed in large quantities for the representative buildings. Some satellite camps of the Mauthausen concentration camp were built on the city of Linz. The framework planning remained up to the end of the war, but was rescheduled several times. The reasons for this were the diverging conceptions of the building authorities and the aspirations of the architects to profile themselves. Few buildings were realized, such as the expansion of the main entrance to the south bank of the Danube. One of the last photos of Hitler shows him in the Führerbunker in Berlin in front of a model from Linz.

All buildings were to be completed by 1955, until the great victory celebration.

Dresden
The bleachers were completed on the banks of the Elbe, which were built against the backdrop of the baroque old town for mass rallies. Also preserved today is the building of the Luftgaukommando Dresden of the architect Kreis. Also very clearly recognizable, the National Socialism has perpetuated in the city plan on the construction of the airport and the Reichsluftkriegsschule in Klotzsche and the expansion of the barracks in the Albertstadt , Übigau and Nickern . For the construction of Highway 4 , the village center of Kemnitz was destroyed.

Among other things, a variant of the Waldschlößchenbrücke was planned for Dresden . Other plans were the monumental design of an axis from the Great Garden on the Hygiene Museum of Wilhelm Kreis to the New Town Hall as part of the ” Gauforum Dresden “, which should arise on the Güntzwiesen .

Gallery
Frequently, Nazi ideals about paintings or reliefs on the buildings built in the time were presented. Alfred Wegwerth designed the graffiti for a workers’ settlement in Ilmenau (Thuringia), where four houses were built for factory workers at the end of the 1930s. Originally in the pictures also National Socialist symbols such. B. contain the swastika . These were redeemed after 1945. The lintel reliefs on the right showed the symbols of the Nazi organizations, only the swastikas were chiseled out.

At GDR times, the man was also eradicated in the first picture, since there was originally a soldier of the Wehrmacht was represented. When the murals were restored in 2003, a man was added, but in a slightly different form. The pictures are all typical motifs for National Socialist art (family, composition, work).

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