Cities in Europe that were planned to be reconstructed by Nazi Germany
A Führer city, or Führerstadt in
German, was a status given to five German cities in 1937 by
Adolf Hitler, the
dictator of
Nazi Germany.[1] The status was based on Hitler's vision of undertaking gigantic
urban transformation projects in these cities, and executed by German
architects including
Albert Speer,
Paul Ludwig Troost,
German Bestelmeyer, Konstanty Gutschow,
Hermann Giesler,
Leonhard Gall and Paul Otto August Baumgarten. More modest reconstruction projects were to take place in thirty-five other cities, although some sources assert this number was as high as fifty.[1] These plans were however not realised for the greater part because of the onset of the
Second World War, although construction continued to take place even in wartime circumstances at Hitler's insistence.[2]
After the
Battle for France in 1940, Hitler ordered that the architectural reshaping of these cities was to be completed by 1950, and should represent the magnitude of the German victories in
Western Europe.[3]
Designated Führer cities
The five Führer cities were:
Linz:The town where Adolf Hitler spent his youth ("Jugendstadt des Führers"), and where he planned to retire after the war. Hitler wanted to turn Linz into a "German
Budapest" – a city which, in Hitler's mind, then surpassed German cities of the
Danube in beauty. Linz was to be "the new metropolis of the Danube," eclipsing
Vienna, a city he hated.[4]Linz was to expand three or four times from its then current size, with
Reichswerke Hermann Göring providing jobs for the laborers relocating from Vienna.[5] The bank of the Danube was to be built up with magnificent private homes, and a new "Hitler Centre" (Hitlerzentrum) was to be furbished with new community buildings.[5]Major intended building projects were a Strength through Joy hotel, new municipal buildings designed by Hermann Giesler, a NSDAP party house designed by
Roderich Fick, a Wehrmacht Headquarters, an
Olympic Stadium, and "as a counter to the
pseudo-science of the
Catholic Church" an
observatory representing "the three great cosmological conceptions of history — those
of Ptolemy,
of Copernicus and
of Hörbiger."[4] A new
Gau house for Reichsgau Oberdonau was to feature a hall and a tower, under which Hitler's
crypt was to be located.[6]Monuments and buildings to commemorate the
Anschluss and
Anton Bruckner were also planned.[6] A gigantic
suspension bridge was to connect the banks of the Danube, which was to have a decorative
frieze depicting the
Nibelungen saga with monumental
equestrian statues in pairs of
Siegfried and
Kriemhild and
Gunther and
Brünhild.[7] The Führermuseum, featuring a 150-metre (490 ft) long
colonnade, was to contain the largest and most comprehensive painting collection in Europe,[5] built around the art the Nazis had looted from Western Europe and stolen from rich Jews in Germany. The museum would anchor the planned European Cultural Centre.
In addition to the five cities decreed, there were plans to begin similar building projects in
Königsberg,
Oldenburg,
Posen,
Saarbrücken and
Wewelsburg.[3] At the influence of the
Gauleiters, Hitler also greatly increased the number of cities that were slated for reconstruction by twenty-six additional ones not much later.[2] According to a letter dated 19 February 1941 by
Albert Speer to the National Socialist Party Treasurer, these were:
^
abcTaylor, Robert R. (1974). The word in stone: the role of architecture in the National Socialist ideology. University of California Press. pp. 50–51.
ISBN0-520-02193-2.
^
abOwens Zalampas, Sherree (1990). Adolf Hitler: a psychological interpretation of his views on architecture, art, and music. Popular Press. p. 82.
ISBN0-87972-488-9.
^Pearce, Susan M. (2002). The collector's voice: critical readings in the practice of collecting. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 55.
ISBN1-85928-419-1.
Bibliography
Förster, Jürgen (1998). "Hitler's Decision in Favour of War against the Soviet Union". In Boog, Horst;
Förster, Jürgen; Hoffmann, Joachim; Klink, Ernst; Müller, Rolf-Dieter; Ueberschär, Gerd R. (eds.). The Attack on the Soviet Union. Vol. IV. Translated by McMurry, Dean S.; Osers, Ewald; Willmot, Louise. Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (
Military History Research Office (Germany) ). Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 13–51.
ISBN0-19-822886-4. {{
cite book}}: |work= ignored (
help)