Urban planning in Nazi Germany
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Urban planning in Nazi Germany, the
urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban d ...
and planning concepts used and promoted by the
Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
(1933–1945), was heavily influenced by modernist planning and involved
totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
methods to enforce
Nazi ideology Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
on its native and conquered populations.


History

The rise of the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
to power in 1933 brought about significant changes in the direction of
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
and urban planning in Germany. New political and administrative entities, formed to govern territories occupied between 1938 and 1942, had spatial and urban planning as core features. Albert Speer, Hitler's chief architect, applied his skills to design and construct buildings and cities in support of the Nazi ideology.


Generalsiedlungsplanung Ost

The ''Generalsiedlungsplanung Ost'' (General Settlement Plan East) formed part of the comprehensive ''
Generalplan Ost The ''Generalplan Ost'' (; en, Master Plan for the East), abbreviated GPO, was the Nazi German government's plan for the genocide and ethnic cleansing on a vast scale, and colonization of Central and Eastern Europe by Germans. It was to be under ...
'' (Masterplan East), intended to implement widespread
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
and replace non-German culture with Nazi ideology. The General Settlement Plan emerged to practically apply planning and architecture in support of the Masterplan's implementation. This involved using planning tools to apply the ideas advocated through ''
Lebensraum (, ''living space'') is a German concept of settler colonialism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' became a geopolitical goal of Imper ...
'' policies to create 'living space' for the German nation.


Purpose


Social control

The use of design to control populations was not a new concept. Soviet planning and architecture following the communist
revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
in 1917 had already begun to influence the activities and thoughts of its citizens. This was achieved by introducing communist political ideas into the very nature of building and city design, such as through the construction of ' living cells' and
collective farms Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...
. These activities were intended to force the people living in these areas to work and live in a way that aligned with the Marxist ideology of the government. Many similar examples may be found through history including in China and
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailan ...
. For the Third Reich and other European dictatorships of this period, urban design and planning were vital to their ideological implementation on both their homelands and conquered territories to display power and authority. It was also important for enforcing their ideas of social behaviour and control. This manifested itself in many ways throughout Germany, including the replacement of slums with middle-class employment and alignment of huge monuments to be visible from the entire metropolitan area. This application of spatial planning took a more sinister tone when Germany began conquering new territory, inhabited by people who they considered ' undesirables'. This mainly included Jews and Slavs. In these areas, urban design and planning formed part of a wide range of tools used by the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
to control and ultimately destroy these populations and their culture. They would be replaced by German settlers and culture through the wholesale destruction of existing cities and the building of new settlements in their place. These new towns would be planned in a way that would echo German cities and apply Nazi ideologies of how people should live.


Segregation

A key part of Nazi ideology was centred on ideas of
racial A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
and physical superiority. These racial and physical theories ranked different races and types of people on a scale of '
racial purity The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an animal ...
'. Urban planning played a key role in the implementation of these ideas. In existing German cities, planners were instrumental in physically separating different populations through
urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban d ...
, similar to the urban patterns of colonial planning. This included separate housing and designated areas in which non-Germans were prohibited. Eastern European territories occupied by Germany over the course of the war were subject to more brutal and widespread urban segregation. Purpose-built ghettos in cities such as
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
and
Lvov Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...
were deliberately created to separate Jews from the rest of the population and produce terrible living conditions. This was done by restricting the size of the areas to create extremely high densities and provide as few city services as possible. Tens of thousands died as a result.


Places


Germany


Berlin

One of the most ambitious plans of the Third Reich was the complete rebuilding of central Berlin. In the style of
Haussmann's renovation of Paris Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works programme commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of medieval neighbourh ...
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, much of the inner city was to be demolished and replaced with grand public buildings, wide boulevards and nationalistic monuments. This was to create a ''Welthauptstadt'' (world capital) of grand proportions for the Third Reich's conquests. Urban planning was to be used to design a city of monumental proportions showing the power of the country and the Party.


Poland


Warsaw

As one of the cities conquered by the Germans in 1939,
Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
decided to destroy Warsaw and its population, considered to be "undesireable" in
Nazi eugenics Nazi eugenics refers to the social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany, composed of various pseudoscientific ideas about genetics. The racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of ...
. The city was to be replaced by a purely German town of around 130,000 people. The plan was proposed by Friedrich Pabst in 1939 and adopted as official policy by the new German government in Poland. The reasons for these radical changes fell well within the Nazi ideology implemented in many occupied territories. The destruction of the city was to be a symbolic show of power over the
Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in C ...
by liquidating their centre of culture, history and politics. Indeed, one of the first orders given to the new German mayor of Warsaw in 1939 from the German Government was "...to do everything possible to deprive Warsaw of its character as the main centre of the Polish Republic". The new town was to be built in the style of a typical German country town as a final demonstration of power over the conquered Polish people. German planners also played a significant role in preparing the way for the implementation of the new city. This involved segregating populations into
ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...
s for easy control and extermination. The
Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...
was created in 1940 and was limited by a series of walls and watchtowers. The boundaries were gradually reduced over time as conditions worsened for its 400,000 inhabitants. Similar scenarios of urban planning as a use for social control and racial segregation were to be repeated across Nazi-occupied territories, especially across Eastern Europe.


Legacy

Many remnants of Nazi influence on urban architecture still exist across Europe, particularly in Germany. Buildings such as the 1936 Olympic Stadium and
Schwerbelastungskörper The (German: "heavy load-exerting body") is a large concrete cylinder located at the intersection of Dudenstraße, General-Pape-Straße, and Loewenhardtdamm in the northwestern part of the borough of Tempelhof in Berlin, Germany. It was built ...
are still present in Berlin. Another prominent example is the
Nazi party rally grounds The Nazi party rally grounds (german: Reichsparteitagsgelände, literally: ''Reich Party Congress Grounds'') covered about 11 square kilometres in the southeast of Nuremberg, Germany. Six Nazi party rallies were held there between 1933 and 1938 ...
in Nuremberg. However, planning has not come close to having the lasting impact initially envisaged by Hitler and Speer. Some street layouts and other public buildings were also preserved. 80–90% of Warsaw was destroyed in combat or deliberately by the Germans seeking to implement their planned destruction. This resulted in a massive post-war rebuilding program from the 1950s to the early 1980s by the Polish communist government. Some urban planners and designers who worked under the Nazi regime fled Germany post-war and brought their ideas and experiences with them. One prominent planner,
Walter Christaller Walter Christaller (April 21, 1893 – March 9, 1969), was a German geographer whose principal contribution to the discipline is central place theory, first published in 1933. This groundbreaking theory was the foundation of the study of citie ...
, assisted in the construction and design of settlements and regions in Israel. He brought his
Central place theory Central place theory is an urban geographical theory that seeks to explain the number, size and range of market services in a commercial system or human settlements in a residential system.Goodall, B. (1987) The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geo ...
, developed during his work in Germany, to his designs of Israeli
new towns A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...
and was instrumental in the settlement patterns of development through the 1950s, '60s and '70s. One of his best-known examples is the city
Kiryat Gat Kiryat Gat, also spelled Qiryat Gat ( he, קִרְיַת גַּת), is a city in the Southern District of Israel. It lies south of Tel Aviv, north of Beersheba, and from Jerusalem. In it had a population of . The city hosts one of the most a ...
in Hevel Lakhish. For many decades following the end of the Nazi regime, German cities were left with a stretched and spacious city design. The traffic was usually divided into individual roads separated by curbs, with one road serving each direction. Sidewalks were stretched out for pedestrian space. Car parking space was simplified and accessible with cars usually parked next to one another beside the roads facing the sidewalks. The only outcome noted by an urban planning historian was that while the roads and sidewalks were spacious; there was much less traffic in proportion to the plentiful space, simply because car ownership was less common for its time.Hass-Klau, Carmen. "Motorization and Footpath Planning During the Third Reich." The Pedestrian and the City. Routledge, 2014.


Gallery

File:Straße.des.17.Juni.jpg, Berlin in 1965 File:Kelet-Berlin, Ostbahnhof. Fortepan 58487.jpg,
Berlin Ostbahnhof Berlin Ostbahnhof (German for Berlin East railway station) is a main line railway station in Berlin, Germany. It is located in the Friedrichshain quarter, now part of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough, and has undergone several name changes in i ...
, 1962 File:Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden 1961.jpg,
Berlin State Opera The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from ...
, 1961 File:Berlin Gendarmenmarkt 1961 (2).jpg, Berlin
Gendarmenmarkt The Gendarmenmarkt ( en, Gut Market) is a square in Berlin and the site of an architectural ensemble including the Berlin concert hall and the French and German Churches. In the centre of the square stands a monumental statue of poet Fri ...
1961


See also

*
Nazi architecture Nazi architecture is the architecture promoted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime from 1933 until its fall in 1945, connected with urban planning in Nazi Germany. It is characterized by three forms: a stripped neoclassicism, typified by the ...
* Index of urban planning articles


References

{{Land-use planning} Urban planning in Germany Urban planning in Poland Urban planning in the Czech Republic Nazi culture History of urban planning Urban planning by period