The Architects
Divine destiny has given the German Folk everything in the person of one man. Not only does he possess strong and ingenious statesmanship, not only is he ingenious as a soldier, not only is he the first worker and the first economist among his Folk, but, and this is perhaps his greatest strength, he is an artist. He came from art, he devoted himself to art, especially to the art of architecture, this powerful creator of great buildings, and now he has also become the Reich's builder. -- Die Begabung des Einzelnen -- Fundament für alle, Hakenkreuzbanner -- Swastika Flag, June 10th, 1938.) |
Hitler saw himself as the artist of the Nation, and above all as its architect.
He often said that if he had not gone into politics he would have become an
architect. He liked to show off his architectural knowledge, often drawing
details of buildings, facades, pillars, and
vaults.
His delight in the architecture of Wien -- its neobaroque and neoclassical
buildings -- never left him. In most of his own drawings he favoured a
monumental style. He read extensively about architecture while imprisoned in
Landsberg Prison, and his private library contained quite a few books and
magazines on the subject. He also had an extraordinary memory for architectural
details and often astonished his associates with his extensive knowledge of
buildings in foreign countries, sometimes down to the most precise details.
England's neogothic Houses Of Parliament he considered the perfect expression of
a civilisation. Everything large and impressive found favour with him. Rome's
Colosseum, Basilica of Saint Peter, and Pantheon were for him the best examples
of monumental buildings, an architecture produced by the Folk Community. These
and the Madeleine in Paris, and especially the dome of Les Invalides, inspired
his building plans for Berlin. All the buildings had to be clear and light. He
disliked the excessive playfulness of Gothic cathedrals; they were not really
German for him. He preferred the solidity of the Romanesque. The models for his
new cities were those of The Ring in Wien, or
Haussmann's
Paris.
Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's photographer, reports that when Hitler was asked
once why he had not become an architect, he replied:
I decided
to become the master builder of the Third Reich. Heinrich
Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend, page
184.)
He liked to be photographed and painted with plans and models.
We are realising the ideas of The Leader, wrote
Albert Speer. Hitler the supreme builder was proclaimed in signs on buildings
which read: We owe it to The Leader that we build here. A large portrait of Hitler the architect and sculptor by Fritz
Erler hung at the entrance to the
Great German Art Exhibition,
1938.
The obsession with architecture never left Hitler. At the end of his life, he
spent hours in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery looking at models for a new
town centre for Linz, and he would talk about new buildings with the architect
Hermann
Giesler.
Hitler was eager that many buildings should be linked with his name, especially
those in which he had been actively involved either by furnishing drawings or by
making concrete suggestions. He wanted to be seen as the mentor and initiator of
German architecture. But he also took great care that only those buildings in
which he actually played a part were allowed to mention this fact. The accolade
Architektur des Führer --
Architecture Of The Leader was not given to just
any building. Architecture was for him the highest form of art.
Architecture leads all other arts. It shows, everywhere, the great
hand of our Leader. From him come the greatest impulses for the creation of and
the search for new ways. In this way, architecture, too, has a political and
cultural role to play, said a speaker at a conference of
several hundred architects in München in 1937. (Franz Moraller, cited in
Mitteilungsbiatt der Reichskammer der bildenden Künste, August 1st, 1937, page 12.)
Buildings, better than anything else, were able to express National Socialist
thoughts in a permanent form. His faith in the superiority of architecture was
total; to him it was a discipline above mean, transient criticism.
Who can be so arrogant as to measure, with our small minds, the work
of the creative, godblessed Nature of the very great? Great artists and
architects have a right not to be judged by small contemporaries. Their work
will be assessed by the centuries ..... Do not forget that in this hour we lift
the curtain to reveal works which will mark not decades but centuries ..... that
will endure, strong and irrevocably, by their beauty and their harmonic
measure. (Hitler at München, January 22nd, 1938, cited in
Folkish Observer, November 24th,
1938.)
Architecture was seen as part of the German revolution, buildings as an act of
faith; no longer the work of individual architects, but the work and holy
concern of the whole
Nation.
Hitler's plans for large national buildings dated from the early 1920s. As soon
as he came to power in 1933, he began to realise some of these projects: in
München, the Braunes Haus --
Brown House, the layout of the
Königsplatz, and two large Party buildings, the
Leader Building and the Administration Building Of The National Socialist German
Worker's Party. In October of the same year he also laid the foundation stone
for a new House Of German Art, in München. For Berlin too he began to initiate
buildings, which were based on plans he had devised in the
1920s.
He gathered around him a group of efficient and professional architects able to
realise his dreams: Paul Ludwig Troost, Albert Speer, Hermann Giesler, and Fritz
Todt. Hitler considered Troost the greatest German architect since the
nineteenth century neoclassicist Karl Friedrich Schinkel. After Troost's death
Hitler was tempted with the idea of taking over his architectural practice, but
declined the
opportunity.
Hitler knew that architecture was able to unite people behind a strong aesthetic
idea, to celebrate the lasting quality of the Reich, and most of all to give his
regime authority. Our enemies will guess it, but our own Folk
must know it: new buildings are being put up to strengthen our new
authority, he said at the Reich Party Day in
1937.
Again and again he stated that great buildings were products of historic times,
as well as manifestations of absolute political power.
The
great building program is a tonic against the inferiority complex of the German
Folk, Hitler said.
He who would educate a
Folk must give to it visible grounds for pride. This is not to show off but to
give self confidence to the Nation. A Nation of 80,000,000 has the right to own
such buildings. The buildings also represented absolute power.
Our enemies and our followers must realise that these buildings
strengthen our authority. (Hitler at Nürnberg, cited in
Folkish Observer, September 9th,
1937.)
They were securing Hitler's power for all time. Generations would recognise them
as they recognise Gothic or Renaissance architecture.
The
magnitude of these works is not measured by the need of 1938, 1939, or 1940
..... our task is to give the Folk who have existed for a thousand years, with
their millennial past of history and civilisation ..... a millennial city for
the limitless future which lies before them. (Hitler at
Berlin, November 27th, 1937, cited in
Frankfurter Zeitung, November 29th,
1937.)
Architecture became the most forceful expression of the National Socialist idea.
Here the word had become stone in order to
express true German greatness.
Philosophy is more visible in
architecture than in any other art form ..... The buildings of The Leader are
the signs of the philosophical change of our time. They are National Socialism
incarnate ..... Hitler formed in these buildings the noblest qualities of his
Folk ..... The greatness of the German soul eternalised in stone, witnesses of
heroism ..... they are the holy shrines of our Folk. Their destiny is to
proclaim our philosophy. (Nationalsozialistische Baukunst, in
Mitteilungsblatt der Reichskammer der bildenden Künste, September 1st, 1939, page 1.)
In the beginning there was an overlap of the old and the new. Until 1930 the
Party did not openly criticise the industrial and social building programs of
architects like Walter Gropius or Mies van der Rohe. And even later, motorways,
many factories, the newly built airports in Berlin at Gatow and Tempelhof made
much use of modern functionalism and technology borrowed from the Bauhaus
architects. There is a danger that we might relapse into a
senseless and soulless imitation of the past. The architect will not hesitate to
use modern building materials just as he will not hesitate to return to those
elements of form which in the past were invented by the genius of a race similar
to his own. Buildings created by the Folk must represent the whole of the
Folk. (Hitler at Nürnberg, September 11th, 1935, cited in
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, September 13th,
1935.)
For Hamburg, for instance, which struck Hitler as somewhat American, he wanted a
250 metre high skyscraper. He knew that Hamburg, open to the world, needed its
own style.
During the first few years National Socialism did not slavishly follow one
architectural style. Not all the architects who came to prominence were Party
hardliners, nor did they all follow the same style or aesthetic principles.
There were those who favoured a vernacular style and those who followed
neoclassical models. Ernst Sagebiel and Roderich Fick supported the official
building program. But in 1936 the influential magazine
Moderne
Bauformen reproduced their work next to the modern buildings
of Hugo Häring in Berlin's
Siemensstadt and
Mies van der Rohe's modern apartments in the
Afrikanische
Straße. (Moderne Bauformen,
volume 35, 1936.)
Modern architects such as Heinrich Tessenow (1876-1950) and Peter Behrens, both
opponents of the National Socialist Party, were allowed to continue to design,
at least for a while. Some, like Paul Bonatz, who was not a member of the Party,
and Werner March (1894-1976), were not, at least in the beginning, opposed to
modern solutions. German Bestelmeyer (1874-1942) and Paul Ludwig Troost were
stern defenders of the new architectural theories, based on historical styles;
Paul Schmitthenner (1884-1972) pursued a vernacular
architecture.
What soon united National Socialist views on architecture was the rejection of a
modern style. A quaint vernacular style for housing and a monumental style for
public buildings became the order of the day.
In the future
there will be no more boxes for living, no churches that look like
greenhouses, no glasshouse on top of columns ..... built as a result of
professional incompetence. No prison camps parading as workers' homes,
subsidised by public money. Get compensation money from those criminals who
enriched themselves with these crimes against national culture, wrote the famous Bettina Feistl-Rohmeder, castigating the modern
Siedlungen -- multiple dwelling complexes of
Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Bruno Taut, and other representatives of the
modern movement. (Bettina Feistl-Rohmeder,
Was die Deutschen
Künstler von der neuen Regierung erwarten, 1933, in
Im Terror des Kunstbolschewismus, Karlsruhe,
1938.)
In architecture, Jews and communists were barred from the official Chamber Of
Architects, which meant they had little chance of building anything. In an open
competition for a design for the State Bank, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius,
and Hans Pölzig submitted entries. The winner selected by Hitler was Heinrich
Wolff. His proposal, traditional in its form, modern in its construction, shows
what was the favoured Party
style.
The National Socialists did not wholly reject modern technology. They often used
the most advanced building techniques hidden behind neoclassical facades. In the
same way as Hitler liked to show off the technical advances made by Germany in
the field of cars, cameras, and aeroplanes, so he also boasted of technical
advances in architecture.
The rise of Germany since National
Socialism took power is unique. Our constructions are the most exemplary of
their kind. The precision of German workmanship does not have to fear anything
done by foreign countries; on the contrary, it is technically the very best, stated Hitler, opening a motor
show.
The motorways became one of the best examples of modern technology and design
and were much admired by foreign countries, a fact Hitler never ceased to
stress. The British press says, The German motorways are
second to none and lead the world. The Dutch say, We are filled
with admiration for this great German achievement. Yugoslavia: As
the pyramids record the history of the Pharaohs, so too the motorways will
remind the German Folk forever of the most extraordinary figure in its history.
A man of the Folk who single handed, with no other help, by virtue of his own
will has created a new German Reich, went the
commentary in a documentary film about the new German highways. The motorways
were another symbol of the glorious and relentless advancement of the National
Socialist Movement. It inspired such verses
as:
A ribbon of stone does
span our land,
A Folk has built
with all its might,
Stands ready
now for a new fight.
The Leader's
mind did think it out,
A faithful
Folk brought it about.
A triumph
of power, the work is done.
The
first battle has been won.
A Folk
free of want and shame,
The future calls with higher aim.
The Leader
gives us faith again.
(Commentary from the film
Beim Bau
der Autobahn, Bundesarchiv
Koblenz.)
Automobile highways were the best means of giving people work and of getting the
economy going. But most of all they were seen as yet another achievement to
boost the confidence of the Nation, elevating it into a powerful symbol.
The new German automobile highway network is not only in its concept
the most powerful in the world but also the most exemplary. It will help more
than anything else to bind the Regions and the States and force them into a
unity. The documentary film in which Hitler made this
statement brought the message home. In it workers proudly proclaimed to the
interviewing reporter:
Tell the people at home that we are
building bridges unlike any that existed before, and that we all work together,
and that we know what is at stake. (Commentary from the film
Beim Bau der Autobahn, Bundesarchiv
Koblenz.)
The fascination was total, and impossible for decent people to resist. It is
hard for us nowadays, used to cars and motorways, to understand the enthusiasm
that greeted each new bridge with its four lane highway. Hitler was filmed in an
open Mercedes, followed by a fleet of brand new Mercedes and Volkswagen cars in
neat formation, driving down every new stretch of the motorway, crossing bridges
decorated with large columns and eagles carrying Swastikas. Thousands lined the
roads and cheered the spectacle of gleaming metal and shining leather
coats.
While the building of such an innovatory and vast motorway network was
politically and strategically motivated, it was also an extraordinary technical
and aesthetic tour de force, Even today much of the extraordinary and continuing
respect of Hitler is based on his achievement with the motorways. A powerful
symbol of political strength, willpower, and achievement, they were meant to
provide the conquering military with easy access to the rest of Europe. They
were called Hitler's Streets. In Germany
plans for the first motorway date from 1926; the first test road between Köln
and Bonn was opened in 1932.
With their stunning bridge constructions and sweeping lanes, the automobile
highways were a remarkable piece of modern architecture built by the best
architects to blend with the landscape. Roderich Fick built a bridge over the
Isar River mostly made of wood to blend with local architecture. Bonatz designed
a bridge near the Romanesque cathedral of Limburg that reminded one of a Roman
aqueduct. Petrol stations were often built in a modern style growing out of the
Bauhaus teaching.
The automobile highways were masterminded by Fritz Todt, an early Party member,
a nature and music loving German who became a hero, especially among the young,
for the exploits of his Organisation Todt. With the help of this organisation,
Todt -- an engineer, not an architect -- conquered land and cleared swamps. He
was considered one of the highest artists in the land, and honoured as such. His
automobile highway was not just a road but technology elevated to art. He was
sensitive to the details of traditional craftsmanship and included them in his
bridges. Todt was open minded enough to consult Mies van der Rohe and to employ
architects such as Bonatz, who was reputable and not known for Party
faithfulness. Albert Speer took control of the motorways after Fritz Todt died
in a car crash in 1942.
Having banned the architects of the twenties, Hitler looked for new talent.
Among them was the talented Fritz Tamms (born 1904). Franz Moraller spoke for
many: We architects want to create a new architecture, based on
tradition. It reflects our philosophy of life. Bad building, empty effects, and
the search for the sensational must be stopped. The great buildings of the
Movement are not built for their own sake. They must demonstrate to the German
Folk the determination, unity, strength, and power of the State.... The style of
the buildings must reflect the will which formed it.
(Moraller, cited in Mitteilungsblatt der Reichskammer der
bildenden Künste, August 1st, 1937, page 12.)
From 1938 onward there were representative
German Architecture
And Craft Exhibitions in München, which Hitler opened
personally There were only three official German architecture exhibitions, the
first in January, 1938, the second in December of the same year, and the third
in July of 1939. The war criminally imposed upon the decent Germans stopped all
further displays. Other similar exhibitions toured the country. The exhibitions
showed mostly plaster models of the new buildings; large wood and plaster models
were also carried in processions through the streets of München during the Day
Of Art parades. These exhibitions, like the buildings, were widely reported in
the press, but as in painting, architectural criticism hardly existed, despite
the large number of books published on this subject. Instead, devoted National
Socialists described them honestly. Werner Rittich, coeditor with Robert Scholz
of the magazine Die Völkische Kunst --
Folkish Art, became one of the leading National
Socialist writers on architecture, as did Rosenberg and Schultze-Naumburg. To
all of them architecture was a political weapon, a domain in which to fight out
ideological battles.
On the whole, the architecture of the Third Reich closely followed, in form and
content, the architecture of the past. There was no revolution, scarcely even a
break, but there was tremendous development and improvement and coordination.
The two prevailing trends for public buildings were monumentalism and
neoclassicism. Neoclassicism has long been the language of political power. It
was by no means exclusive to Germany or to totalitarian systems. It was the
official style of many countries. France, Russia, Italy, and the United States
had all used it for their town halls, public libraries, universities, railway
stations, and museums. In the nineteenth century a system of codes was invented
by architects and architectural theorists that echoed a general nostalgia for a
stable world, a world of historical continuity. Classical, Gothic, and even
Egyptian elements satisfied these longings.
Hitler too looked for buildings which were already programmed in this way. The
Walhalla and the
Befreiungshalle, both designed by Leo von Klenze
(1784-1864), were two buildings which Hitler utilised for his own purposed. He
made them his buildings, frequently holding celebrations and meetings there.
Their pathos of eternity, expressed by massive architecture in heavy stone,
entered the architecture of the Third Reich.
For the National Socialists each building was not merely a building. It had to
be a monument. Even administration buildings had to express the ideology of the
regime. These works of ours shall also be eternal, that is to
say, not only in the greatness of their conception, but in their clarity of
plan, in the harmony of their proportions, they shall satisfy the requirements
of eternity ..... magnificent evidence of civilisation in granite and marble,
they will stand through the millennia ..... these buildings of ours should not
be conceived for the year 1942 nor for the year 2000, but like the cathedrals of
our past they shall stretch into the millennia of the future,
Hitler proclaimed at Nürnberg, cited in
Folkish Observer, September 9th,
1937.
The National Socialists were consumers of cultures as well as makers of it, and
they blended a excellent conglomeration of traditional styles into a unifying
overall National Socialist style. Many of the public buildings share a specific
handwriting which makes them instantly recognisable as the product of the Third
Reich. There were the stripped down porticos, the stark rectilinear look
emphasised by the heavy horizontals of cornices and rows of windows with deep
frames.
A monumental symmetry dominated their facades, thanks to ranks of windows set in
walls of roughhewn stone. The shallow windows in such heavy walls were designed
to evoke images of fortresses and give the building a feeling of
impenetrability. The cambered walls and massive timbered gables impressed and
commanded
respect.
Much of the public architecture of the late nineteenth century was smothered in
ornaments. The National Socialists, in contrast, shunned too much ornament in
their drive for clarity.
To be German means to be clear was one of Hitler's often quoted phrases. The facades of the Third
Reich were simpler than those of their predecessors. Pillars and pilasters that
had structural functions were admitted into a modern combination of technology
and decoration. And of course there were decorations in the form of mosaics,
friezes, and wreaths surrounding the honoured Swastika, which was sometimes
stylised into geometrical patterns, and finally, the ubiquitous
eagle.
Another distinction was the emphasis on the material used. The symbolic meaning
of stone was stressed. The feeling for material was as intense as the feeling
for buildings. The use of stone confirmed the great truth of a living handicraft
tradition. There was also a practical reason for the use of granite and other
local stone. The medieval handhewn finish of the buildings in massive stone and
wood saved on steel and concrete, which was needed to build defensive bunkers.
Words like austere,
sober, and
Nordic were used by the architectural press to describe these attractive
buildings.
One critic spoke of a
self willed style and
of severe beauty. Much of National Socialist
architecture looks military, and in fact, most buildings were part of an
extensive network of underground airraid shelters. The structures were blank and
orderly. All decoration was austere. There was less room for playfulness. The
human being was often dwarfed by the scale of the buildings, reduced to an
insignificant prop, which took on value only in an organised and choreographed
mass. In a drawing by Hans Liska depicting the studio Speer built for Thorak,
one can see the dwarfed studio assistants chiselling away to create the New
Man.
Like Hitler's speeches, his architecture was huge, awe inspiring, uplifting,
magnificent. Buildings had massive proportions. And there was good workmanship
in details. The architects well used the language of classicism -- portals,
pillars, and
stone.
But if the National Socialists' buildings were meant to impress and to
intimidate, they were also meant to unite the Folk. They were the result of a
collective effort like the one that had produced the great buildings of the
past, the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, the great monuments of Rome. Buildings
became objects of identification. Together with their flagpoles, braziers,
grandstands, and the people who filled them, they became lighthouses
illuminating the way for a whole Nation into a bigger and brighter
future.
