
A Gigantic Nazi City That Was Never Built - rishabhd
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-gigantic-nazi-city-that-was-never-built
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masklinn
It's too bad the article is only drawing and has no picture of the models,
because they are in fact utterly inane:
[http://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/06/the-
schwerbelastungskor...](http://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/06/the-
schwerbelastungskorper-and-hitlers.html)

And the "load bearing" of the Schwerbelastungskörper (which you can
"visit"[0]) was not explained: Berlin is marshy soil, it was unclear whether
its grounds could even support the arch without sinking, the concrete cylinder
was set up to measure how fast it would sink (it sank 18cm over the duration
of the test, the project was deemed feasible if it sank less than 6):
[http://andberlin.com/2012/05/07/hitlers-folly-
schwerbelastun...](http://andberlin.com/2012/05/07/hitlers-folly-
schwerbelastungskorper/)

[0]
[http://www.schwerbelastungskoerper.de](http://www.schwerbelastungskoerper.de)

~~~
glenneroo
Warning to others: that first link had some crazy spam that opened a cacophony
of external links to various adverts and was on the verge of crashing Chrome
for Android before I killed the process.

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brianwawok
The buildings from "The Man in the High Castle" now make a lot more sense...
neat they used this for historical accuracy.

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Bluestrike2
Nazi architecture was intimidating and larger-than-life. Which was the point:
an individual walking into the Reich Chancellery was meant to feel very, very
tiny compared to the state. Dwarfed by the impact of the massive stone, what
outside concerns could compare?

There was never really any historical basis or long-standing traditions to
lend the Nazis a sort of gravitas, much as they might have wanted it. They
believed themselves to be "the master race," yet lacked the sort of history to
support their conclusions. So they appropriated everything they could get
their hands on to suggest otherwise. The swastika was stolen from Hindu
culture and used to suggest that its thousands of years of meaning use _there_
were the result of ancient Aryan ancestors. Nietzsche's work was butchered
perverted by his horrible excuse for a sister and her husband to support Nazi
ideology. Hitler's theory of ruin value, and the idea of a "Thousand-Year
Reich" flipped the lack of historical gravitas on its head, borrowing against
an ancient future that didn't exist in order to support their ideology in the
present.

If he could build buildings that made Roman ruins look positively provincial,
centuries of awe and inspiration towards them could be leveraged by the Nazis.
Difficulties and setbacks in the war could be overshadowed in the minds of the
German people by the immense power of his buildings. Architecture, for Hitler,
was a weapon:

[https://thefunambulist.net/architectural-projects/the-
funamb...](https://thefunambulist.net/architectural-projects/the-funambulist-
papers-47-nazi-architecture-as-affective-weapon-by-gaston-gordillo)

Anyhow, Hitler's idea of a Welthauptstadt Germania betrayed his global
ambitions years before the first shot was fired.

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DonaldFisk
This is about Welthauptstadt Germania, the Nazi plans for Berlin:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welthauptstadt_Germania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welthauptstadt_Germania)

[http://www.essential-
architecture.com/G-BER/GERMANY/TEN/TEN-...](http://www.essential-
architecture.com/G-BER/GERMANY/TEN/TEN-NS-10.htm)

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rurban
To Speer's rescue, the problem was the Berlin main train station too far
outside. So he came up with the plan to move it the center, and from there the
ministries along the new avenue. Problem was that he had to demolish too many
buildings with too many inhabitants. It was not that easy as in Hausmann's
Paris who did the same. And planning with Hitler was a nightmare as he
constantly interfered and new everything better.

~~~
otempomores
Fuehrefeaturecreep plagued most nazi projects.

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madengr
This must be Berlin as depicted in Amazon's Man in the High Castle. In the 2nd
season they show a massive pantheon.

~~~
LyndsySimon
Yep - as a (very amateur) student of history, when Joe arrived in Berlin and
we began to see glimpses of what the city looked like in the 1960s, I was
really drawn into the story.

Albert Speer published an autobiography, and it's a very interesting read.
It's even more interesting when you read other contemporary accounts of the
events and people he describes, because it becomes very apparent that Speer
whitewashes much of what went on in order to frame himself as less guilty of
the crimes that were committed in that era. Whether he did so to deceive
others or to deceive himself is an open question.

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ocschwar
Most of the concentration camps were built around quarries. By the end of the
war there was a lot of fresh cut stone in rail depots around Germany waiting
to be used. The intent was to use it for these megaprojects.

Ever wonder how West Germany rebuilt so quickly and so beautifully?

~~~
rad_gruchalski
Marshall Plan?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan)

~~~
dmichulke
Plus education and (business) knowledge that survived the war

I find it rather strange that people think that money alone can make a country
long-term prosperous.

~~~
tormeh
To be fair, education requires a lot of money, in teaching and even more so in
lost labor.

