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This richly illustrated book details the wide-ranging construction and urban planning projects launched across Germany after the Nazi Party seized power. Hagen and Ostergren show that it was far more than just an architectural and stylistic enterprise. Instead, it was a series of interrelated programs intended to thoroughly reorganize Germany's economic, cultural, and political landscapes. The authors trace the specific roles of its component parts-the monumental redevelopment and cleansing of cities; the construction of new civic landscapes for educational, athletic, and leisure pursuits; the improvement of transportation, industrial, and military infrastructures; and the creation of networked landscapes of fear, slave labor, and genocide. Through distinctive examples, the book draws out the ways in which combinations of place, space, and architecture were utilized as a cumulative means of undergirding the regime and its ambitions. The authors consider how these reshaped spaces were actually experienced and perceived by ordinary Germans, and in some cases the world at large, as the regime intentionally built a new Nazi Germany.
List of contents
List of Tables and Figures
Preface
1 Statism, Totalitarianism, and National Socialism
2 Things to Take Your Breath Away: The Führer Cities
3 A Nazi Civic Spirit: Reordering Cities and Towns
4 From Chaos to Order and Back Again: Home, Hearth, and Family Life
5 Mind, Body, and Heart: Turning Germans into Nazis
6 The Machinery of Conquest: The Military-Industrial Complex
7 Working toward Genocide: Camps of Confinement, Enslavement, and Death
Epilogue: The Building and Breaking of Nazi Germany
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Authors
About the author
Joshua Hagen is dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.Robert C. Ostergren is professor emeritus in the Department of Geography at University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Summary
This richly illustrated book details the wide-ranging construction and urban planning projects launched across Germany after the Nazi Party seized power. The authors show that it was an intentional program to thoroughly reorganize Germany’s economic, cultural, and political landscapes in order to create a dramatically new Nazi Germany.
Additional text
An indispensable work for anyone interested in urban planning and architecture under National Socialism. Erudite, captivating, and filled with fascinating photos and maps, the book leaves the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted and often contradictory imprint of Nazi ideology on the built landscape of Germany.
