The Gateway Chronicle 2020

Political Ideologies
15
How was Nazi ideology
reflected in their architecture?
A
fter coming to power in 1933,
Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party
began a radical transformation of
German culture, including architecture.
Indeed, architecture played a large role in
Hitler’s regime, with his chief architect Albert
Speer becoming one of the most important
men in the Nazi government by
the 1940s. The designs formulated
by the Nazis very
much reflected their political
agenda.
Firstly, Nazi architecture
reflected the authoritarian
and populist nature of
their rule and their ideology.
Hitler himself was renowned
for his populist
tactics, including large
public addresses which
sought to enthuse his followers
and whip up support.
As a result, his architecture
often accommodated
such methods of outreach. For example,
a 30 square kilometre area near
Nuremburg was supposed to be developed
in order to host up to 500,000 guests
for Nazi rallies, demonstrating how the
populist elements of Nazi ideology were
mirrored in their architecture. Likewise,
plans for a new city called ‘Germania’ to
replace Berlin included buildings such as
the ‘Volkshalle’, or People’s Hall, further
demonstrating the populist nature of Nazi
ideology, and echoing their desire to build
a utopian society with similarly named
policies such as the ‘Volksgemeinschaft’.
Nazi architecture also reflected the more
sinister, authoritarian elements of their regime.
Indeed, many of the planned buildings
were designed in such a way that
they highlighted the domineering nature
of their rule. The aforementioned
Volkshalle was planned to have a 300-metre-high
dome in the style of Hitler’s favoured
neo-classicism. Hitler even stated
that ‘our enemies and followers must realise
that these buildings strengthen our authority’,
perhaps because the sheer size of
his buildings would have dwarfed the individual
and acted as a visible metaphor
for extreme state power.
Likewise, architecture was used by the
Nazis as a means by which to demonstrate
their supposed supremacy over rivals and
those who they viewed as ‘inferior’. Supremacy
played a large role Nazi propaganda
– they sought to build the image of
the supposedly superior Aryan race. They
truly believed that the Aryans were a
‘master race’ who prevailed over all others,
especially over the perceived ‘inferior
races’ such as the Slavs and the Jews. Indeed,
there is much evidence of their bid
for Germanic superiority in their architecture.
Firstly, only German materials were
used in many of their most important architectural
projects.
The proposed
‘Volkshalle’ of Berlin