Role of Architecture as Propaganda

Learning Intention:We will be able to describe how architecture was used as a form of propaganda within the Third Reich

Role of ArchitectureLI: We will be able to describe how architecture was used as a form of propaganda within the Third Reich

• Of the traditional arts (excluding film), architecture has been seen as the most important artistic form of propaganda

• Hitler described it as ‘the word in stone’• Buildings were experienced by a large number of people, and

could be constructed in materials that would last.• Therefore they could represent the Thousand Year Reich

the Nazis were building.• Three main styles are evident in the buildings constructed

during the Third Reich.

Role of ArchitectureLI: We will be able to describe how architecture was used as a form of propaganda within the Third Reich• The most important of the styles was neo-classical,

monumental.• This style was favoured by Hitler because if the symmetric

simplicity and order of the Greeks but on a vast scale.• These buildings served a vital propaganda purpose:

• ‘Our enemies and our followers must realise that these buildings strengthen our authority’ – Hitler

• The individual was dwarfed in front of the building, which represented absolute authority.

• Their actual construction expressed the collective effort of the people, creating their Thousand Year Reich.

• Key Example:• 1937 Paris International Exhibition of Arts and Technology

– 65-metre tower, higher than the Soviet one whose plans they had acquired. The tower faced the Soviet Pavillion (architectural rivalry)

• Germania

People’s Hall:

300sq m; designed to

hold 180,000 It was planned to demolish 25,000

houses to build the

north-south axis; this vast boulevard was 5km long and

120m wide

Arch:Over 120m high and

170m wide; it was inscribed

with the names of the dead of WW1

Station Square:

1km long and 300m wide; crowned by the largest arch in the

world

Dome of the People’s Hall:

250m in diameter and

300m high

This was Hitler’s most grandiose architectural project. He planned to rebuild Berlin as the new city of Germania by 1950. This would give the regime the appearance of power and permanence, and would last the much proclaimed Thousand Years. Hitler drew up guidelines, including the idea of axes, a vast domed hall and a triumphal arch. He put Albert Speer in charge. Parts of Berlin were demolished, but little was actually built apart from the new Olympic stadium. In October 1937, a Law for the Remodelling of German Cities proposed similar schemes across Germany, to show the regime’s economic and technological dominance.

Role of ArchitectureLI: We will be able to describe how architecture was used as a form of propaganda within the Third Reich

• The regime also fostered a more traditional, vernacular (local) Germanic style for homes and youth hostels.• Most Germans

were critical of the modernist approach taken under the mass housing schemes of the Weimar Republic.

• This traditional style favoured pitched roofs and shutters

Albert SpeerLI: We will be able to describe how architecture was used as a form of propaganda within the Third Reich

• Born to middle-class parents and became an architect like his father

• Joined the Nazi Party in 1931 because ‘Hitler promised to free the German nation’ from the ‘guilt’ of the Treaty of Versailles

• After his success with the ‘cathedral of light’ at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, he became Hitler’s personal architect

• In February 1942 he replaced Todt as Minister of Armaments and War Production and became arguably the second most important Nazi. • He was now virtual dictator of the war

economy and dramatically increased armaments production.

• He was tried at Nuremberg for slave labour and was the only defendant to plead guilty. He was sentenced to 20 years, he was released from Spandau prison in 1966.

• He always claimed that his work was technological and economic not political but his role is still being assessed.

Cathedral of Light – 1934

Nuremberg Rally