sign in sign up
<<
Home , Albert Speer, Ernst Herzfeld, Inside the Third Reich

Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Growth and Structure of Cities Faculty Research Growth and Structure of Cities and Scholarship

1973 Review of : Memoirs, by Barbara Miller Lane Bryn Mawr College, [email protected]

Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/cities_pubs Part of the Architecture Commons, History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, and the Urban Studies and Planning Commons

Custom Citation Lane, Barbara M. Review of Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs, by Albert Speer. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 32 (1973): 341-346.

This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/cities_pubs/26

For more information, please contact [email protected]. 341 Violette, Gallo di Siena, Engelsberger, ical will to power we will create stone Negro Marquina. The author remarks documents."I As early as 1920, when the Skilledstonemasons and stonecarversare that most of the names are now unfamiliar Nazi movement had hardly begun, Adolf now difficultto find, and there are few in Vienna and unknown abroad. Hitler made this statementto his assembled books in print on these hard crafts.The The author also discussessome virtually audience at the Hofbraiuhausin . Stonesof the ViennaRing, subtitled Their extinct nineteenth-centurycrafts: the Mar- From that time forward, until Berlin was Technologicaland Artistic Significance, is an morierer("marblers") boasted that their crumblingin ruinsaround him, Hitler con- extraordinaryvolume. artificial veined marble could not be dis- sistently repeated his promise to create a The authoris an EmeritusProfessor of tinguished from real marble in the same new monumental architecture,one which Geology at the ViennaPolytechnic who room; the Punktierer("pointers") did all would leave "stone documents" of the becameinterested in buildingstones about the hard carving for the eminent sculptors "thousand-yearReich." fifty yearsago. He was activeas a consul- who modelled statuary in clay and never Other authoritarianrulers were lavish tantto preservationistsof architecture,and wielded hammer and chisel in their lives. patrons of architecture.Often they sought he eventuallybecame a formidableauthor- The second part of the book gives con- to embody the idealsof their regimes in the ity in his interdisciplinaryfield. (The six- cise data and excellent descriptionsof some forms of the buildings they commissioned. teen-pagebibliography of thepresent book 460 buildings. The public and private But no other regime ever made so much of includesthirty-three books and articles by buildings of the Ring were enriched with its architecturein propaganda and public ProfessorKieslinger, published between muscular telamons, voluptuous caryatids, relations.None, for that matter,had a frus- 1929and 1972.)His expertisewas particu- and other sculptural decoration. The au- trated architectas dictator, a former archi- larly valuableafter World War II when thor treats sculpture as an integral part of tect as principalideologue,2 or a successful many buildingsin Viennawere damaged architecture.The Ring is a veritable out- architectas ministerof armamentsand war by bombingor artilleryand had to be re- door museum of statuary, and more than production. Hitler's admiration for archi- storedor razed.Clambering about black- loo monuments and fountainsare also de- tects and architecturewas unbounded. His enedwalls, the authorwas ableto identify scribed here. desire to create a personal, but lasting, hundredsof kindsof stoneand brick and to The illustrations are without doubt monumental architecture was a passion makeappropriate recommendations. among the finest architecturalphotographs which sometimeseven overrode his love of The volumeis dividedinto a "Technical ever published. It is evident that Elfriede conquest, to which it was closely allied. Part"and a "DescriptivePart." The first Mejcharalways found the preciseplace and The publication, in 1969 and 1970, of partdiscusses materials and methods which time of day at which the bold relief of Albert Speer'smemoirs3 has renewed pub- are rarelymentioned by architecturalhis- these buildings shows to best advantage. lic interestin these and other aspectsof the torians.In nineteenth-century Vienna there This is an original, scholarly,and beauti- Nazi regime. Aside from , still was a hierarchyof wall construction.In ful book. It was also a labor of love. serving his life term in Spandau prison, ascendingorder: Speer is the only surviving wartime inti- 1. BrickWall. Called in Viennaby the mate of Hitler; he was, for a time, the sec- pejorativename Rohbau("raw construc- In the October 1970 JSAH this reviewer ond most powerful man in the Third Reich. tion"). Used only for utilitarianbuildings wrote about the first volume of this series: But as the dust has settled, it has become like factoriesand stables. "On the evidence of this introductoryvol- apparentthat Speer'slengthy memoirs re- 2. BrickWall, stuccoed. The most com- ume and the announced program, Die veal surprisinglylittle about the mechanics mon type of construction.Often trimmed WienerRingstrasse is a monumental work of Nazi government. Scholars have ob- with stone. of relevanthistorical scholarship. It should served so many gaps in his account of the Brick 3. Wall,facedwith stone slabs. Only be of outstanding value and interest to all operation of his ministry as to shed consid- the brick is load-bearing.Similar to the serious students of nineteenth-century ar- erable doubt on the whole.4 Speer's char- Americanbrownstone house. chitecture and civilization." acterizationof Hitler as a man both forceful 4. StoneAshlar, backed with brick.Both The two volumes under review have and modest has helped to explain to a stoneand brick are load-bearing. kept the promise. broad popular audience in this country StoneWall. On 5. theRing only the Vo- JOHN MAASS Hitler's appeal to his followers, although tive Church,Opera, University,Parlia- City of Philadelphia ment, City Hall, and Burg Theaterwere entirelybuilt of costlycut stone. Hundredsof kinds of building stone 1. BarbaraMiller Lane,Architecture and Politics were broughtto Vienna,not only fromall in ,1918-1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), partsof the Austro-Hungarianmonarchy p. 147 fn. 3. but alsofrom Italy, Germany, France, Bel- 2. . Albert Speer,Inside the ThirdReich; Me- 3. (1969) and Inside the Third Sweden, and Their Erinnerungen gium, Spain. very moirs,trans. from the German Richard Reich(1970). The English edition is more than a nameshave a rich,romantic sound-Ros- by and ClaraWinston, Introduction by Eu- translation:it omits a number of details present marino,Brocatello, Porto Venere,W6l- in the German edition and includes a few new gene Davidson,New York: Macmillan, lersdorfer, Savonnibre,Grotto Chiaro, passages.Unless otherwisenoted, page references 1970, xviii+ 596 pp., illus. $12.5o hard- in the notes below are to the version. Bardiglio, Margaretener,Rouge Royal, English back,$1.95 paper. 4. See, for example, Felix Gilbert, "The Dy- Breitenbrunner,Sankt Philippiner, Polce- namics of Nazi Totalitarianism,"Social Research, vera,Nalresina Galleria, Seravezza Brache "Outof ournew ideologyand our polit- XXXIX(1972), 191-203. 342 R7; "'

4* .... 3 , -~....?~-? ?

r-;

s.?

:I r? ?;

r

??%~t; 'it.

Fig.3. Speer,studio for sculptorJosef Thorak(from Speer, Neue Deutsche Baukunst). Fig.2. Speer,New Chancellery,Berlin (fromSpeer, Neue Deutsche Baukunst). chelangesque.6If, on the otherhand, one confinesoneself to best-knownand Dance Dresden- Speer's Fig. 1. Tessenow, School, mosteffective the of Hellerau,before World War I (fromRittich, work, complex party at Architekturund Bauplastik der Gegenwart). congressgrounds ,Speer's young, respectful,and eager to learnfrom talentappears to be thatof a stage-designer Hitler's earlier favorite, Paul Ludwig ratherthan an architect.Much of the this characterizationhas been familiar to Troost,who diedin 1934.He saystoo that, dramaof the Nurembergbuildings result- of as scholars for years from other memoirs. althoughHitler's architectural ideas were ed from the use flags quasi-architec- tural Speer's memoirs have also been much sometimesa littlegrandiose for his taste, he elements(Fig. 8); Speer'singenious of at also touted as a study in self-analysis,and cer- sharedwith bothHitler and Troost a fond- arrangement searchlights night the tainly a truthfulaccount of the motivations ness for Neo-classicalstyles, modernized helped to createexcitement among in the of a leading Nazi officialwould be good to andbrought up to date.Speer's own liking participants NurembergCongresses. But the executed have. Yet Speer's introspections,then and for Neo-classicismwas acquired,he says, among principal works, thenew Chan- now, never go much beyond banal trivi- partlyfrom his fatherand partly from his theparty congress grounds, for ality: teacherand supervisor at the BerlinTech- cellery(Fig. 2), the Germanpavilion nischeHochscule, . theParis World's Fair of 1937(Fig. 6), and In memoirs writingthese I becameincreasingly Someof thisis true: the little-knownstudio for sculptorJosef astonishedto realizethat before 1944 I so rarely surely Speer'syouth -in factalmost never-found the time to reflect does seem to have appealedto Hitler,as Thorak(Fig. 3), thereare commonand aboutmyself or my own activities,that I never did his speed and efficiency.But if one significantformal elements. Speer was very gave my own existencea thought.Today, in closely examinesSpeer's executed build- fond of free-standingsquare piers, sharply I often have the that some- retrospect, feeling they show little resemblanceto cut, sometimesvery elongated,with a thing me off theground at thetime, ings, swooped up Troost'swork, and less to Hitler'sown flutedsurface, as at Paris, sometimes smooth wrenchedme fromall my roots,and beamed a as in the hostof alienforces upon me.S earlytastes in architecture.Nor is it possible andframed by massivemasonry, to discernin themmore than the mostten- entranceto the Chancelleryor at Nurem- Thus in fails to un- retrospect too, Speer uouslink to GermanNeo-classicism. berg.In the caseof the Luitpoldhalle(Fig. derstandhis reactions to the seductions of Speer in fact his own distinctive 8), the flags,firmly anchored and colum- and developed quite power prestige. of monumentalarchitecture, and suc- nar,visually take the placeof piersset in a of and style Speer'sdescriptions how why he sold it to his frameworkof solidmasonry. These groups the of the cessfully patron,presumably designed major public buildings over some The natureof this of squarepiers never supported any sem- Third on the objections. Reich are, surface, equally monumental its and blanceof a capitalor pediment.It is vir- tells us that he succeeded style, origins signifi- disappointing.He are the more tuallyimpossible to seethem as Neo-classi- in Hitler's favor because he could accom- cance, among interesting problemsraised by Speer'smemoirs. cal,as Speer professes to do, or to accepthis modate himself to what Hitler called the who Speer'sarchitecture is not alwayseasy to claimthat they came from Tessenow, "American in he was tempo" building: characterize;if one takesall the buildings only usedthem once, and in a ratherdiffer- able to design and execute structuressuch and projectstogether what emergesis an ent manner(Fig. 1).7 as the new Reichs Chancellery in a com- extreme eclecticism.The plannedgreat paratively short time. He tells us also that hallfor Berlin, for example, is convention- 6. Illustratedin Speer. the liked him becausehe was of used a somewhat similar Fiihrer very ally Neo-classical;the modelof the Nur- 7. Troost, course, pier in his Ehrentempelnin Munich (see Gerdy emberg Stadium,pseudo-Roman; the fa- Troost, Das Bauenim Neuen Reich [Bayreuth, 5. Speer, pp. 32-33. qadeofthe projected palace for Goering, Mi- 1938], I, 17). 343

ICk~ , D

.G ~r~?-- ~ ??Ls ?I' ?r; r? z.*~ '?:,,? ?.r.rlru5~" 'U??IIIII:~rr-

r I?'P. rrrrrr`rr~1%Ir,~'' ,I;i ~;IZ~1~~ ?..;. .d~~CC' ?*? ..? r:. r .;ht- ~? ~~'?"~-jjr??" i;- ?1 ,~\ ?,?n ?:??? ?~~ ?.~: : ?-?~ :(x; r-? ?tr?R; ' c* L~ .i 'L c~,q~ ;,;sy,:,?.. ?; L1~..

Fig. 4. Speer,Zeppelinfeld, Nuremberg (from Rittich, Architektur Fig. 5. Tomb of Queen Hatshepsut,Deir el-Bahari,Egypt (from undBauplastik der Gegenlvart). Millon, Key Monumentsin theHistory of Architecture).

The proportions of Speer's executed gest both the authoritarianand the demo- Speer's memoirs reinforce this position, structureswere also consistent.The build- cratic natures of the Nazi regime in these since in them he insists that the predomi- ings were never very large, especially by buildings-the first by massivemonumen- nant influencein his own work, apartfrom American standards,and they were always tality, the second by proportionand acces- Tessenow, came from his admiration for visually very accessible.No massive bases sibility. the Doric.13Apparently he clearlyremem- set the piers up above the viewer, no long Was he also, by omitting obvious his- bers being inspiredby some antiqueproto- flights of steps intervened between the torical referents,implying that the new re- type. How then can the absence of Neo- visitor and the entrancesto his buildings. gime had no historical precedents?Hitler classicalmotifs in his executed buildingsbe Doorways and windows (Figs. 3, lo) were himselfvacillatedon the questionofwhether explained? high and vertical in proportion, but with- Nazi architectureshould take a wholly new The memoirs, despite their emphasison out lintels, or with very low sills, giving a form, or whether it should revivify some the supposed classicalinspiration, do help feeling of immediacy and participationto German past."' Hitler admired both the explain the actual origins of Speer'swork. the viewer. The New Chancellery, like Vienna Ringstrasseand the architectureof For when he is not talking about style, but many of Speer's buildings, was set right ImperialRome. But these models were ex- is describing the size and characterof his against the sidewalks, with windows al- ceptionally difficult to reconcile with any constructions for Hitler, he repeatedly most at eye level; even the casualpasserby exclusively German tradition. Thus when compares them to Babylon and Karnak. could thereby sense the accessibilityof the Hitler invoked historic styles in architec- And in my opinion, the most obvious pro- Fiihrer.8 These characteristicsof Speer's ture, he referredmore often to the Greek totypes for Speer'swork are Egyptian and buildings have been too long overlooked: tradition, asserting,like many other racial Mesopotamian. The visual similarity be- they were large but not colossal; by their theoristsof the time, that the Greeks were tween the view of the Nuremberg stadium proportions they encouraged access and among the original "Aryans.""11Our as- (Fig. 4) and the remains of the tomb of may well have made the viewer feel larger sumptions about the overwhelming im- Queen Hatshepsutat Deir-el-bahari (Fig. than life; and they were austereand sharply portance of race in Hitler's thought have 5) is striking; the studio for Thorak too chiselled, often showing considerablefeel- led us to take these referencesvery seri- (Fig. 3) bearsa close resemblanceto some ing for the abstractinterplay of solid and ously and often to generalize,on the basis of the smallerbuildings being reconstruct- void.9 Speer was evidently trying to sug- of insufficientevidence,12 about the Neo- ed at Karnak in the early 1930s.14 Even classical character of . more convincing is the similaritybetween the fluted at Paris and contemporary 8. Set on some steps, the Paris pavilion is so piers tall and narrow that it dwarfs them; the viewer reconstructiondrawings of (Figs. 6, is scarcelyaware of them. The Nuremberg sta- small, simple but cozy houses, seems to me an 7). Speer's method of framing these piers dium has, of course,no windows, but most of its unlikely person to have conveyed them to him. or columnardevices can often be observed entrances to onto the side- The other radical architect whom ad- appear open directly only Speer in such reconstructiondrawings (Figs. 8, walk; even the main entrance to the main tri- mits that he admired was Hans Poelzig, whose Even the of windows and bune is approachedby a few very low steps. See work was extremely erratic, highly decorative, 9). proportions Troost, Bauen,p. 29. often monumental, and very different in charac- doors are surprisinglysimilar to drawings 9. It was this kind of use of abstractforms in ter from that of most modern architects in Berlin. Speer'swork which led me in 1968 to describe lo. Lane, Architectureand Politics, pp. 189-19o0. Speer's work as "a combination of modernity 11. Ibid. 13. Speer, pp. 62-63. illustrated in E. and neo-classicism"(Architecture and Politics,p. 12. See, for example, Hellmut Lehmann- 14. Temple of Khons, Karnak, Architectureas Cultural 193). I am here rejectingthe latterassertion, and Haupt, Art under a Dictatorship (New York, Baldwin Smith, Egyptian retreating from the former. It is possible that 1954); Hildegard Brenner, Die Kunstpolitik des Expression (New York, 1938), opposite p. 169. and Walter Speer absorbed some of the teachings of the Nationalsozialismus (Hamburg, 1963); Anna Teut, See also Heinrich Schifer Andrae, modern movement in a general way while he Architektur im Dritten Reich, 1933-1945 (Berlin, Die Kunst des Alten Orients (Berlin, 1925), pls. was a student,but Tessenow, with his interestin 1967), and fn. 9 above. 204, 308, 319. 344

111 "r... ~ Lh, ~-?1,1~3~:i.. i h l ..... 't-.., I1ia IIr :111 ; .... I i gga .1 r` ' .I~?'":i t '! i; i, .0.,.~ : r b: ,,?;B~nil ??_,I~ ~ f! t " ~7 B i rIB ri ,-i t• . " . • • ' q .---' .. . 'x - "- "".. . " -- < - - -

????

Fig.6. Speer,German Pavilion, Paris Fig. 7. Walter Andrae,Anu-Adad-Temple in Assur,reconstruction drawing, 1914 (from World'sFair (from Rittich, Architektur Andrae,Das wiedererstandeneAssur). undBauplastik der Gegenwart).

of the interiorsof Egyptianand Mesopo- able influence on Speer was Walter An- years at the TechnischeHochschule.19 The tamianbuildings (Figs. io, 11).15It is prob- drae, Krencker'sassistant in architectural Egyptian finds of this period, while sensa- ablethen that Speer substituted for one set history, a leading excavator at Babylon, tional, were not accomplishedby Germans; of antiqueprototypes-classical and Neo- director of excavations at Assur, head of those in Babylon and Assur, on the other classical-anotherof greaterantiquity. the Near Eastern Division of the Berlin hand, led by men like Koldewey and An- Egyptianmonuments have long been in- museum, and author of all the reconstruc- drae, were a source of Germanpride. The fluentialin the historyof westernarchitec- tion drawings illustratedhere.'8 As a stu- materialremains in the Berlin Museum,to- ture;16in the middle1920S they entereda dent of architecturalhistory, Speer must gether with the widely discussed recon- new periodof wide popularitybecause of have attendedAndrae's lectures; as a teach- struction drawings, must have stirred the the sensationaldiscoveries connected with er of architecturehe may have known him imaginationof a young studentand teacher the tomb of Tutankhamen.Speer, how- personally.And even if Speerdid not know of architecturein Berlin. ever, probablysaw the prototypeswhich Andrae personally,he would have known It is possiblethat all Speer found in such influencedhim not in thepopular press, but of him as he presidedover the exciting and prototypes was a kind of modest monu- in his classesin architecturalhistory at the ambitious reconstruction,begun by the fa- mentality which pleasedhim visually. It is TechnischeHochschule in Berlin(he stud- mous Robert Koldewey, of the IshtarGate clear that if he modelled some of his work ied therefrom 1925 to 1927, and taught in the Berlin Museum: the reconstruction on Egyptian or Mesopotamian monu- there from 1927 to 1932). His principal was coming to an end during Speer's last ments, he chose those of modest scale. He professorof architecturalhistory, men- attemptedno pyramidor ziggurat.Among tionedin in the wasDan- passing memoirs, and elsewhere. Pub- the archaeologistsproducing reconstruc- and authorof sum, Boghazkii, Trier, iel Krencker,archaeologist lished, interal., Das Mithrasheiligtumin Schwar- tion drawings in the period before 1933, workson bothRoman and Egyptian archi- zerden(Berlin, 1925); Das riinischeTrier (Berlin, Walter Andrae's were the simplest and tecture.17Even more important as a prob- 1923); Vom Kolossalenin der Baukunst(Berlin, least "colossal."20But it seems to me that 1926); and, with M. Schiifer, "Neue Art alt- there were other factorsat work as well. digypt. Riegelschlbss,"Zeitschrift fiir dgyptischen The of and Spracheund Altertumskunde (1906). acceptance Egyptian espe- 15. U. H6lscher, Das Grabdenkmaldes Konigs 18. Walter Ernst Andrae, 1875-1956. Andrae cially Assyrian prototypes involved the Chephren(Berlin, 1912), pl. iii; Hans Gerhard was also the author, with Heinrich Schdifer,of conscious rejection of other models and Evers, Staat aus dem Stein (Munich, 1929), I, the standardvolume in the Propylien Kunstge- pl. 6o. schichte serieson Egypt and the Near East (Die 16. See, for example, J.-C. Lemagny, Vision- Kunst des Alten Orients),a book which Speer 19. The Mitteilungender Deutschen Orient- ary Architects(Houston, Tex., 1968), pp. 16-65, would certainlyhave used as a textbook. He was Gesellschaftzu Berlin,nr. 66 (April 1928), p. 23, on Etienne-LouisBoullee. the author, in addition, of many publicationson Abb. 9, shows the reconstructionas not quite 17. Daniel M. Krencker(misspelled in the En- Assur,and a co-worker not only with Krencker completed. glish edition of Speer's memoirs), 1874-194?. and Koldewey, but also with ErnstHerzfeld and 20. See, for example, the six differentrecon- Professor Ordinarius, Technische Hochschule, FriedrichDelitzsch. He was thus the most influ- struction drawingsof the Tower of Babel illus- Berlin-Charlottenburg,1922ff., Rector, 1930- ential figure in near easternarchaeology in Ger- trated in the Jahrbuchdes Deutschen Archdeologi- in at 1931. Participated excavations Baalbek,Ak- many after Koldewey's death in 1926. schenInstituts (Berlin), xxxxvIm (1933), 746. 345

.104I ~~p I

v~~-7A~Iri7;fL

Fig. 9. Walter Andrae,Temple of Tukulti Ninurta, Assur, recon- structiondrawing, 1921 (from Andrae,Die jiingerenIschtar-Tempel in Assur).

Fig. 8. Speer,Luitpoldhalle, Nuremberg (from Rittich, Architektur undBauplastik der Gegenvart). recall a Germanic tradition is apparentin such Nazi buildings as the Ordensburgen their attendantassociations. Despite Speer's Romanesque,to the obscureremains of the and the variousmonuments constructed by service to Doric he turned most ancient Germanic lip architecture, tribes.22He does the Volksbund deutsche Kriegsgriberfiir- from away most of the traditionsof Greek not mention Robert Mielke, teaching at sorge.25 The entire absence of any Ger- traditionsof in architecture, great influence the Technische Hochschule when he was manic themes in Speer's architecturesug- were Germany, where they inextricably there, who attemptedto do much the same gests strenuousand continuingresistance to intertwined both with humanistic studies things for German peasant dwellings, or these ideas. If Speer was inspired by the and with the more snobbish levels of aca- Gustaf Kossinna,professor of archaeology teachings of archaeologists,he was very demia. The most prestigiousGerman clas- at the university,a famous and even notori- selective about it. sicists of thought themselves above all as ous exponent of the view that Germancul- From the point of view of what is known art historians, though they were often ar- ture and art originated from a primitive, about Nazi ideology, the appearanceof chaeologists and historiansof architecture "proto-Aryan" culture along the Baltic.23 Egyptian and Mesopotamianinfluences in on the side. They taught, not at the Tech- The teachingsof Haupt, Mielke, and Kos- Speer's work is very hard to understand. nische Hochschulen, but at the universi- sinna exerted a powerful influence on Al- Scholars are in some disagreementabout ties.21In the-memoirs,Speer describes him- fred Rosenberg, Richard Walther Darrd, the nature of Nazi ideology, but they do self as having been both a practicaland a and ultimately upon , agree that racial theories ("Germanic," rebellious young man; he must have shared whose enthusiasm for "Germanic" arch- "Nordic," or "Aryan") played a large the distrust felt by many young Nazis for aeology led him to establishan archaeolog- part, particularlyin Hitler's thought, and academia, and preferredto study antiquity ical institute within the SS.24An effort to that these were closely linked with anti- from the technically oriented archaeolo- Semitism.26Speer need not have known gists at the Technische Hochschule, rather much about to have real- 22. Albrecht Die altesteKunst, insbe- than from the humanisticallyoriented pro- Haupt, ized that the empires which produced his fessors at the sondere:Die Baukunst der Germanen(Berlin, University. in prototypes were Semitic, that they could In addition to 1923). For Haupt's r6le contemporaryarchi- German classicism,Speer tectural controversies,see Lane, Architectureand not by any stretch of the imagination be also rejected the teachings of the "Ger- Politics,p. 137. supposed to have been "Aryan" or Indo- Robert as Privat Do- manic" enthusiasts.He says in the memoirs 23. Mielke, 1863-1935, European (the two terms were often used that he remainedunconvinced Albrecht zent at the Technische Hochscuhle, 1927ff., by a interchangeably,even by reputableancient Die Baukunstder which taught course in the history of peasantdwell- Haupt's Germanen, ings. A well-known racial theorist, Mielke's historians).27 attempted to trace back a "Germanic" works included Das deutscheDorf (1907) and heritage from GermanGothic, through the Siedlungskundedes deutschen Volkes (1927). Gustaf Architectureand Politics, p. 256 fn. 34; and Herbert Kossinna,1858-1931, ProfessorAusserordinarius Arnold, "Archaeology and the SS," lecture at of "GermanicArchaeology" at Berlin Univer- Wesleyan University, May 1971. According to 21. At the University of Berlin, Alfred Gold- sity from 1902 to 1931. Among his most influen- Arnold, excerptsfrom Kossinna'swritings were schmidt and Wilhelm Waetzoldt as professorsof tial publicationswere Die deutscheVorgeschichte, incorporatedinto textbooks used in SS training the history of art; F. Rodenwald, who was also einehervorragend nationale Wissenschaft (1912) and courses. president of the German Archaeological Insti- Ursprungund Verbreitung der Germanen in vor- und 25. See, for example, the war memorials at tute, as professorof archaeology. It is true that friihgeschichtlicherZeit (1926). Waldenburgand Liny-devant-Dunillustrated in Julius Kohte, author of one of the standardhis- 24. The latter was the "" within Werner Rittich, Architekturund Bauplastikder tories of classicalarchitecture (Die Baukunstdes the SS, which superivsedall archaeologicalac- Gegenwart(Berlin, 1938), pp. 43-45. klassischenAltertums und ihre Entwicklungin der tivitiesof the SS (includingexcavations at Nauen 26. The variety of currentscholarly interpre- mittlerenund neuerenZeit [Braunschweig,1915]) and Altchristenberg)after Darre stepped down tation of Nazi ideology is summarized in my taught at the TechnischeHochschule, but only as as head of the Rasse-und Siedlungs-Hauptamtof forthcoming article,"Nazi Ideology: Some Un- a Privat Dozent. A specializationin architectural the SS in 1938. For influencesupon Rosenberg, finished Business." history per se, even Greek architecturalhistory, Darre, and Himmler, see Alfred Rosenberg, 27. See, for example, V. Gordon Childe, The was not prestigiousenough for the university. Letzte Aufzeichnungen(Gottingen, 1955); Lane, Aryans(New York, 1926). 346

*V"I

. '.

Fig. to. Speer,Hitler's office, New Chancellery(from Rittich, Fig. 11. Walter Andrae,Cella in the IshtarTemple, level G, Assur, Architekturund Bauplastik der Gegenwart). reconstructiondrawing, 1919 (from Andrae, Das wiedererstandene Assur).

It seemsto me thatracial theories of his- generationsof teachingabout their signifi- BarbaraMiller Lane's importantwork torymeant little to Hitlerand less to Speer. cance.In attemptingto finda pedigreefor Architectureand Politics in Germany,1918- Germanacademics examined the racial a "new"Nazi architecture, it is not illogical 1945(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1968) compositionof ancientpeoples with an- thatSpeer would turnto the newly old. was awardedin that year this Society's guish,28but Hitlerwas often very casual I would also hypothesizea degree of Alice DavisHitchcock Book Award,"es- and opportunisticon the subject:he was necrophiliaon the partof both Hitlerand tablishedto recognizeannually the most willingto describethe Japanese as "Aryan" Speer.From 1935 on, Hitlerwas obsessed distinguishedwork of scholarshipin the wheneverit suitedhis foreign policy. There by the ideathat death was imminent;it is history of architecturepublished by a are,however, other aspects of the history clearthat at the sametime as his political North Americanscholar." Due to a series of the ancientempires which would have and territorialambitions were becoming of unfortunatecircumstances, the book was attractedboth men. ever more boundless,he was constantly neverreviewed in theJournal. Unhappily, In the late 192osand early 1930s,both foreseeingdeath for himselfand destruc- it has receivedlittle evaluation elsewhere: the Egyptianand the Assyrianempires tion for Germany.Similarly, although see ProgressiveArchitecture, L (December were well known to have been despotic. bothHitler and Speer sought an illusionof 1969), 112; AmericanInstitute of Architects Both, moreover,excelled at conquest,and permanencein the regime'smonumental Journal,LIV (November 1970), 73; andArt they were amongthe oldestof urbanem- buildings,both were fascinatedby ruins, Quarterly,xxxIv (1971),487-489. Of these pires.Despite the prominenceof "blood and often visualizedthese buildingsin a five pages,those by RonaldV. Wieden- andsoil" ideas in Nazi propagandaand in ruinousstate.29 The attractionof thebuild- hoeftin theArt Quarterly are the most help- the thinkingof Himmler,Hitler was a city ings of Egyptand Assyria may havebeen ful. A furthercritique of Lane'sanalysis boy, moreinterested in restructuringGer- felt in theseterms: that as ruinsthey lasted can be found in the paperby Kenneth Vi- many'scities than in dissolvingthem. The a long time, testifyingto ancientmight, Kaiser,"From Typisierung to 'Tableau ancientnear easternempires, moreover, butthey embodied no livingheritage. Per- sion' in GermanPolitical Architecture," heldat M.I.T. on wereboth relatively newly discovered and hapsSpeer and Hitler envisioned a similar deliveredat a symposium alienin culture;they offeredarchitectural fatefor the "stone documents" of theThird Artand Architecture in theService of Poli- prototypeswhich were unencumberedby Reich. tics, 8-9 December1972. -Editor BARBARA MILLER LANE BrynMawr College

28. See, for example,Josef Strzygowski,Euro- pasMachtkunst imRahmen des Erdkreises (Vienna, 1941). 29. Speer, pp. io6, 114, and esp. p. 56.