Through July 16, 2023, the results of a five-year research project on planning and construction under National Socialism will be on display at the Academy of Arts on Pariser Platz in Berlin. The venue is significant, as the Academy’s historic exhibition halls served as the office of Albert Speer, the General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital Berlin appointed by Adolf Hitler. It was there that Speer had large-scale models of state construction projects built, and it was there that he held meetings with Hitler, who could reach the Academy on foot via the Minister’s Gardens.
The entrance to the exhibition, photo: Henning Schacht BMWSB
The exhibition stems from the 2017 appointment of an interdisciplinary Independent Commission of Historians (UHK) by the then Federal Minister of Construction, Barbara Hendricks. The Mainz University of Applied Sciences was represented on the commission by architectural historian Prof. Dr. Regina Stephan. “Its mandate was to to investigate the involvement of the institutions and individuals responsible for planning and construction in the power structure and the crimes of the Nazi state, as well as to examine the personnel and ideological continuities and breaks between the Weimar Republic and the German Reich before and after 1933, and between the two German states after 1949” (BMWSB). The research project also included the territories in Eastern Europe occupied by Germany and addressed the subsequent uses of the architectural legacy of National Socialism.
The commission awarded a total of fifteen research projects, which were carried out by 28 distinguished researchers. Their comprehensive reports were published in the four-volume book series *Planning and Building under National Socialism: Prerequisites, Institutions, Effects (Hirmer Verlag, Munich, 2023).
The spokesperson for the UHK, Prof. Dr. Wolfram Pyta, presents the research volumes to Federal Minister Clara Geywitz; also present, from left to right, are: the President of the Academy of Arts, Jeanine Meerapfel; UHK members Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schäche, Prof. Dr. Regina Stephan, Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Elke Pahl-Weber, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Benz, Prof. Dr. Tilman Harlander, and, second from the right, Prof. Dr. Werner Durth, a member of the UHK until 2020 and, as a member of the Architecture Section of the Academy of Arts, at times an important advisor. Photo: Henning Schacht, BMWSB
The key findings of the five-year research project are now being presented at the Academy in the exhibition *MACHT RAUM GEWALT—Planning and Building under National Socialism*. Using plans and models, photographs, and contemporary films from the Federal Archives—which have not been shown since the Nazi era—along with publications and an interactive model of the Flossenbürg concentration camp, the exhibition illustrates the full scope of Nazi-era construction. This would not have been possible without the inhumane exploitation of prisoners and forced laborers.
About the Exhibition
An exhibition by the Independent Commission of Historians (UHK) titled “Planning and Building under National Socialism” in cooperation with the Academy of Arts, Berlin. The overall project was funded with federal funds from the Experimental Housing and Urban Development (ExWoSt) program of the Federal Ministry of Housing, Urban Development, and Construction (BMWSB) through the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs, and Spatial Development (BBSR).
Location: Academy of Arts, Pariser Platz 4 in Berlin. The exhibition is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Admission is free.
