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Architecture and Politics
in GerDiany,
1918-1945
by Barbara Miller Lane
Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
To Jon, Ellie, and Steve
©
Copyright 1968, 1985 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8
7 6 5 4 3
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Lane, Barbara Miller.
Architecture and politics in Germany, 1918-1945.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. National socialism and architecture.
I.
Title.
2. Architecture-Germany.
NA1068.5.N37L36 1985
720'.1'03
ISBN 0-674-04350-2
ISBN 0-674-04370-7 (pbk.)
85-8550
Preface,
1985
In the seventeen years since this book was first published, there has
been extensive scholarship on all aspects of its subject matter.
1
The
history of the Bauhaus is now more fully understood, and biographies
of the major figures in Germany's modern movement have begun to
appear.
2
Germany's new architecture is now seen more clearly in rela-
tion to architecture in the rest of Europe and the United States.
3
The
stylistic developments of the 1960s and 1970s, many of which were
directed against "modernism" as it was then understood, have made
it clear that the International Style was not the beginning of a uni-
versal new style, but specific to its time and place, and only one part
of a broader modern movement.
4
Since 1968, Nazi architecture too has been fully, though not exhaus-
tively, studied. The character of Nazi propaganda and Nazi ideology,
in which architecture played such a large part, has come under close
scrutiny, as have the life and actions of Adolf Hitler and other patrons
of architecture during the Third Reich.
5
The "international style" of
the 1930s (as opposed to that of the 1920s), identified by Bruno Zevi
in 1950,
6
has been illuminated by many special studies, though there
is as yet no comprehensive work on the public buildings of this period
that cuts across national boundaries? Some of the impetus for further
interest in Nazi architecture, and in the architecture of the 1930s more
generally, came from Albert Speer. Soon after his release from Spandau
Prison in 1966, Speer became a self-styled authority on all aspects of
the Third Reich and gained an international audience through his
memoirs and multitudinous public appearances. Speer's impact on
our understanding of the architecture of the 1930s has been compli-
cated, however: his prominence as a commentator on Hitler's regime
has led many to see him as more important
i1~
the general development
of Nazi architecture than he really was, while the often repeated asso-
ciation of his style with Nazi ideas has tended to continue the politi-
cization of debate about architecture, especially in Europe.
8
In general, the period from 1968 to 1985 has seen the emergence
of the architect as historian to a much greater
degr~e
than was the case
when this book was conceived and written. Although Walter Gropius
and Ernst May were eager to have their stories told, they were, on the
Architecture and Politics in Germany
whole, glad to leave the task to professional historians. With Speer's
apologias and the many efforts of postmodernist architects to redeem
the classicizing styles of the 1930s, the number of works on twentieth
century architecture has been vastly inflated by many varieties of
special pleading. Our knowledge has been enriched by this situation,
but dispassionate analysis now confronts many more pitfalls, aesthetic
and political, than before.
My own interpretation of German architecture and politics has
changed very little since 1968. My understanding of the ideological
relationships among the Nazi leaders has expanded somewhat, as a
result of my work on Nazi political writings. I have become more aware
of the historical underpinnings of the International Style of the 1920s,
despite its explicitly antihistorical stance.
9
I have also investigated
alternative historical inspirations for some Nazi architecture- inspi-
rations which are not so much classicizing as undifferentiatedly
"antique."
10
I think the ties of the rustic varieties of Nazi architecture
to the traditions of national romanticism in Europe as a whole deserve
further study.
11
The similarities between German architecture in the
1930s and that of the rest of the western world at the same time seem
even more striking to me now than they originally did.
12
But the story
of how German architecture was politicized, of what was built, and
what was said and done about it, has not substantially changed.
Notes
1. Most of the private papers and documentary collections used in my original research
have either changed hands since 1968, or are in the process of doing so. Both the May
and Eckstein papers have been dispersed, but I own microfilm copies of the materials
that I used from those collections. The Mies van der Rohe papers, which I used at the
Busch-Reisinger Museum, are now in the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin. In 1968 a major
Mies van der Rohe Archive was established at the Museum of Modern Art. Devoted
primarily to drawings, models, and photographs of Mies' buildings and projects, the
Archive also includes business correspondence, much of which is of considerable rele-
vance to the issues considered here. The Troost papers, like most other captured German
documents, are on their way back to the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz. They have been
recatalogued, and after microfilming will be returned to Germany. As with other such
documents, the microfilms will be retained in this country, in this case probably by
the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The originals of the Fritz Sauckel
papers cited inn. 44, p. 241 (part of the "Records of the National Socialist German Labor
Party, captured German documents filmed at Alexandria, Va., series T-81") have also
been returned; microfilm copies are retained by the National Archives. In contrast, the
status of the Berlin Documents Center, and of the Library of the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte
in Munich, has not changed. For the Gropius papers, see note 2 below.
2. The Bauhaus-Archiv, only recently established in Darmstadt by Hans-Maria Wingler
when this book was first published, subsequently moved to Berlin, where it has offered
scholars access to the full range of documentation. The materials which I used in
Walter Gropius' own collection, and which I later had microfilmed for Widener Library,
can now be used more easily in Berlin. On the archive, 'see the English translation of
Wingler's first documentary collection, The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin and
Chicago. (Cambridge, Mass., 1969); H. M. Wingler, Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Museum
fiir Gestaltung (Braunschweig, 1979); and Bauhaus-Archiv, Museum fiir Gestaltung
vi
I
Preface
(Berlin, 1981). Important scholarly works include Marcel Franciscono, Walter
Gropius
and the Creation
of
the Bauhaus
in Weimar
(Urbana, Ill., 1971); Karl-Heinz Hiiter, Das
Bauhaus
in Weimar
(Berlin, 1976); and Frank Whitford, Bauhaus (New York, 1984).
Useful new information has become available on some of the major figures of the 1920s
and 1930s. For Behrens, see Tillman Buddensieg, Industriekultur: Peter Behrens und
die AEG
1907-1914
(Berlin, 1979); Hans-Joachim Kadatz, Peter
Behrens: Architekt, Maler,
Grafiker
und Formgestalter
1868-1940
(Leipzig, 1977); and Alan Windsor, Peter
Behrens:
Architect
and
Designer
(New York, 1981). For Gropius, see Reginald R. Isaacs,
Walter
Gropius:
ein
Mensch und sein Werk, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1983-1985); and Walter
Gropius:
Buildings, Plans,
Projects
1906-1969
(Cambridge, Mass., 1972). For May, see Nicholas
Bullock, "Housing in Frankfurt-1925 to 1931-and the new Wohnkultur,"
Architectural
Review, 163 no. 976 (June, 1978), 333-342; and Dieter Rebentisch, Ludwig Landmann,
Frankfurter Oberbiirgermeister der Weimarer Republik (Wiesbaden, 1975). For Hannes
Meyer, see H. M. Wingler, "Hannes Meyer," in
Kleine
Bauhaus-Fibel;
Geschichte
und
Wirken
des Bauhaus
1919-1933
(Berlin, 1974); and Francesco Dal Co, ed., Hannes Meyer,
Scritti
1921-1942
(Padua, 1973). For Mies, see Werner Blaser,
Mies
van der
Rohe:
Principles and
School
(Basel, 1977); Peter Carter,
Mies van
der Rohe
at
Work (New York,
1974); Ludwig Glaeser, Ludwig
Mies van
der
Robe
(New York, 1977); and Philip C. Johnson,
Mies
VanDer
Robe,
3rd rev. ed. (New York, 1978). A new biography by Franz Schulze
is forthcoming; Richard Pommer is preparing a study of Mies' politics in the early years
of the Third Reich. For Bruno Taut, see Kurt Junghanns, Bruno
Taut:
1880-1938
(Berlin,
1970); lain Boyd Whyte, Bruno Taut and the Architecture
of Activism
(New York, 1982);
Helge Pitz and Winfried Brenne,
Siedlung Onkel
Tom, Zehlendorf(Berlin, 1980); Ronald
Wiedenhoeft, "Workers' Housing as Social Politics:'
VIA IV: Culture
and the
Social Vision
(Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 112-125; and the excellent exhibition catalog Bruno
Taut
1880-1938
(Berlin, 1980), which includes a number of important interpretative essays.
Much of this work on Taut shows him to have been somewhat more important in the
early phases of such organizations as the Arbeitsrat fiir Kunst and the Ring than I had
originally thought. Thus, Gropius' role was probably less that of an originator, and more
that of a-leader and organizer, than my text suggests. The study of the lives of all the
architects of this period has been made immeasurably easier by the publication of the
Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects,
4 vols. (New York, 1982).
Various aspects of the context-intellectual, political, and aesthetic-of Germany's new
architecture have received significant attention since 1968. See, for example, Rosemarie
Bletter, "The Interpretation of the Glass Dream; Expressionist Architecture and the History
of the Crystal Metaphor,"
Journal of
the Society
of Architectural Historians,
40 no. 1
(March, 1981), 20-43; Joan Campbell, The German Werkbund: The
Politics of Reform
in
the
Applied Arts
(Princeton, N.J., 1978); Peter Gay,
Weimar Culture:
The
Outsider
as Insider
(New York, 1968), and
Art
and
Act
(New York, 1980); Kristiana Hartmann,
Die deutsche Gartenstadtbewegung (Munich, 1976); Wolfgang Pehnt,
Expressionist
Architecture
(New York, 1973); and John Willett,
Art
and
Politics in
the
Weimar Period:
The
New
Sobriety
1917-1933
(New York, 1978). An intensive study of the Weissenhof
Siedlung by Christian Otto and Richard Pommer is forthcoming; see also Richard
Pommer, "The Flat Roof: A Modernist Controversy in Germany,"
Art Journal,
43 (1983),
158-169; and Christian Otto, "Modern Environment and Historical Continuity: The
Heimatschutz Discourse in Germany,"
Art Journal,
43 (1983), 148-157.
3. General studies of architecture in other European countries include, for Italy, Gianni
Accasto, Vanna Fraticelli, Renata Nicolini,
r;
Architettura di Roma
Capitale
1870-1970
(Rome, 1971); Luciano Patetta,
r;
Architettura in Italia
1919-1943:
Le
Polemiche
(Milan,
1972); Cesare De Seta,
La
Cultura
Architettonica
in
Italia
tra
le
due Guerre (Bari, 1972);
Silvio Danesi and Luciano Patetta,
Il Razionalismo
e l'architettura in
Italia
durante
il
fascismo
(Venice, 1976); and Dennis Sharp ed., The
Rationalists:
Theory and Design
in
the Modern
Movement
(New York,
1979).
For France, see Marc Emery,
Un si'ecle
de
l'architecture moderne en France
1850-1950
(Paris, 1971). Helen Searing's "With Red Flags
Flying: Housing in Amsterdam, 1915-1923," in Henry A. Millon and Linda Nochlin eds.,
Art
and Architecture
in
the Service
of Politics
(Cambridge, Mass.,
1978),
230-269, traces
the relations between housing policy and politics in the Netherlands, and Anthony
Jackson's The
Politics of Architecture: A
History
of
Modern Architecture in Britain
(London, 1970), explores the relations between architecture and politics in Great Britain
over a longer period. An important general treatment of the same subject is Donald Drew
Egbert,
Social
Radicalism and the
Arts
(New York, 1970).
I
vii

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