[Leica] Re: Rommel and Germany and Speer

[douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp)]

They are still hot on documenting everything, it's unbelievable what's still 
in 
the regional and national archives. My wife and I were recently researching 
the 
past of her father, a banker, who was apparently involved in some kind of 
scandal involving Hjalmar Schacht (finance minister), some familiar 
indutrial 
barons and Hitler himself, and nearly got himself shot. It is fascinating 
and 
frightening to see what is still stored and accessible - not on microfile, 
original documents! Even today the authorities have detailed documentation
on each and every citizen from the cradle to the grave,even more on 
"foreigners" 
like me.

A recent two part documentary on TV, here in Germany, tried to throw some 
light 
on the ambiguous relationship between Speer and Hitler, all it really 
managed to 
show was that Speer was a better architect of structures consisting  of 
lies, 
and should have been hung a lot higher than the other Nazi brass.
His Germania, as Berlin was to be known, looked like a mixture between Fritz 
Lang's Metropolis and the wet dreams of a greco-roman archaeologist. Hitler's
personal correction to the plans was replacing the Swastika in the claws of 
the 
Eagle, atop the 300 meter high dome,with a globe denoting Germany's grip on 
the 
world. Hitler spoke of organising "delegations" from conquered countries to 
vist 
the centre of Germania to renew their fears of German might.
There are still traces of Speer's plans in Berlin, the column with "Winged
Victory" (Gold Else) used to be in front of the Reichstag and was moved to 
its 
present position, at the end of one axis of the city, just before the war. 
There 
is still a ferro-concrete tower weighing tens of thousands of tons which was 
erected to test the resistance of the subsoil to the planned massive 
buildings.Below ground there are also parts of the underground road system 
planned to keep traffic out of the centre of Germania.I recently met the 
authors 
(the Arnold brothers) of several books about "Berlins Underworld" and a 
historian (M. F?drowitz, bunker expert) and had the opportunity to gain 
access 
to some of these "monuments", the scale is both scary and fascinating.
Strangely enough the EXPO 2000 world fair held in Hannover (the advertising 
was 
so bad that even the Dutch didn't hear about it) was designed, in part,by 
Albert 
Speer - the son of the F?hrer's Albert.
cheers
Douglas
B. D. Colen wrote:
> I have - and in some weird way they remind me of the plans for houses I
> would design as a kid...fantasyland...
> 
> 
> On 5/27/05 12:21 PM, "Christopher Williams" <leicachris@worldnet.att.net>
> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Obsessive is the word: did you ever see the plans they had for Berlin? That
>>city was going to be the next Utopia.
>>
>>Chris
>>