Welthauptstadt Germania - Hilter's vision of a new Berlin

Looking for a city

If there was another European city I would like to live in, it probably would be Berlin, I suppose Paris would come a distant third.

However, Berlin that could be glorious in summer can be dreadfully inclement during the other three seasons.

After two utterly atrocious days of ugly weather at close to freezing with hail and sleet, I could not believe that I walked into the snow on Easter Sunday, and then Easter Monday smiled on me with sunshine as if the other days never happened – it makes you wonder what this global warming malarkey is all about.

I sometimes wish Europe were in the tropics, well, that is the Canary Islands; there is a European city down South that might unseat Berlin.

My old views of Berlin

I love Berlin all the same, I cannot count the number of people I have tried to persuade to visit Berlin for its history, architecture, heritage, art and more.

Until yesterday, I did not realise I was seeing another aspect of Berlin, beyond my fascination with mirrors of the East and the West, the architectural deluge of Potsdamer Platz, the sickening opulence of Imperial Prussia encapsulated at Potsdam in the Sanssouci Park and the museums; the Nazis had moved a number of pieces around to accommodate their intentions of grandeur.

World Capital - Germania

Well, I did not know that Adolf Hitler had such grand plans for changing Berlin entirely and even during the war was already far into plans for changing the place. That, I had to see, so off we went to this exhibition called Myth Germania.

Berlin being the seat of the Third Reich was considered too provincial by Hilter that he wanted to build a city that put Paris and Washington in the shade. Berlin under the Nazis was first showcased at the 1936 Summer Olympics where the propaganda, pomp and ceremony still has that event as one of the most talked about Olympic games.

Albert Speer was appointed the chief architect of the Reich with the title of General Building Inspector of the Third Reich and as one of the surviving members of Hilter’s inner sanctum gave insight into how Berlin was to become the world capital with the grand sounding name of Welthauptstadt Germania (World Capital Germania).

Altered to its foundations

A speech that Hitler gave in November 1937 to mark the advent of these great plans that would culminate in the opening of this world capital in 1950 is translated thus; “Today begins in Berlin a period of building redevelopment, which will alter the image – as I am convinced – and also the character of this city to its foundations”.

They did a lot, forcefully acquired the houses of Jews for the resettlement of other people who had been moved for the grand plan, monuments like the Siegessäule (Berlin Victory Column) were moved from the Reichstag to its current location, so many uncompleted train tunnels remain undiscovered and the dead were not spared – 20 cemeteries were moved out of the centre of Berlin for this grand city of the world.

The planned people’s hall was to become a world wonder, accommodating 360,000 people and up to a million in the grounds – the cult of personality would have reached a zenith never ever equalled in the history of mankind.

The destructive hubris of power

However, one could not help but realise how seemingly totalitarian regimes had a concept of art, culture, architecture, history and traditions that it did not matter to them if they razed, moved, destroyed or burnished some heritage, national treasure or cultural identity and dispossessed the people they rule over to achieve these grand aims.

In 2003, the Taliban of Afghanistan destroyed the Buddhas of Banyam because they were un-Islamic but Afghanistan is not primarily Islamic, the cultural and religious identity of a people that goes back centuries was destroyed for a passing fad of being able to wield untrammelled power.

The China we all acquiesce to with disturbing embarrassment because of its trade and economic influence has built the Three Gorges Dam that displaces 1.5 million people, destroys swathes of valuable archaeological and cultural sites; and it has significant adverse effects upon animal life.

But the powerful get away with their designs being almost unanswerable to anyone but the writ of history, long after the damage is done.

Democracies might not wield the tyranny of the powerful in this way, but they have laws like Eminent Domain in the United States or Compulsory Purchase in the United Kingdom which can be used to the same tyrannically damaging effect especially in times of war.

Obviously, there is sometimes need for laws like these before activists cloud the objectivity of debate with emotional tripe – the governments should however retain the trust of their people in these projects.

A sense of proportion

Just as Hitler had a speech around the beginning of this grand project, Albert Speer probably gave the closing remarks to this madness in words from his autobiography in 1969 – “When on the morning after my release from imprisonment I passed one of these buildings on the way to the airport, I saw in a few seconds what I had been blind to for years; our plan completely lacked a sense of proportion.”

Like then, history still repeats itself with the regularity of a grandfather clock, with no lessons learnt from the past – would we ever have a sense of proportion? Not if we remained human.

See a basic slideshow of the model of that city.

Mythos Germania Exhibition

(Shadows and Traces of the Imperial Capital)

15^th of March – 31^st December 2008

Gertrud-Kolmar Strasse 14/Hannah-Arendt Strasse

10117 Berlin-Mitte

Berliner Unterwelten e.V.

Hitler on a spit-roast

Dastardly comparisons

In trying to keep ahead of issues, events and people I regularly check my news on three sites – BBC News, TheWorld News site – a news aggregator that takes topics from local media in a global context and Expatica – a news site in English for Expatriates in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Spain.

However, in the space of just a few days, the name of Adolf Hitler has been invoked in comparisons by Donald Rumsfeld, Hugo Chavez and Angela Merkel.

It brings to mind the saying about turning in one’s grave, which indicates that a person now dead would have been utterly displeased if the event had happened in that person’s lifetime.

By inference, Adolf Hitler having turned thrice might as well be in a spin on a spit-roast {You can read more into this as to burning and fire}.

The rise of Chavez

Mr Rumsfeld speaking from an Unknown, Unknowns perspective raises hackles about the elections in Latin America that have favoured people who would appear to be hostile to the American hegemony.

As far as Latin America is concerned, America has not been able to transfer the quality of their economic progress beyond their borders; Mexico and Cuba are case in point.

The history of American intervention in Latin America is long, varied and unsavoury. We have the good fortune of the world being a bit more civilised than the 1970s or we would have had a Chilean putsch deposing Hugo Chavez for some puppet to America’s liking.

For a country that just over 200 years ago fought imperialism, their imperialist credentials rival those of other empires and are ever so recent.

The people’s leader

In a nutshell, Hugo Chavez was elected the President of Venezuela by popular consent having once served a term in jail for plotting an unsuccessful coup.

Whilst he many not be to anyone’s liking, I can contend that this is the first developing world leader who is ploughing profits of oil back into the country to help his people, regardless of how populist his ideas and tirades are.

His liaison with Fidel Castro stems from the fact that just being 90 miles south of America, the overwhelming force of sanctions and blockades still has Cuba as a country able to evacuate its people out of the way of disaster in time and efficiently, they also have probably the best medical services in the world.

Probably, the question Hugo always asks Fidel is “How can I keep America out of my backyard?” Well, the evidence is America is miffed that they cannot influence events in Latin America just as they once did.

Good on you Hugo.

Hitler is a baby

I have sometimes wondered about the even-handedness of the United States in world affairs. It is sometimes difficult to find instances where America has not acted in complete self-interest regardless of the platitudes that eventually emerged to just the ends.

The raid on Afghanistan did free the people of Afghanistan but it was really to go after Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The all-encompassing mirage of nuclear annihilation wrought by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction formed the basis of war in Iraq to inadvertently secure oil which does not seem to flow as much as when he was in power.

We have a similitude of democracy but it would not be in the flavour that America likes, just as they learnt of the Palestinians.

America has form, creating fear

However, Hugo’s diatribe links so many American activities as the failed coup to overthrow him that American seemed to acquiesce, the continued animosity between both countries and the veiled threats that come from senior officials of the government.

Just as countries of Europe feared the invasion of the Hitler armies, it is probably plausible that some governments in Latin America might fear the invasion of Bush armies.

This however, might not happen because the US forces are a bit pre-occupied with sorting out the Iraqi quagmire.

Hugo, that comparison is a bit far fetched, Bush has only polarised his people he is far from hypnotising them.

The Nile (denial) of the Holocaust

Dr Ahmadinejad has been quite instructive in a number of pronouncements as he has poured scorn on the half-baked solution that created Israel at the expense of Palestine.

We are still nowhere near a solution to that problem, as Europe helped the Jews reclaim the land of their fathers; they left the cousins of the Jews bereft of land which is also of their fathers.

As history would have it, the land belongs to the children of Abraham, to the line of Isaac and Jacob (Israel) by promise but then the other significant children as Ismael – purported to be the scion of Muslims of Arabia – and Esau who gave up his birth-right for a pot of porridge, hence losing the right to sire the promised nation.

The victorious powers after World War II assuaged their guilt by helping create the nation of Israel, but left it in perpetual turmoil by displacing others and not setting in clarity the status of Jerusalem and Palestine.

An Israel in Europe

Dr Ahmadinejad takes-off from this perspective as he berates Europe for having created a problem and solution in the Middle-East and lays bear in more graphic detail the injustice that represents itself as the new world order.

One can then see why he has adopted an all-or-nothing perspective which is Israel cannot exist at the expense of Palestine, the prevailing circumstances give no encouragement toward a ready solution.

In that light, it might sound plausible that the nation of Israel as a people which was so decimated by the Hitler should exist somewhere else in the West, as a recompense for the Hitler atrocities and the European indifference at the time.

However, Israel does need to exist in the Middle-East, if Dr Ahmadinejad’s comments force Europe and American to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crises with more impetus, it would have been a thing done right.

Defence of the realm

Finally, when you are surrounded by your sworn enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the defence of the realm becomes the paramount objective, even if it includes nuclear weapons, and as long as those prime powers think they are more deserving of nuclear exploitation than you are, well, the debate would continue.

Another oil crisis looms probably with Angela’s help.