GERMANIA-SPEER: Website Feature

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Website Feature - Reich Chancellery

In 1945-46, the Russians obtained the marble for their Berlin war memorial from the ruins of Hitler's New Reich Chancellery, on the corner of Wilhelmstraße and Voßstraße, which Albert Speer designed and finished in 1939.

Hitler had airily told Speer that the Old Reich Chancellery was “fit for a soap company.” Located at Wilhelmstraße 77, the old chancellery had been built 1736-1739 as a palace for Count von Schulenburg. Otto von Bismarck remodeled the building as his chancellery.

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ALBERT SPEER

I was sometimes shocked but in the same way I was enthused about the possibilities he saw in the field of new buildings and it was a mania in any case and, as I see nowadays, it was an expression of the whole system of his schemes. But in the time when I was working for him I thought those buildings are just matching the political era which was coming with Hitler, with his successes in which were still to be due.

It shouldn't be forgotten that to be in the middle of a powerful group, a very powerful man admired by people, is so tempting that it's very difficult to get away. Thinking back to my time when I was at the height of planning those huge buildings, of course it was a chance to be one of the well known, even in the history of arts, and this was a chance no young man would willingly destroy. And afterwards when I was a minister, the sweetness of power also was tasting very good to me. Certainly all power corrupts and certainly in Hitler's circle the power was [of an] extraordinary scale, so the corruption was much larger than [it] is normally.

Finance Minister's Nightmare

"If the Finance Minister could realize what a source of income to the state my buildings will be in fifty years! Remember what happened with Ludwig II. Everyone said he was mad because of the cost of his palaces. But today? Most tourists go to upper Bavaria solely to see them. The entrance fees alone have long since paid for the building costs. Don't you agree? The whole world will come to Berlin to see our buildings. All we need to do is tell the Americans how much the Great Hall cost. Maybe we'll exaggerate a bit and say a billion and a half instead of a billion. Then they'll be wild to see the most expensive building in the world."

Adolf Hitler

(Quoted in Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich", Chapter 10.)

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Website Feature - Reich Chancellery

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