'Germania': Hitler's Vision for a Capital
A new exhibit shows Adolf Hitler's controversial plans for Berlin.
PASSAU, Germany, March 12, 2008— -- Hitler was confident of winning World War II and one of the top priorities on his post-war agenda was a monumental makeover of Berlin as the capital of the Nazi-run world.
Three years before the end of WWII, in 1942, Hitler said, "Berlin will be comparable as a world capital only to Egypt, Babylon or Rome."
His vision of Berlin as a city full of bloated marble architecture and grandiose boulevards broader than the Champs Elysee reflected his idea that Berlin would become the center of his global Third Reich.
The plans for what Hitler dubbed "Germania" – a grand Fascist city that would outdo London and Paris – were carefully drawn up in detail by his favorite architect, Albert Speer, one of his intimates.
Hitler had always disliked the city of Berlin. He regarded it as a dirty, liberal-minded place and was disdainful of its leftist political attitudes. He was determined to fix it once he had dealt with World War II.
For many decades his plans were considered so outrageous that they were kept from the public and confined to specialist books and institutes.
It is only now that they will be revealed in a new Berlin exhibition. It will show models and plans for Hitler's "Germania" vision, including photos and documentation that evidence the Nazi's plans to throw out thousands of Jews from their homes to make space for the massive new capital — a super-sensitive topic even more than 60 years after World War II.
"We are showing that 'Germania' was to be built at the expense of the Jews, who were the first to be relocated to make space for the gigantomania. And as we all know, the so-called relocation was the first step on a terrible path that lead to certain death, either in ghettos or in concentration camps," Dominic Ponce, spokesperson for the "Myth Germania" exhibition, told ABC News in a telephone interview.
"There is always a risk that some people might regard the exhibit as seeming to glorify the Nazi's aesthetic vision, but we're confident there cannot be a misunderstanding of our intentions," Ponce added.
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