Driving Germany: The Landscape of the German Autobahn, 1930-1970

Abstract

Thomas Zeller's Driving Germany is a revised and translated version of his Munich dissertation, Strasse, Bahn, und Panorama, published in 2002. Concentrating solely on the development of the autobahn from the late Weimar Republic through the first two decades of the Federal Republic, Zeller has eliminated from the original the chapter on high-speed railways and added a new chapter, which provides historical context for an English-speaking audience. The result has preserved the contributions of the German version, particularly Zeller's deft integration of environmental and cultural history with the history of technology, in a nuanced and convincing interpretation of the autobahn's place under different political regimes. Despite its roots in the Weimar Republic as the initiative of private investors seeking a north-south highway comparable to the Italian autostrada, the autobahn became the Nazi regime's largest peacetime infrastructural project. Yet contrary to still prevalent myths, which claim variously that military needs, job creation or the Nazi variant of environmentalism motivated the regime to revivify and expand the project, the autobahn exposed conflicting visions beneath the regime's professed aim to motorize the masses by constructing highways according to the principles of ‘German technology’, the fusion of the highest technical standards with conformity to topography and nature. Beneath the putative harmony between technology and landscape, which in its own way paralleled the regime's vision of a ‘racial community’ free of social tension, the autobahn project spawned competition between the technocratic planning of civil engineers and the aesthetic, ecological and professional interests of landscape architects. The autobahn's leading landscape architect, Alwin Seifert—who in contrast to conservationists emphasized the creation of new landscapes rather than nature preservation—exploited his relationship to the project director, Fritz Todt, to defend his objectives. Landscape architects, however, struggled to gain a hearing. Employed as consultants with minimal compensation, landscape architects assigned to the project's regional offices found themselves marginalized in the autobahn's planning. Even Todt's aim to offer drivers the consumption of a new experience of space and time competed with the creative urges of Seifert and his colleagues. To be sure, Nazi ideology provided a common framework for all factions, a good example being the autobahn's place in the regime's Drang nach Osten, yet as was characteristic of the Third Reich, it complemented, rather than inhibited, internecine rivalries.