Best books on Third Reich architecture & culture

[ghostsoldier]

What would you folks recommend at a reading list for the best books dealing with Third Reich architecture? Are there any really good picture books available? Is there a bibliography list somewhere here on the forum?
Rob


********************
[Added by the staff]

If you buy through the below links you not only get the books you want but you also support the forum while shopping!
* AHF Bookstore
* Amazon.com (UK, Germany)

[Marcus]

We don't have such a list at the moment, but I'll sticky this thread so we can create one here.

/Marcus

[Helly Angel]

I recommended highly the book The New Reichschancellery by Cowdery

Here is the info:

http://www.pzg.biz/book_reichschancellery.htm

Lot of photos and info about that beautifull building!

[ghostsoldier]

We don't have such a list at the moment, but I'll sticky this thread so we can create one here.

/Marcus

Thanks, Marcus...I think it would come in handy!

At one time, many years ago (about 20), I owned a book entitled "Art and Architecture in the Third Reich"....it was about 8" x 10", and had a black cover with red lettering....somehow, I have since lost it, but what I remember of it, it was quite informative, and full of pictures and informative text. Unfortunately, I have not been able to relocate it anywhere for purchase, Does the title sound familiar to anyone?

And thanks for the link to the Reich Chancellery book, Helly!
Rob

[ghostsoldier]

Here's 3 more that I have on order,in addition to the Cowdery book...

Hitler Sites: A City-by-city Guidebook (Austria, Germany, France, United States) - Steven Lehrer
The Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker Complex: An Illustrated History of the Seat of the Nazi Regime - Steven Lehrer
Hitler's Secret Headquarters: The Fuhrer's Wartime Bases from the Invasion of France to the Berlin Bunker - Franz W. Seidler

Rob

[Lass & Kleine]

Hello>

I have the second book from de Art,Sculpture and Architecture to de Third Reich, its wonderfoul!

I think if any of yours can buy, I dont have problem to sell.

Regards

[Geoff Walden]

Here are my favorite period architecture books. The first four are by far the best. These all have lots of pictures and illustrations.
Geoff Walden


Albert Speer, "Neue Deutsche Baukunst," Berlin, 1943

Werner Rittich, "Architektur und Bauplastik der Gegenwart," Berlin, 1938

Frau Prof. Gerdy Troost, "Das Bauen im Neuen Reich," Bayreuth, various editions, 1938-1942

Exhibition Catalog of the 1. Deutsche Architektur-und-Kunsthandwerkausstellung, Munich, 1938 (1st German Architecture and Crafts Exhibition)

Herbert Hoffmann, "Deutschland baut," Stuttgart, Verlag Julius Hoffmann, 1938

Hubert Schrade, "Bauten des Dritten Reiches," Leipzig, 1937

Georg Fritz, "Strassen und Bauten Adolf Hitlers," Berlin, 1939

Werner Lindner and Erich Böckler, "Die Stadt: Ihre Pflege und Gestaltung," Munich, 1939

Winfried Nerdinger, "Bauen im Nationalsozialismus," Munich, 1993 (This is a modern book that covers Nazi construction projects and architecture in Bavaria.)


Period magazines/periodicals - these often had architecture drawings, pictures of building models, etc:

"Kunst in Deutschen Reich"

"Bauten der Bewegung“

"Moderne Bauformen"

“Der Baumeister”

[ghostsoldier]

Geoff,
First of all, I want to tell you how much I enjoy your website...I'm sure it's a labor of love for you, and it's one of my personal favorites; I refer to it continually!

Second, on the excellent list of books you posted: are these easily located in original form, or are there readily available reprints out there? Were they mass-produced during the regime's history (like Mein Kampf), or more limited in circulation, like trade periodicals?
Rob

[Mimi]

here is a list of books http://www.schikelgruber.net/biblio.html

[ghostsoldier]

Thanks for the link, Mimi!
Rob

[Sewer King]

We don't have such a list at the moment, but I'll sticky this thread so we can create one here.

Thanks, Marcus...I think it would come in handy!

At one time, many years ago (about 20), I owned a book entitled "Art and Architecture in the Third Reich"....it was about 8" x 10", and had a black cover with red lettering....somehow, I have since lost it, but what I remember of it, it was quite informative, and full of pictures and informative text. Unfortunately, I have not been able to relocate it anywhere for purchase, Does the title sound familiar to anyone?

Hello again, ghostsoldier! Could the following book be the lost one you're looking for?

Peter Adam's Art of the Third Reich (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1992), hardcover 8x10, 332 pages.

It was right to hand on a nearby shelf when I saw your inquiry. It is a good book on Nazi-era architecture as well as arts, worth adding to our proposed bibliography (here too is Amazon.com's editorial comment on it). Abrams is a well-known art history publisher. My copy cost $18 twelve years ago (used, new condition), so the prices quoted seem expectable today.

One difference why this might not be your missing book -- you can see it is not quite 20 years old as you recalled, and is associated with a British 1988 BBC-TV documentary series on its subject. But it is as well-referenced as it is written and illustrated. If this is it, might you have been unable to find it because you included the word "Architecture"" in the title?

Also, there is a similarly-titled book by Berthold Hinz, Art in the Third Reich (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979; translated from the original German by Robert and Rita Kimber; originally published as Die Malerei im Deutschen Faschismus: Kunst und Konterrevolution, Munchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1974), 268 pages. This is similar in size to the later Adam book and has an extensive German bibliography. But Hinz' book is mostly about Nazi representative arts, and only its last 1/4th covers architecture.

-----------------------------------------

Many books focus on the monumental and grandiose buildings and urban plans by Hitler, Speer, and Troost. But what about the rural homestead villages and strategic town plans for settling the Eastern territories? Had Germany won the war, these were meant to be populated by a landed agrarian elite of Wehrbauern who were to rule under SS auspices.

Himmler as dabbling architect? Good basics of schemes like these he hoped to carry out are covered by parts of Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt's book Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present (New York: Norton and Company, 1996). This of course is not about building arts but covers some of the architecture, if it can be called that, of industrial-scale murder

There is a good chapter treatment comparing Stalinist and Nazi architecture (along with other regimes) in Igor Golomstock's book Totalitarian Art (HarperCollins Publishers, 1990; translated from the original Russian by Robert Chandler, 416 pages).

[Geoff Walden]

Geoff,
First of all, I want to tell you how much I enjoy your website...I'm sure it's a labor of love for you, and it's one of my personal favorites; I refer to it continually!

Second, on the excellent list of books you posted: are these easily located in original form, or are there readily available reprints out there? Were they mass-produced during the regime's history (like Mein Kampf), or more limited in circulation, like trade periodicals?
Rob

Hi Rob,

I forgot to answer your second part ...

Most of the period books I listed can be found today at German book dealers, and on the internet. Many of these were indeed mass printed - copies of Speer's and Troost's books are pretty common. The art and architecture magazines were also mass printed. Of course, none were to the level of the printings of Mein Kampf! I'm not aware of any reprints of any of these.

Geoff

[ghostsoldier]

Also, there is a similarly-titled book by Berthold Hinz, Art in the Third Reich (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979; translated from the original German by Robert and Rita Kimber; originally published as Die Malerei im Deutschen Faschismus: Kunst und Konterrevolution, Munchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1974), 268 pages. This is similar in size to the later Adam book and has an extensive German bibliography. But Hinz' book is mostly about Nazi representative arts, and only its last 1/4th covers architecture.

Alan,
Bingo! That is exactly the book I was talking about! My memory had failed me, until I read your comment about only the last 1/4 of the book being about architecture...I remember thinking how I wished it had featured more info that subject. The Amazon image of the book is what struck the recall chord...



Thanks for giving me the correct title and author (and Amazon link! )...I am reordering it for my library collection once more!

Geoff,
Thanks for the second reply. I've already opened a search on eBay and Amazon for some of those titles...I'm particularly interested in the Speer and Troost editions (although they can be a bit pricey! ...)

Rob

[Sewer King]

You're welcome! Anyone would be glad to return the long-lost almost as much as to receive it. The three books I mentioned on Nazi art -- by Adam, Hinz, and Golomstock -- were all side-by-side on a nearby shelf when you asked.

I have noted this book here before, but it might only be a tangential reference for Nazi architecture. A good though general book, part of what I think of as the 1960s-70s wave of Third Reich scholarship.

Mallory, Keith; and Ottar, David. The Architecture of War (US: Pantheon Press, 1973) and simultaneously published as Architecture of Aggression, (London: Architectural Press, 1973), 307 pages.

Most of this book is about heavy fortification and troop support construction from 1900 onward. But it was written by two architects and it devotes a chapter, "German Bomb-Proof Mania," to the massive German air-raid shelters and flak towers not only in the Reich, but elsewhere in occupied Europe. The authors look at one of the great shelters in Köln's Tacitusstrasse, with its architectural veneer. This and other shelters had come in for postwar study by the US Strategic Bombing Survey and thus were blueprinted by the Americans (today in National Archives?).

Mallory and Ottar noted the range of decorative styles in the shelters' exteriors as fitting them into Nazi ideology and monumental propaganda, at least early in the war. Hitler's architectural ambitions for the German capital and the Autobahnen are better known in this line than the styling of bomb shelters, but have the same roots.

- Alan

[Marcus]

One book I recommened is "The Berlin State Theater under the Nazi regime: A study of the administration, key productions, and critical responses from 1933-1944" by Elisabeth Schulz Hostetter, a review can be found at http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=5812

/Marcus