Deutsches Stadion
Encyclopedia
The Deutsches Stadion was a monumental stadium
designed by Albert Speer
for the Nazi party rally grounds
in Nuremberg
, southern Germany
. Its construction began in September 1937, and was slated for completion in 1943. Like most other Nazi monumental structures however, its construction was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II
and never finished.
According to Speer himself, it was inspired not by the Circus Maximus
in Rome
but by the Panathenaic Stadium of Athens
, which had impressed him greatly when he had visited it in 1935. Speer's stadium was a gigantic inflation of its Greco-Roman model, from which he borrowed the horseshoe configuration and the propylaeum, now transformed into a raised, pillared, temple-like structure (Säulenvorhof) attached to the open end of the stadium by an internally pillared courtyard. Since the stadium was not set like the Panathenaic Stadium structure at the bottom of a gully, but on a flat area of land (24 hectares), its five tiers of seats for 400,000 spectators had to be supported in the usual Roman manner by massive barrel vault
s. The external façade of pink granite blocks, which would have risen to a height of about 90 metres (about 100 yards), consisted of a series of arches 65 metres (about 71 yards) high resting on a podium of dark red granite. The arcade and podium again suggests a Roman, not a Greek, circus or stadium, which did not traditionally rest on a substructure. In order to deliver such a vast number of spectators to their seats quickly, express lifts were to be installed to take spectators 100 at a time to seats on the top three tiers. The short transverse axis of the stadium culminated at each of its ends in a raised pulvinar (Ehrentribüne) for the Führer
, special guests and the press. Once more, Roman practice provided the architectural precedent.
Speer apparently adopted a horseshoe shape for his building only after rejecting the oval shape of an amphitheatre
. The latter plan, he claimed, would have intensified the heat and produced psychological discomfort, a comment he does not elucidate. When Speer remarked on the staggering cost of the building, Hitler, who laid its cornerstone on September 9, 1937, merely retorted that it would cost less than two battleships of the Bismarck
class.
Wolfgang Lotz
, writing about the stadium in 1937, commented that it would contain twice the number of spectators originally accommodated by the Circus Maximus. Inevitably for the period, he also emphasized the community feeling that such a building would engender between competitors and spectators:
The idea of staging Pan-Germanic athletic games here was perhaps suggested by the Panathenaic Games
, but Speer's stadium was, despite his own statement, stylistically more Roman than Greek in inspiration and with its huge barrel-vaulted substructures and arcade
d exterior facade, more like the Circus Maximus than the Panathenaic Stadium. Nazi
building exhibits a mixture of Greek and Roman elements, with Roman predominating.
But Hitler did not want such a stadium to serve merely as a centre for German athletic sport. The restored stadium had been used for the 1896 Summer Olympics
and the 1906 Intercalated Games held out of series. In 1936 these games
were held in the Reichssportfeld in Berlin
, but Hitler insisted that after 1940, when the games were to have been held in Tokyo
, all future games were to be held in the Deutsches Stadion. This stadium was in all its dimensions far larger than the 1936 Olympic Stadium in Berlin, which held only 115,000 spectators. Hitler anticipated that after winning the war a subjected world would have no choice but to send its athletes to Germany every time the Olympic Games were held. Pan-German games were to become global games called the Aryan Games
(only Aryans
allowed to enter) at which, no doubt, victors would have received their prizes from the Führer, surrounded by the party faithful on the pulvinar on the short axis of the cavernous stadium. Thus, this building, like the Volkshalle
in Berlin foreshadowed Hitler's craving for world domination
long before this aim was put into words.
Stadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...
designed by Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
for the Nazi party rally grounds
Nazi party rally grounds
The Nazi party rally grounds consist of about 11 square kilometres in the southeast of Nuremberg, Germany...
in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
, southern Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Its construction began in September 1937, and was slated for completion in 1943. Like most other Nazi monumental structures however, its construction was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and never finished.
Design
Circus Maximus
The Circus Maximus is an ancient Roman chariot racing stadium and mass entertainment venue located in Rome, Italy. Situated in the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, it was the first and largest stadium in ancient Rome and its later Empire...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
but by the Panathenaic Stadium of Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, which had impressed him greatly when he had visited it in 1935. Speer's stadium was a gigantic inflation of its Greco-Roman model, from which he borrowed the horseshoe configuration and the propylaeum, now transformed into a raised, pillared, temple-like structure (Säulenvorhof) attached to the open end of the stadium by an internally pillared courtyard. Since the stadium was not set like the Panathenaic Stadium structure at the bottom of a gully, but on a flat area of land (24 hectares), its five tiers of seats for 400,000 spectators had to be supported in the usual Roman manner by massive barrel vault
Barrel vault
A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve along a given distance. The curves are typically circular in shape, lending a semi-cylindrical appearance to the total design...
s. The external façade of pink granite blocks, which would have risen to a height of about 90 metres (about 100 yards), consisted of a series of arches 65 metres (about 71 yards) high resting on a podium of dark red granite. The arcade and podium again suggests a Roman, not a Greek, circus or stadium, which did not traditionally rest on a substructure. In order to deliver such a vast number of spectators to their seats quickly, express lifts were to be installed to take spectators 100 at a time to seats on the top three tiers. The short transverse axis of the stadium culminated at each of its ends in a raised pulvinar (Ehrentribüne) for the Führer
Führer
Führer , alternatively spelled Fuehrer in both English and German when the umlaut is not available, is a German title meaning leader or guide now most associated with Adolf Hitler, who modelled it on Benito Mussolini's title il Duce, as well as with Georg von Schönerer, whose followers also...
, special guests and the press. Once more, Roman practice provided the architectural precedent.
Speer apparently adopted a horseshoe shape for his building only after rejecting the oval shape of an amphitheatre
Amphitheatre
An amphitheatre is an open-air venue used for entertainment and performances.There are two similar, but distinct, types of structure for which the word "amphitheatre" is used: Ancient Roman amphitheatres were large central performance spaces surrounded by ascending seating, and were commonly used...
. The latter plan, he claimed, would have intensified the heat and produced psychological discomfort, a comment he does not elucidate. When Speer remarked on the staggering cost of the building, Hitler, who laid its cornerstone on September 9, 1937, merely retorted that it would cost less than two battleships of the Bismarck
Bismarck class battleship
The Bismarck class was a pair of battleships built by the German Kriegsmarine shortly before the outbreak of World War II. The ships were the largest warships built by the German Navy and the heaviest capital ships ever completed in Europe...
class.
Projected use
Wolfgang Lotz
Wolfgang Lotz was an Israeli spy during the Cold War.- Biography :Wolfgang Lotz was born at Mannheim, Germany in 1921 to a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish German father. Lotz's father was a theater director who worked alongside his wife, an actress...
, writing about the stadium in 1937, commented that it would contain twice the number of spectators originally accommodated by the Circus Maximus. Inevitably for the period, he also emphasized the community feeling that such a building would engender between competitors and spectators:
As in ancient Greece, the elite and most experienced men chosen from the mass of the nation will compete against each other here. An entire nation in sympathetic wonder is seated on the tiers. Spectators and competitors merge in one unity.
The idea of staging Pan-Germanic athletic games here was perhaps suggested by the Panathenaic Games
Panathenaic Games
The Panathenaic Games were held every four years in Athens in Ancient Greece since 566 BC. They continued into the third century AD. These Games incorporated religious festival, ceremony , athletic competitions, and cultural events hosted within a stadium.-Religious festival:The games were part of...
, but Speer's stadium was, despite his own statement, stylistically more Roman than Greek in inspiration and with its huge barrel-vaulted substructures and arcade
Arcade (architecture)
An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians....
d exterior facade, more like the Circus Maximus than the Panathenaic Stadium. Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
building exhibits a mixture of Greek and Roman elements, with Roman predominating.
But Hitler did not want such a stadium to serve merely as a centre for German athletic sport. The restored stadium had been used for the 1896 Summer Olympics
1896 Summer Olympics
The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, was a multi-sport event celebrated in Athens, Greece, from April 6 to April 15, 1896. It was the first international Olympic Games held in the Modern era...
and the 1906 Intercalated Games held out of series. In 1936 these games
1936 Summer Olympics
The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain on April 26, 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona...
were held in the Reichssportfeld in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, but Hitler insisted that after 1940, when the games were to have been held in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, all future games were to be held in the Deutsches Stadion. This stadium was in all its dimensions far larger than the 1936 Olympic Stadium in Berlin, which held only 115,000 spectators. Hitler anticipated that after winning the war a subjected world would have no choice but to send its athletes to Germany every time the Olympic Games were held. Pan-German games were to become global games called the Aryan Games
Aryan Games
The Aryan Games were a proposed replacement for the Olympic Games by the National Socialist government of the Third Reich, to be housed permanently in Nuremberg at the German Stadium that was designed, but never built, by Albert Speer. Adolf Hitler told Albert Speer that after the German Stadium...
(only Aryans
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
allowed to enter) at which, no doubt, victors would have received their prizes from the Führer, surrounded by the party faithful on the pulvinar on the short axis of the cavernous stadium. Thus, this building, like the Volkshalle
Volkshalle
The ' , also called ' or ' , was a huge domed monumental building planned by Adolf Hitler and his architect Albert Speer for Germania. The project was never accomplished....
in Berlin foreshadowed Hitler's craving for world domination
World domination
World Domination or Global Domination may refer to:* World Domination , 2001* World Domination , 2005* World Domination Enterprises, a UK independent rock band* World Domination Recordings, a US record label...
long before this aim was put into words.
Further reading
- Krier, Leon. Albert Speer Architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1989. ISBN 2-87143-006-3.
- Lotz, Wolfgang. Das Deutsche Stadion Für Nürnberg "Moderne Bauformen". Berlin: 1937.
- Scobie, Alexander. Hitler's State Architecture: The Impact of Classical Antiquity. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-271-00691-9.
- Speer, Albert. Architektur: Arbeiten 1933-1942. Berlin: Propyläen, 1995. ISBN 3-549-05446-7.
- Speer, Albert. Erinnerungen. Berlin: Ullstein-Verlag, 1996. ISBN 3-550-07616-9.
- Thies, Jochen. Architekt der Weltherrschaft: Die "Endziele" Hitlers. Berlin: Droste, 1976. ISBN 3-7700-0425-6.
- Verspohl, Franz Joachim. Stadionbauten Von Der Antike Bis Zur Gegenwart: Regie uber Selbsterfahrung die Massen. 1st edition. Berlin: Anabas-Verlag, 1976. ISBN 3-87038-043-8.