Housing and Settlement

What path led from the propaganda of settler homes and the appeal to folksy jingoism – which played a dominant role in the early days of the National socialist state – to concepts for industrialised "social housing" and then, within the space of a few years, to a reality characterised by the widespread misery of squalid barracks, camps and ruins? In 1933, the Nazis inherited the legacy of a conservative shift in housing policy. The non-profit reform housing of the 1920s had already ended back in 1930 during the Great Depression. A sense of eager anticipation had been generated by the grand announcements proclaiming a “new form of architecture” and the assurances that housing would be treated as "Problem No. 1" (Gregor Strasser) in social policy, but this ended in disappointment. In the Nazi regime’s initial “consolidation phase”, up until about 1935/36, new housing was deemed less important than job creation measures, and precedence was subsequently given to the construction of the Siegfried Line and building up the military. In practical terms, housing policy initially involved the perpetuation of programmes handed down from the Weimar Republic and overseen by the Reich Ministry of Labour. The policy of enforced political conformity ("Gleichschaltung") – as applied to the civil service, architects’ associations and housing companies – and the enforcement of tenancy laws that were increasingly hostile to Jews meant that housing policy was incorporated, both ideologically and in practical terms, into the Nazi programmes of exclusion. The National Socialist era was characterised by state and party offices that were interfused and overlapped, a phenomenon that began to establish itself from the outset. Numerous party leaders and organisations developed their own ideas on housing and settlement questions and sought to push them through. Practically speaking, the results of the National Socialist housing and settlement policy were in every respect disastrous owing to the wars of aggression. The vision conjured up in the propaganda of a "national community" (Volksgemeinschaft) as an integrating force had manifested, for its members (Volksgenossen), at best in the first attempts at community settlements, while the promises of social housing construction to come remained just that. Instead, at the end of the war, the country’s face was pockmarked by ruins, camps and barracks.

Compiled by Tilman Harlander, using the research findings of Sylvia Necker; Michael Haben; Christoph Bernhardt, Harald Bodenschatz, Kerstin Thieler and Malte Thießen

Translated from the German by Simon Cowper