The Nazis’ means and methods of implementing Hitler’s architectural designs

The culture of Germany under the domination of National Socialism underwent a significant transformation. Changes included the architectural and construction sphere manifestations of this process which combined classical samples of antiquity and Nazi means of their realisation. The article analyses the activities of Nazi functionaries to find resources for the architectural redevelopment of German cities, particularly Berlin. Realisation of Hitler’s architectural plans required mutually beneficial cooperation between the chief architect of Nazi Germany Albert Speer and the SS head Heinrich Himmler. Along with the forced eviction of Jews from Berlin neighbourhoods, the labour of concentration camp inmates was widely used. The internal architectural and construction tasks of the Nazi state involved a whole list of major concentration camps and some branch camps. The official architectural and construction apparatus, represented by Speer, performed key functions (financial and informational and advisory) in the process of erecting and expanding the system of concentration camps designed for mass extraction and manufacture of building materials by their inmates. The result of following the racial-political guidelines of the Nazi Party ideology, the mutually beneficial interests of the architectural and construction inspectorate of Speer and the SS organisation were construction of the notorious concentration camps. That claimed hundreds of thousands of lives of the concentration camp system prisoners and can be classified as genocide of representatives of society and entire peoples, unwanted from the Nazis’ point of view.