Conceptions, Competences and Limits of German Regional Planning during the Four Year Plan, 1936–1940

Abstract

‘Space’ and ‘regional planning’ (Raumordnung) as cultural and practical categories have been widely discussed in analyses of the National Socialist dictatorship in recent years.¹ While the importance of regional and social planning for Nazi Germany is generally agreed upon, it remains disputed who formulated and defined space in the 1930s.² In answering this question, the focus shifts to the German academic elite of regional planners — Raumplaner — and, in particular, how they viewed themselves intellectually. The historical records about regional planners’ significance appear to be unambiguous: During the 1930s and early 1940s, regional planners themselves persistently stressed their decisive influence not only on a specific National Socialist understanding of space but also on their actual shaping of landscapes and infrastructure.³ In searching for the relevance of regional planners in the political definition of space in Nazi Germany, we have to consider specific ideas about space as regional planners expressed them and to examine the impact in practice of academic imaginations and plans for the shaping of space.