Düsseldorf architects dispute

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The Düsseldorf architectural dispute was triggered in the early 1950s by the planning and personnel policy of Friedrich Tamms , then head of the Düsseldorf City Planning Office , and is considered to be an important contribution to coming to terms with and dealing with the Nazi past in the young Federal Republic of Germany . This contribution was made by a young group of ten Düsseldorf architects who are the architects ring Dusseldorf had closed together, Nazi to a network decision, which held in Dusseldorf in power to make public and to take action against it. According to the architects' ring, Düsseldorf was a “center of former Nazi celebrities”.

The Stadtmuseum Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf dedicated an exhibition to the architects 'dispute in 2008 under the title "Architects' dispute - reconstruction between continuity and a new beginning".

prehistory

At the beginning of the 1950s, central positions in the area of ​​urban planning and development after the Second World War were occupied in Düsseldorf by architects who had worked in prominent positions in the so-called Third Reich , but who - supported by a network of connections and personal relationships - had one had succeeded in continuing their activity almost seamlessly. The key figure here was Friedrich Tamms , who had already started his work as head of the Düsseldorf planning office in April 1948 and had developed concepts for the urban reorganization of Düsseldorf based on ideas that were already in place at the time of the so-called Third Reich (from October 1943) the reconstruction of German cities had been developed. (“ Reconstruction Planning Task Force ” at the “ General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital” (GBI) Albert Speer ).

In October 1949 Josef Lehmbrock , Bernhard Pfau and other architects in Düsseldorf founded the “Architects' Ring Düsseldorf”, which was supposed to continue the work of the association of architects from the 1920s, which was called Der Ring . The trigger for the foundation was the public presentation of the reorganization plan of the city of Düsseldorf from October 1st to 31st, 1949 in the Kunstpalast am Ehrenhof , through which the city planners under the direction of Friedrich Tamms wanted to determine the reconstruction and the car-friendly redesign of the state capital.

Pfau soon realized that his anti - fascist attitude, which was influenced by the Nazi era, collided with the ideas of official town planning. The first phase of the dispute was characterized by urban planning criticism and turned against major breakthroughs, cuts and splits which, in his view, damaged the historically grown districts within the Düsseldorf urban fabric. He also criticized the fact that extensive areas were being converted for the emerging motorization, as he saw this as a continuation of plans from the Nazi concept for Düsseldorf as the Gau capital .

First phase from 1949

In the first phase, the "Architektenring Düsseldorf" accused Tamms of having architects such as Helmut Hentrich , Hans Heuser , Hanns Dustmann , Kurt Groote , Konstanty Gutschow and Rudolf Wolters , with whom Tamms worked with Albert Speer , the general building inspector for the Reich capital , during the Nazi era . had worked together to launch in municipal offices or to give preference to the award of contracts. From 1943 onwards, they were also active in the task force for the reconstruction of cities destroyed by bombs , reporting directly to Albert Speer, where such urban planning concepts had already been developed. At Speer's express recommendation, the architects involved did not join the NSDAP and therefore got through the Allied denazification phase without any problems . It has not yet been clarified what prompted Speer to make this recommendation.

At the end of 1949, the architects' ring opposed its plans as a basic program to the plans of Tamms and his entourage. According to the architects' ring, the starting point for the planning alternative it propagates should be people with all their modern needs. Specifically, the so-called axial "city intersection" planned by the city ​​was to be replaced by three concentric ring roads and traffic-calmed city areas were to be established. In 1950 the counter-concept was presented to the public in the premises of the Deutscher Werkbund . However, when Friedrich Tamms 'urban planning was decided a little later as a "reorganization plan", the architects' ring increased its criticism. In his now more sharply presented criticism, he addressed the “brown past” of the urban planners in particular and assumed that they had a functioning network of relationships, which the former “comrades” provided each other with numerous public contracts. In addition to Friedrich Tamms, Helmut Hentrich and Hans Heuser were also mentioned publicly. At Heuser it was found that he had been a competition prize winner a dozen times and that it was notably Tamms who had always been a judge.

Names such as Karl Piepenburg, a former construction manager of the New Reich Chancellery and later construction manager of the Heuser and Hentrich buildings, and Rudolf Wolters, a former member of Speer's staff and general construction inspector for the capital, were also mentioned. This had won the Düsseldorf old town competition, in which Tamms was judge. Under Tamms he had become the “sub-city planner” for individual districts of Düsseldorf. In addition, Hanns Dustmann, a former chief architect of the Hitler Youth , was now the winner of the tender for the new building of the community bank and the district high-rise, which was also awarded with the help of Tamms. Kurt Grote, a former employee of the magazine Das Schwarze Korps , who was responsible for architecture , was also named under Tamm's trustee in the city's old town maintenance. There was also strong criticism that in 1950 Julius Schulte-Frohlinde , former architect of the German Labor Front (DAF) and head of the Reichsheimstättenamt , had been entrusted with planning the expansion of Düsseldorf City Hall without public competition. The architects' ring said that its published draft made the closeness to Nazi taste clear, and in this accusation referred to Schulte-Frohlinde's plan to convert Erwitte Castle into a Nazi training castle and his involvement in the Colossus of Prora on Rügen .

Second phase from 1952

The dispute escalated once again in 1952, when Julius Schulte-Frohlinde , who as head of the construction office of the German Labor Front projects of Robert Ley transposed form with the castle Erwitte in Westphalia to a Nazi training castle was rebuilt at the instigation Tamms head of the Düsseldorf Building Department had been appointed and according to his plans the new administration building of the city was built on the market square. The architects' ring published the following statement on this personnel (statement on the filling of the building director's position in Düsseldorf in February 1952):

“Among the big cities in Germany, Düsseldorf has the sad fame of harnessing these cultural peaks of the system of that time in its development work. The point here is not to put a person on trial because of their membership of the party or other organization, but rather whether we have recognized how deeply the National Socialist idea of ​​building culture differs from that of democracy. The building lions of the party buildings have not changed in their building attitude. If they are old enough, they already had this attitude before Hitler appeared and will not shed it today either. Wouldn't it be better, when redesigning our cities, to make use of those men who had to emigrate or go underground when Hitler came, and whose cultural-political past leaves no room for doubt? The list of the Germanic cultural knights before us who are active in or for Düsseldorf frightens us very much. We see this as a symptom of our time and would like to prevent this clique from pushing its way back into leading positions by rehabilitating the unfortunate denazification process . We therefore protest against the fact that the builder of the Nazi training castle Erwitte and creator of the Nazi party rally grounds , Professor by Hitler's grace, Schulte-Frohlinde , should direct the fortunes of the Düsseldorf building authorities. "

- Werner Durth

Josef Lehmbrock later said:

“At that time it was about objection and counter-proposal to Düsseldorf's urban planning, as it was operated by Friedrich Tamms, who had already planned in the working group 'for the reconstruction after the victory' . We tried, through public criticism and constructive counter-proposals, to induce the citizens to resist an authoritarian urban planning that disregarded the needs of the citizens. At that time we believed that we could put an end to the ghost of the Nazi functionary [Friedrich] Tamms with his old Speer comrades, Werner Schütz , [Julius] Schulte-Frohlinde, [Rudolf] Wolters, [Hanns] Dustmann and others gathered around him , but we misjudged the balance of power at that time. Right from the start, the Speer architects had strong support from the leaders of the city and the state, from Werner Schütz, who has now been promoted to Minister of Education, and from the Minister of Agriculture and former Speer planner Heinrich Lübke , not to mention the influence of their high-ranking friends in business and industry Financial world - it was decided there, not in the citizenry. (...) The town planning that we worked out and presented to the public can still be seen today. The quality of this alternative design is above all to thank Bernhard Pfau. "

- Josef Lehmbrock

Members of the architects' ring

When it was officially registered on January 21, 1950, the following belonged to the architects' ring:

literature

  • Town hall with Figürkes . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1952, pp. 30 ( online ).
  • Werner Durth : Resistance. In: German architects. Biographical entanglements 1900–1970 (= dtvwissenschaft. 4579). New edition, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-423-04579-5 , p. 359 ff. (First edition 1986, doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-322-85486-5 ).
  • Susanne Anna: Architectural dispute: Reconstruction between continuity and a new beginning (= Stadtmuseum series ). Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-7700-1345-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ quoted from: Werner Durth: Deutsche Architekten. Biographical entanglements 1900–1970. 1986/2001, p. 296.
  2. ^ Architectural dispute reconstruction between continuity and a new beginning.
  3. ^ Werner Durth : German architects. Biographical entanglements 1900–1970. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-423-04579-5 , p. 351 ff.
  4. ↑ Building review. 23/1949.
  5. ^ Albert Speer (ed.): New German architecture (represented by Rudolf Wolters). Volk und Reich publishing house, Prague 1943.
  6. ↑ The market place ( Memento from November 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) City archive of the city of Düsseldorf.
  7. ↑ quoted from: Werner Durth: Der Düsseldorfer Streit. In: German architects. Biographical entanglements 1900–1970. 1986/2001, p. 298 ( books.google.de here p. 368).
  8. ^ Josef Lehmbrock: Thoughts and memories. Obituary for Bernhard Pfau. In: werkundzeit. 4, 1989, pp. 22/23.