Reichsheimstättenamt
The Reichsheimstättenamt was responsible within the German Labor Front (DAF) for housing construction and for the construction of new settlements in the countryside. It had 225 subordinate homestead offices at the Gau level .
In addition to eliminating the housing shortage, the objective was also to convey National Socialist ideology: the ideal of binding the “ national community ” to the state and “rooting” it in the ground. Members of various professions and social backgrounds should live in the settlement houses. The uniform architecture of the houses served to subordinate individual interests to group interests and to improve self-sufficiency by using the garden and keeping small animals. In addition, it was founded to wipe out the numerous independent housing cooperatives from the time of the Weimar Republic economically and politically.
Structure and arrangement during National Socialism
The Reichsheimstättenamt was divided into specialist departments such as the Research Center for Settlement Design (political and building law competencies) and urban planning .
Known employees
In 1939, Karl Neupert took over the management of the urban planning department of the Reichsheimstättenamt in Berlin from Georg Laub (a Wetzel student).
Structure and organization of the homestead offices
The homestead offices in the Gauen were divided into different departments such as the Research Center for Settlement Design of the Reichsheimstättenamt.
Known employees
- 1936: Gau Hessen-Nassau : Wilhelm Avieny , at the same time first director of Dulag Luft in Oberursel
- 1937: Gau Sachsen in Dresden : Karl Neupert as head of the research center for settlement design of the Reichsheimstättenamt
Selection process of the settlements in the countryside
The examination committee consisted of the local groups of the NSDAP and the DAF. They were presented with “settler questionnaires” in which political attitudes, party affiliation, “racial affiliation”, hereditary health and fertility were checked.
Only those who:
- was of Aryan descent
- was not older than 45 years
- was married and had at least two children
- was willing to provide 2000–3000 working hours of self and neighborhood help in the construction of the settlement.
The Aryan descent ( Aryan certificate ), hereditary health and reproductive ability were checked by a medical certificate. After a 3-year probationary period, the built house was transferred. Constant control by the party organs was thus possible.
A settlement of the Reichsheimstättenamt of the DAF was z. B. in Eichenredder in Hamburg.
literature
- Ulrike Haerendel: Municipal housing policy in the Third Reich. Settlement ideology, small house construction and “housing renovation” using Munich as an example. Munich 1999. (also dissertation, Technical University of Munich, 1996.)
Web links
Some remaining settlements: