Walter Brugmann

Walter Brugmann, 1943

Walter Brugmann (born April 2, 1887 in Leipzig ; † May 26, 1944 ) was a German architect , initially in the tradition of classical modernism, from 1928 as head of the building construction department, from 1933 as city ​​planning officer in Nuremberg , from 1940 as general construction manager for Berlin and from 1942 as head of the OT in southern Russia for logistical construction measures of the Wehrmacht.

Career

Starting out from late expressionism, Brugmann was shaped at the beginning of his career entirely in the spirit of New Building , a style that had its beginnings in Bavaria at the beginning of the 20th century and was known as "the other tradition". (She wanted to replace the historicist, concealing architecture of the 19th century with functionalist building techniques.) From 1924/25 onwards, Brugmann orientated himself strongly on the principles of the Bauhaus and other reformist architectural trends in Europe (rationalist architecture in Italy, de Stijl in Holland).

Brugmann designed geometrically strict, mostly cubic buildings which, with a thoroughly expressive formal language, showed a very strong reduction to the essentials and were developed from functionality but also from materiality. Brugmann often used brick as a facade material. The tram hall at the Plärrer (" Plärrer-Automat ", 1931–32) with its floating round roof over a heavily dematerialized, very transparent steel-and-glass construction was considered to be a pioneering traffic structure of classical modernism. Here the strong influence of the parallel Italian modernism (Italian rationalism around Giuseppe Terragni ) becomes clear.

Brugmann, who in 1928 was led by the liberal-democratic mayor Dr. Hermann Luppe was appointed head of the municipal building department and before 1933 created a number of remarkable buildings in the sense of New Building, initially pursued a consistently modernist architectural stance and turned against traditionalist ideas, which also brought him into conflict with Luppe, who advocated moderate change . For example, Brugmann, as the head of the building construction department , was unable to assert himself against Luppe in the design of the large Nordostbahnhof estate at the end of the 1920s, who was open to new building but did not want any radical breaks in the cityscape; Instead of the flat roofs favored by Brugmann and built elsewhere, flat sloping hip roofs had to be implemented. On the other hand, Brugmann, as head of department, was able to consistently enforce his radically modern architectural ideas in the urban health care buildings of that time, such as the women's clinic on Flurstrasse (Arch. Robert Erdmannsdorffer ) and the Johannisheim pulmonary nursing home (Arch. Otto Ernst Schweizer ), even against massive criticism.

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Brugmann turned to the architectural ideas of the 'Third Reich', but remained stylistically in a mixture between the objectivity of the New Building and the state architecture of the 'Third Reich', whose exaggerated pathos remained alien to him. In a way, Brugmann remained suspicious to many of the powerful of the 'Third Reich', especially the Nuremberg Gauleiter Julius Streicher because of his decidedly modern architectural stance before 1933, but he was able to rely on the support of Mayor Willy Liebel and his connections to Albert Speer and avoided all conflicts with strings.

Model of the Nazi party rally grounds at the World Exhibition in Paris, 1937

From 1934 Brugmann was entrusted with the planning of the Nazi party rally grounds. His work for this focused primarily on the urban planning concept and on questions of technical and organizational implementation; he was not consulted for the planning of high-rise buildings.

Under Brugmann as town planning officer, the "de-trading" and "Aryanization" of Nuremberg's old town was promoted under the guise of monument protection. In this context, Brugmann handled the instructions of the Nuremberg Gauleiter Julius Streicher for the dismantling of the Neptune Fountain ("Judenbrunnen") on the main market and for the demolition of the main synagogue on Hans-Sachs-Platz (which took place long before the so-called Reichspogromnacht ) . Also at Streicher's request, Brugmann had the planetarium on Rathenauplatz built in 1927 according to plans by Otto Ernst Schweizer (as a symbolic building from the Weimar Republic, i.e. the Luppe era ) demolished.

According to Albert Speer , Brugmann was killed on May 26, 1944 in "an unexplained aircraft accident". According to Speer's memories, Brugmann was considered a “loyal employee” and “old school official”.

Career in the Nazi state

Brugmann is still controversial because of his involvement in the Nazi system as an ambivalent personality. He is considered a typical example of an architect who, as a careerist, turned to the regime opportunistically. After 1933 the NSDAP had joined, he was under the direct connection of the urban management high Baureferent and 1934 construction manager of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds . In 1937 he received the title of professor. In 1940 he was appointed general construction manager for Berlin. Because of his indifferent architectural stance, Brugmann was not a style-maker for the architecture of the 'Third Reich'; after 1933/34, despite his career as a public authority, he was no longer able to realize designs for larger buildings. Since then he has worked as an architect operationally and administratively, which is why contemporaries called him "the construction manager of the Führer". Despite his high offices, Brugmann was not personally involved in crimes of the Third Reich; politically, he behaved inconspicuously, but as a technocrat he was an effective pillar of the system. The office was not 'cleaned up' after he took over the building department; Brugmann continued to work with architects from the ' system time '. Within the authorities, he relied on the circle around his protégé and successor in office, Heinz Schmeißner ( Wilhelm Schlegtendal , Paul Seegy, Kurt Schneckendorf ), who was able to continue an uninterrupted career as an architect in the post-war period and significantly shaped the reconstruction and construction activities in Nuremberg in the post-war decades.

• 1933 construction consultant in Nuremberg, since 1934 also the chief planner of the Nazi Party Rallies Association
• 1933 speaker and employee of Albert Speer. Participated in the film Triumph des Willens by Leni Riefenstahl . Mentioned in its opening credits as responsible for the film-technical buildings.
• 1937 Head of Department “General Construction Management” at the General Construction Inspector for the Reich capital
• 1940 Head of the Air Defense Program Assembly
• 1941 head of Albert Speer's construction staff
• 1942 Head of the Organization Todt -E Einsatzgruppe Russia-Süd, in this context on May 14, 1943 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords

plant

• Water purification building of the municipal gas works (1927)
• Coke bunker in the municipal gas works (1927/1928)
• High voltage station school building in Nuremberg Fürreuthweg 95
• High voltage station at Nuremberg Geiseestrasse 37
• Welfare institution for lung patients, Nuremberg Johannisstrasse 37a (1932)
• Main Post Office (redesign of the design). As a construction consultant, Brugmann had a decisive influence on the planning process for the new post office. He was of the opinion that the skyscraper had to be “raised even higher”.

Not available anymore:

• Norishalle (1927/1928 as a rationalist-objectified conversion of a historicist-eclectic exhibition hall from 1882, destroyed in 1945)
• Jagdstraße tram and bus stop
• Tram stop ' Plärrer-Automat ' (1928/1931, demolished in 1977)

literature

• Center for Industrial Culture (Ed.): Architektur Nürnberg 1904–1994. Nuremberg 1994, ISBN 3-921590-21-3 .
• J. Düffer: NS system of rule and urban design. The law for the redesign of German cities of October 4, 1937. In: German Studies Review. 12, 1989, pp. 69-89. doi: 10.2307 / 1430291
• Eckart Dietzfelbinger, Gerhard Liedtke: Nuremberg. Place of the crowds. The Nazi Party Rally Grounds. Prehistory and difficult legacy. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-86153-322-7 .
• Nuremberg City Archives, Nuremberg City Museums: Reconstruction in Nuremberg. Exhibition catalog. Schmidt, Neustadt an der Aisch 2010, ISBN 978-3-925002-89-2 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Walter Brugmann in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de
2. ↑ Manfred Jehle: A client and his architects - dedicated to Hermann Luppe. In: Centrum Industriekultur (Ed.): Architektur Nürnberg 1904–1994. Nuremberg 1994, ISBN 3-921590-21-3 .
3. ↑ Center for Industrial Culture (ed.): Architektur Nürnberg 1904–1994. Nuremberg 1994.
4. ^ Quotation from Ernst Klee : Das Kulturlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 85.
5. ↑ A. Speer: Memories. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, pp. 349, 567.
6. ^ ^{A b} Ernst Klee: The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 84–85.
7. ↑  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) proof of post
8. ↑ Howler machine .