Reading and reviewing Diefendorf In the Wake of War Essay

In 1945 intense bombing gave the Germans a strange opportunity comprehensively to redesign their townships and cities. The damage to the urban fabric was so peachy that reconstructive memory was expected to take sixty centenarian age. It took ten. still, the bland architecture of umpteen cities today suggests that the Germans squandered their chances. They certainly demolished too much and arguably restored to little pre- war life and spirit of many of their finest towns. They could have done infract unless, as In The Wake of War.The Reconstruction of German Cities after introduction War II, by Jeffry Diefendorf shows, they faced constraints which were as complex and critical as those affecting their economic reco very. The scale of the damage was staggering. The debris from the ten worst-affected big-than-life cities lone would have covered Hyde Park to a depth of five hundred feet. Moreover, capable contrivers and architects were scarce. Diefendorf, a professor of taradiddle at the University of New Hampshire, has compose an excellent, extensively researched disk on the reconstructive memory of war-damaged German cities after 1945.This reconstructive memory involved in quit the massive kick the bucketance of rubble from streets and construct sites yet it also required a comprehensive rethinking of readying, architecture, and make law. German city planners had to resolve several dilemmas. First, they needed to distance German cities from their Nazi ago, yet also restore legitimate architectural landmarks. Second, German planners coalescence with the growing inter stateal modernist movement negateed with this concern for pastal preservation. Fin some(prenominal)y, the grand hopes of comprehensively redesigning the outmoded city centers were constrained by the urgent need for primary house.In this scholarly study addressed to students of history, architecture, city intend, and development, Jeffrey M. Diefendorf makes two un peculiar(prenominal) and interrelated contri barelyions. He delineates the activities, ideas, and institutional bear upones that accompanied the retraceing of many of watt Germanys ruined cities after World War II and he shows that the countrys urban reconstructive memory between 1945 and 1955-60, when reviewed structurally, was influenced by indorse material exigencies as vigorous as nonable prior urban planning and design traditions. Many had emig countd in the 1930s.Those who worked below the Nazis were now distrusted or dismissed. These thornyies were compounded by shortages of power, equipment and transport and by the Allied requisitioning and dismantling of inborn equipment. There were go on problems. apiece city had had a distinctive pre-war character. Each was differently affected by bombing. Thus, each faced different reconstructive memory problems and proposed different solutions. There was no central administration, and Nazi planning arrangements were i n abeyance so co-ordination and planning controls were weak. Nor could municipalities start with a clean slate.Buildings, building lines and retention rights solace existed point off the rubble belonged to nighone. Moreover, the best course of fulfil was unclear. Prussian, Weimar and Nazi planning and architectural traditions remained strong yet were now unacceptable and no agreed alternatives existed. Were they to restore the old or build something mod? Architects, lanners, local councils, the Allied occupation actorities and the local populations all had unconnected preferences. Aspects of the Reconstruction The primary focus is on the untimely postwar years, from 1945 finished the late mid-fifties.Though reconstruction exertions continued well into the 1960s (and some even to the present day), Diefendorf argues that by the late 1950s the explicit reconstruction of bombed cities gave way to a broader process of growth and modernization. In fact, Marshall excogitate a id and the westbound German economic miracle accelerated what many in 1945 thought would be a forty-year reconstruction period. Diefendorf wisely examines the events leading up to 1945, from the Bauhaus architectural influences of the 1920s to wartime bombing and planning (including plans to build under(a)ground, bomb-proof fortress cities called Webrstadte).He spends an entire chapter on prewar German planning, and an especially interesting chapter on postwar planners both ar useful references for comparative work on the profession and its intellectual history. Diefendorf reminds us that urban reconstruction is a very complex and emotionally charged subject, since so many concerns, both realistic and psychological, need to be satisfied. Right at the end of the war reconstruction would have to take ass immediately in order to the major(ip) cities of Germany to recover and get binding on its tracks.The need for structures from the wide frame of sectors in German cities would r easonably come from the German population vehement to start their lives a tonic. Apart from the financial limitations and opposite hindrances in name of resources, the reconstruction of the whole German cities and the German pride would have to come at a pricea substantial where the stakes encompass not only the physical but, more significantly, the emotional and psychological aspects of the planners, builders, and of the entire population.At the end of the war, the first desperate need was for shelter for the unhoused, tired, and defeated noncombatant population, augmented by refugees, expellees, and returning war veterans. This was the time of clearing the rubble by the famous Trummerfrauen, as it was also a time of remainder between hole-and-corner(a) initiative and public control, a period of gigantic black market activities and widespread illegal building. These things, on a larger perspective, prove to be huge hindrances to the restoration of the integrity of the countr y as well as for the physical reconstruction of Germanys major cities.Conditions changed as soon as the currency reform of 1948 had taken hold. There were, of course, still problems of expropriation and compensation of private property and thither was no generally applicable agreement as to who had jurisdiction over the rebuilding process. As the admit sheds light on the disparity over the jurisdiction rights over the reconstruction process, the struggle between the public control and private initiative stock-still emphasized the parallel aim of reconstructing the fallen country.And although the town, the state, and the national government had conflict in determining precisely who is responsible over certain areas and aspects of the reconstruction process, funds were eventually provided by a special equalization of centre tax. Behind the Pages Redefining the Postwar German Reconstruction Focusing on the have it off of over thirty of Germanys largest cities, this is the first g eneral account in English of the mighty efforts to rebuild urban Germany after 1945.The research effort and the command of detail are impressive and Diefendorf tells the involved twaddle with clearness and style. However, the treatment is uneven. It covers only the West Germany and concentrates on just four cities Munich, eau de cologne, West Berlin and, especially, Hamburg. The book, in general, is excellent history, thorough, documented, well organized, and readable written. On its own terms, there is little to criticize although at some point the aspects worthy of critique shelve out the idea of discrediting the whole book.The illustrations are excellently chosen, with dramatic onward-and-after photos, although some city plans would have helped. The organization by subject quite an than chronologyrubble clearance, architectural style, historical preservation, housing, city planning, law, and administrative organizationsworks well, even if it occasionally demands separating one event into pieces in different chapters. The research ostensibly occupied the author for fifteen years, took him to numerous archives, and led him to interviews both of key out participants and of other researchers.Its assiduousness shows in the resultshows perhaps too much, when we are given lists of planners or names of streets occasionally burden the text without adding to understanding. saucily found sources tend to direct attention out of proportion, but everything is clear, and by and large a suitable degree of skepticism is sprinkled over the self-seeking quotations from participants. The distinctive East German reconstruction effort is omitted East Berlin and Dresden rate only passing mention.Furthermore, the detailed discussion of architectural and planning principles, wartime planning and the local politicking is a trifle microscopic. I should have preferred less endnotes and a briefer bibliography, which together constitute over one quarter of the book. save the reconstruction of West Germanys cities after 1945 remains a tale worth telling. In his structuralist perspective, the post war reconstruction of West Germanys battered cities marked neither a radical break with the past nor a completely new fuck offning.He emphasizes that significant continuities linked the periods before and after 45 (p. xvi). The emphasis on continuities does not, as yet, keep him from sketching the signal discontinuity created by the wartime war against the cities. The war had been awesome and awful 45 percent of the housing stock had been destroyed or damaged. Urban Germans needed to clear mountains of rubble, to assure scarce materials and labor for reconstruction, to rebuild both legally and illegally in order to survive.The legal and illegal slipway in which the Germans engaged themselves into all for the name of salvaging whatever they can from the ruins of the war is partially discussed in the book. The very humans of these twofold activities meant th at by any possible means the reconstruction of the major German cities, towns, and the entire nations would have to be met. Yet this is the part where the book gathers the conviction to assert the idea that such an objective was not an easy task as it may have sounded.A roach of hindrances would have to be faced along the way such as financial constraints and conflict over who is going to be responsible for which specific areas are to be reconstructed, and on what buildings are to be erected. Diefendorfs accent, however is on the face of reconstruction on such resultant roles as architectural styles and historic preservation and such problems as old an new housing, town planning, and building laws. These topics take up close of the book, and he derives credible conclusions in each case. Throughout, he shows the importance of the long-term historical context.The ties of the book with history is both necessary and interesting apart from the reason that postwar Germany is a good gro und for substantiating on the idea of how a nation faces the most wretched conditions and is able to stand on its own, recovering virtually immediately from a pace hardly achieved by any other country. In architecture, he suggests that a broadly conceived modernist style, although struggling with traditionalism and gesture to expediency, survived into the postwar period, becoming dominant in the late 1950s.As to historic preservation, German cities chose separate paths after circuittling on whether, how, and under what conditions to rebuild the damaged shell (p. 69). Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hanover, and Stuttgart generally favored modernization Munster, Freiburg, and Nuremberg emphasized their historic character Lubeck, Cologne, and Munich took a middle path. The chapter contains excellent photographs, and Diefendorf observes that planners tended to prefer modernization whereas citizens groups called for preservation. preparedness Amidst Reconstruction DifficultiesDebates ab out architecture and political behavior had taken place since the 1920s. The book highlights the idea that traditional architecture, with its component of historic preservation, and its stress on regional domestic variations and native building materials, vied with more modern forms of city planning, with its emphasis on commerce, industry and transportation, particularly on work by car. In many cases the aerial bombardment had razed the center and most densely settled area of the city, and had provided the planners with a ready-made ground and the opportunity for modern rebuilding.Here was a chance to solve the problems of earlier unwilled urbanization that had been brought about by the industrialization. In a large total of cases, underground sewage, water, gas and electricity conduits were not heavily damaged and could be used again. The rapid rebuilding of the German cities, done within close a decade, can only be understood in terms of previous long-term urban planning. not ably, German housing shortages dated back to the turn of the century. Far from abating during the Weimar Republic, they were further complicated and compounded during the Nazi regime.A housing crisis developed particularly during World War II, persisting into the postwar period partly because extensive new construction did not begin until the currency reform of 1948. Thereafter, modest residential housing units in both suburbs and inner cities began to appear across the Federal Republic. This outcome was aided by a broad consensus on housing construction, the passage of a federal housing law in 1950, as well as private and public funding (with small Marshall Plan funds performing as lubricant).In this case, it can be noted that the existence of housing predicaments paved the way for the attention of the public and private sectors. Diefendorf further notes that the growth of a body planning law paralleled the growth of town planning in Germany in the late nineteenth century (p. 222). This reflection of the author corresponds to the belief that the increase in the reaches of Germanys body planning law has something to do with the increase in the planning for the reconstruction of heterogeneous parts of Germany.From the minor to the major towns and cities, the laws enacted by the states to set limits and definitions on ways that affect the reconstruction of the various regions led to a sweeping set of changes in the urban lives of the people. The prominent architects and city planners, who were in direct battle in the efforts of reconstruction during the early period of the postwar era, had accumulated their readying during the Weimar Republic, had been actively participating during the Third Reich, and were more than eager to use their skills and competency in the service of building during the postwar era.They saw themselves as individuals belong to the unpolitical group, just as the large number of doctors had done. They were engaged fundamentally in deve loping the cities while straying away from the political public and the influence of political groups that seek to control the reconstruction process to their advantage. Yet even if the laws were enacted, there were notable lapses that undermine the very purpose in which these laws were created. For instance, the laws usually sufficed for laying out streets but typically failed to address the issue of what was erected behind the street facades (p.222). There were certain lapses that the book highlights, which veritably amounts to the presumption that even if there were salient legal efforts to boost the reconstruction process by setting legal definitions on the process, these were nevertheless not without certain unique lapses on their own. Predictably, the enduring housing problems had kept the planners busy during peace and war. Diefendorf emphasizes that postwar planning remained largely in the hands of pre-1945 planners who had gained experience in the years 1933-45 but whose p lans tended to predate the Nazi regime.Despite the planners ambivalence about public input and their debatable insistence that they were apolitical, Diefendorf treats them and their plans generously Freiburg and Cologne came to exemplify conservative planning, Kiel and Aachen demonstrated the pragmatic approach, while the partial planning of Mainz and Berlin resembled that of most other West German cities (p. 197). If the planners failed to solve the burgeoning postwar traffic problems, it was because they could not anticipate the speedy arrival and proliferation of private motor vehicles.Diefendorf makes it clear that planning the reconstruction of vast cities and towns is not a process under the helm of pure democracy. It was at the same time burdensome and difficult to reconcile the wishes of the whole mass of populations who desire to avert back their long-familiar environment. It was also difficult to reconcile the needs of an expanding and forward-looking economy under the ov ersight of a wide variety of public and private organizations. The book has two related flaws It misstates its subject, and it is not interdisciplinary.Its real subject is the planning for the reconstruction of German cities after the war (and the organizational and legal problems that accompanied that planning), but not the economics, the politics, or the sociology of the reconstruction process itself. Its focus is on what planners said, what theories they held, what positions they occupied, a little about what they accomplished, and much more about what they did not accomplish. on the way, many interesting questions are raised Is there such a thing as Nazi planning? (Yes, but only in limited areas.) Did planning evolve continuously from the Weimar Republic through the Nazi era to the postwar years, or was the Nazi period a sharply break in continuity? (No sharp break. ) Was reconstruction planning undefeated? (Under the circumstances, remarkably so, although, in hindsight, wit h many shortcomings. ) Yet it appears that the flesh and blood of reconstruction is apparently still to be found. Planners may plan cities, but they do not create the decisions on what gets built, or where, when, and how these buildings are to be built.Not unlike in the United States, in Germany after the war, developers, builders, financial institutions, property owners, and politicians concerend about taxes, were all key players, as sometimes were groups of citizens with nonfinancial and nonpolitical motivations. Briefly, in discussing why comprehensive planning laws did not get passed, the author shares some intimation of pressures from property owners briefly, in discussing organizations, he avers that when major banks vie a role in planning, things went more smoothly.Yet it may well be that the department-store, real-estate offices were more influential in what actually happened than the entire planner put together. Diefendorf displays understanding for the difficulties facing German planners, but his conclusions could be taken as the starting point for a critique of a functionalism simple(a) of aesthetic ambition. Postwar architecture tended to satisfy neither modernists nor traditionalists. Associated with a new building style n the 1920s, standardized housing of the 1940s and 1950s was no loner expected to result in exciting buildings (p. 61).Functionalist desertion of aesthetic concerns was also evident in planning. Emphasizing broad functional tasks, most city planners concerned themselves chiefly with public health and safety and with the flow of traffic in the cities. Although there may have been burnished city planners involved in the reconstruction process, the funding for the entire process have also hindered the attainment of utterly expensive and grand architectural buildings, owing perhaps to the books observation that the proper annexation of the financial budget had to be carefully managed so as to stir the ends.The author quotes Leo Grebler, a real-estate economist familiar with market forces, to the ensnare that postwar German planning produced traffic improvements and decongestion on central areas (p. 347), but his explanation for the amelioration alludes only to the personalities of planners and planning theories. Diefendorf cites none of either the old or the new urban sociology, no urban politics, no affectionate history to explain reactions to central planning, and no urban economics nada on the forces shaping cities worldwide in the postwar era.Further, the book notes that the wars devastation offered Germany a unique opportunity to correct the failings of the urban blight produced by the industrial and population expansion of the second fractional of the nineteenth century (p. 275). One of the books most fascinating discussions concerns the transformation of the German planning profession from the Nazi period to the early postwar years.