The Nazi Autobahn

German Cars & the Autobahn

Course 1 · Chapter 5 · The Autobahn in the Nazi Years

After January 1933 the new Nazi government made the motorway into a national programme and into one of its best-known propaganda themes. This chapter describes that programme factually: who ran it, how fast it was built, what it did and did not do for employment and the military, how it was designed, and what is known about the people who built it. The aim is to separate documented history from the myths that still circulate, and to say clearly what the sources do not settle. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check", and the numbers in particular should be verified against historians' work.

The Programme

1933

In February 1933 Hitler opened the Berlin motor show with a speech promising support for motoring and road building (check). In June 1933 a law set up the company to build the Reichsautobahn, and Fritz Todt, an engineer and Nazi party member, was made General Inspector for German Roads (check the titles and dates).

The first spade

A ceremonial first cut took place in September 1933 near Frankfurt, with Hitler present (check), and the first section, Frankfurt to Darmstadt, opened in 1935. Propaganda presented the roads as a national achievement of the new regime.

The scale

Around 1,000 kilometres were open by the mid-1930s and about 3,800 kilometres by the early 1940s, when work slowed in wartime (check the figures and what counts as completed).

Four Claims Tested

Claim (check each)What historians say
"Hitler built the Autobahn."The idea, the planning and a first road predate 1933 (Chapter 4). The Nazi government provided state money, compulsion and a huge propaganda effort, and the network grew on a scale not seen before. A fair statement credits both.
"It ended unemployment."Propaganda spoke of hundreds of thousands of workers. Historians estimate direct employment on the roads at its peak in the mid-1930s at well under 200,000 (check), a small part of the millions unemployed in 1933. Rearmament, labour service and conscription mattered more, and unemployment statistics were also manipulated (check).
"It was built for the army."Military use was discussed, but historians find that the roads were not mainly planned for troop movements and that railways carried most military transport (check). Their value was largely symbolic and economic.
"It was a masterpiece of landscape design."Designers did give attention to the setting of roads in the landscape (see below), and the regime used the claim in its image. The reality was mixed, and the aesthetic sat beside ideology (check).
Why the myths persist The Nazi regime promoted the Autobahn heavily in films, posters, paintings and books, so its image outlived the regime. After 1945 the motorway network stayed in use and mostly kept its name, and simple stories are easier to repeat than the historians' qualified accounts. Treat any statement about the Autobahn that credits a single man or a single effect with suspicion (check the sources, such as Thomas Zeller's study of the Autobahn landscape).

Design and Landscape

  • Curved routes. Designers favoured gently curved lines fitted to the terrain over long straight stretches, which supporters said made driving more pleasant and fitted the landscape (check).
  • Landscape advocates. The programme appointed landscape specialists, among them Alwin Seifert, to advise on routes and planting (check). Their role and ideology, which stressed native plants and "blood and soil" ideas, are discussed by historians.
  • Bridges and rest stops. Many bridges were faced in stone and designed to look monumental, and some rest areas were built in a rustic style (check).
  • Few cars. Private car ownership was still low in the 1930s (Chapter 3), so many of the roads carried little traffic at first (check).

The Workers

  • Conditions. Workers often lived in camps near the site, worked long hours for low pay and faced harsh discipline, and there were strikes and complaints despite the propaganda image of happy labour (check the sources).
  • Forced labour. From the late 1930s Jewish men and others were forced to work on road projects, and during the war prisoners and forced labourers were used on road and related construction (check the extent and details).
  • Handling the subject. This history is documented in specialist studies and survivors' accounts. Statements about numbers and conditions should be taken from those sources and not from general summaries.
A British comparison The nearest British parallels are the road and public works programmes of the 1930s in many countries, from the American Works Progress Administration to British arterial road schemes, which also used job creation as a justification. The German programme was unusual in its propaganda and in its ideological framing (check). Britain's first motorway came decades later (Chapter 4).
Check the details This chapter covers a sensitive and much-mythologised subject. Figures for kilometres, workers and effects differ between sources and have been revised by research, so verify them with historians' studies and archives, not with popular summaries or the claims of the period.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Write a balanced two-sentence answer to the claim "Hitler built the Autobahn", using Chapters 4 and 5.

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Exercise 2

Explain how you would test the claim that the Autobahn ended unemployment, and what figures you would need.

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Exercise 3

Discuss why propaganda images of the Autobahn are poor evidence about what the programme achieved, and what kinds of source are better.

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Quick Reference

  • Programme: Todt and the Reichsautobahn from 1933 (check)
  • Scale: about 3,800 km by the early 1940s (check)
  • Myths: "built it", "ended unemployment", "for the army"
  • Workers: hard conditions; forced labour later (check)
  • The caution: use historians' studies, not propaganda or summaries