Architecture and Ideology: Hitler Youth Organisations in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Sudeten Reichsgau

Nemec, Richard (2013). Architecture and Ideology: Hitler Youth Organisations in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Sudeten Reichsgau. Umění Art, 6(61), pp. 542-570. Ceska Akademie Verlag

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This article examines the architecture of the Nazi regime in two occupied cities of Czechoslovakia, Praha/Prag and Jihlava/Iglau (the latter being one of the traditionally German-speaking island in the bohemia country), and focuses specifically on the process by which Hitler youth organisations (Hitlerjugend) in case of ‘education’ and indoctrination of youth were or were not successfully established in these cities. As comparison, he takes the political-administrative centres of the Sudeten Reichsgau, Ústí/Aussig, Opava/Troppau, Karlovy Vary/Karlsbad and Liberec/Reichenberg. Drawing on Czech and German archive materials, the extensive body of modern analytical literature, and propagandist literature from the period studied, the author examines the extent to which architecture served as a projection screen for Fascist propaganda in the Occupied Eastern territories. He describes the role played by the Reichsstelle für Raumordnung and shows how the Reich’s propagandist objectives came to be reflected in a high specific typology and stylistic lexicon/configuration for the architecture of Hitler youth hostels and homes He examines the process by which these organisations were powerful implanted into the space of occupied Czechoslovakia (and Sudeten) too, a topic that has not yet been addressed in (art) history too. The building projects developed for the Protectorate (published here for the first time) and managed by the Reich’s Hitler Youth Leadership in Berlin (Kulturamt, Reichsjugendführung, RJF, Abteilung HJ) reveal the ties that existed between the construction authorities in the Reich and the Protectorate, including the Planning Committee for the City of Prague. The author asks how many German and Czech architects participated for their own profit in the Nazi system, and for future research raises the hitherto taboo question of guilt and collaboration with the Nazis and the perception of this phenomenon in art history, i.e. the measure of active cooperation of not just German but also Czech architects who contributed to the planning and implementation of projects and thereby unequivocally had a hand in consolidating the totalitarian regime and de facto in the forced „Germanification” of their own people under occupation.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Art History
UniBE Contributor:	Nemec, Richard
Subjects:	700 Arts 700 Arts > 720 Architecture
ISSN:	0049-5123
Publisher:	Ceska Akademie Verlag
Language:	Czech
Submitter:	Richard Nemec
Date Deposited:	02 Apr 2014 09:50
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 14:29
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/44349