Avenue of atrocities

Avenue of atrocities

Ghostwriting the city – writing the city’s ghosts. Writing against Haussmann’s perspectives and also against the ones designed by Speer. The Avenue of Splendours, a North-South axis that was planned for the capital of the Reich, was closed-off to traffic. It had an underground highway, a not atypical vertical zoning for modern urban planning. It was meant to slow pedestrians down, to give them time to develop deep emotional bonds to the object ahead. For Hitler, Speer’s perspectives are part of ‘a tonic against the inferiority complex of the German folk’; a necessary intervention ‘to give self-confidence to the nation’.

Date

2023

Language

English

Author

Günter Gassner

Keywords

Critical Theory

Benjamin

Fragmentation

Writing

Commodification

© 2026 Günter Gassner
© 2026 Günter Gassner