Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The agent of this astonishing transformation was the Reich's secret
rearmament drive in the 1930s. Having ceded its main iron- and steel-
producing regions in Alsace-Lorraine after the First World War, Germany
looked for alternative sources of ore. Extensive deposits in the Salzgitter
hills, known to exist since ancient times, had remained dormant because of
the inferior quality of the ore. For centuries Salzgitter had been known as
a bucolic agricultural district of wheat and sugar beet fields, its only claim
to fame being mineral baths frequented by the princes of Braunschweig.
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But an invention changed all that. A newly patented chemical process
provided an economical method for enriching Salzgitter's low-grade ore,
thereby making its ore deposits usable. Hermann Göring, the powerful field
marshall responsible for making Germany resource independent, incorpo-
rated Salzgitter in his Soviet-style four-year plan for putting Germany's
economy and natural resources on a war footing.
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Construction began in 1937. A huge industrial complex of mines,
foundries, molding plants, forges, chemical and electrical facilities, and
other supporting installations was underway. With the region lacking a
pool of skilled industrial labor, the project imported workers from all over
Germany and Europe.When labor still fell short of demand, a concentra-
tion camp was erected nearby in 1941 to supply slave labor for the mines
and foundries.
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Salzgitter exploded in size, ranking as the fastest-growing
and the most densely populated region in Germany.
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With the huge
influx of workers and their families, Göring was immediately confronted
with a housing crisis. An overall plan for new housing construction was
needed.
THE SALZGITTER SIEDLUNGSBAU
The Reich's approach to the housing problem was more than a pragmatic
solution, however; it reflected concerns deeply rooted in German history
and culture. Salzgitter's planners resolved to avoid the mistakes of Ger-
many's industrial revolution, whose precipitous onset—the most rapid in
Europe—had caused extreme social and economic dislocations. (The anx-
ieties from rapid modernization are well documented in such German
writings as Spengler's
Decline of the West.
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) It was feared that the develop-
ment of the Hermann-Göring-Werke would inflict on the region the same
environmental and human blight as had Germany's initial industrializa-
tion—flight from the land, urban overcrowding and suburban sprawl, pol-
