The bloodbath of World War II is over. Millions have lost their lives. Nazi Germany now rules the world. A group of prisoners are marched down the
long boulevard that runs through the middle of the new capital of the Nazi Empire. Hitler is just a speck on the steps of the
largest domed building ever constructed. To the right of the prisoners are massive
concrete structures that loom like watchtowers over the causeway. To the right are almost identical structures
that house leaders of the New World Order. It takes hours to walk down the main thoroughfare
towards the man who will sentence them to death. These prisoners have found themselves in Germania,
Hitler's newly built mega city and capital of the world. Thankfully the Nazis did not win World War
II and Hitler’s dream of a city containing gigantic concrete buildings to celebrate his
government and ideologies was never completed. Unfortunately for many during World War II
the city had been started and thousands lost their lives because of it. Germania was dreamt up by the mind of Hitler,
so you know everything we are about to show you is going to be crazy. Adolf Hitler started mapping and planning
Germania as early as 1926. This is over a decade before World War II
started. His obsession with creating a master race
and controlling the world was nothing new when he launched his war to conquer Europe. Accounts suggest that Hitler always disliked
Berlin as a city. He thought of it as dirty and disorganized. It was filled with too many leftwing progressives. People who wanted equality and peace, and
there was no room for these ideologies in Hitler’s future. He promised to fix the city once he had secured
power in Germany. Hitler may have dreamt up the idea of Germania,
but the head architect for the project was Albert Speer. Speer might have been as deranged as Hitler. They became good friends and spent a lot of
time planning and designing Germania together. Apparently Hitler got along well with people
who were as crazy as he was. For many years their plans were kept secret. This may have been because many members of
the Nazi party thought that Germania was not feasible, and made their leader look slightly
obsessed. Hitler described his world capital to be comparable
to the cities of ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Rome. He had big dreams for Germania and he would
do anything to make them a reality. The first step was the demolition of Berlin. Hitler needed to tear down tens of thousands
of houses and buildings so that he could build his dream capital. It did not seem to bother him that a war was
going on. Luckily for Hitler, he had some help with
the demolition of Berlin. Allied air strikes destroyed large parts of
the city. Speer liked to point out that the Allies were
helping greatly with the planning efforts of Germania. Again, Speer was a little crazy. All too happy to help, the allies continued
bombing Berlin into rubble. In order to make Germania a reality Hitler
and Speer needed to change the actual landscape of Berlin. Germania was planned to have massive buildings
all on the same level of land. Unfortunately, Berlin is not located on a
flat plane, and therefore the topography of the landscape needed to be changed. Where the largest arch of Germania was supposed
to be built, the land needed to be raised by 14 meters. To put that in perspective the Nazis needed
to raise the ground by a height of two giraffes standing on top of one another. That is a lot of land to create. Reshaping the Earth was not the only insane
feat of engineering that Germania would undertake. The city itself needed to be centered around
a grand thoroughfare that would be called the North-South Avenue. It would be around 4.3 miles long and lined
by massive theaters, shops, and government buildings. In the middle of the North-South Avenue would
be a massive arch. It would be named the Triumphal Arch and would
tower over the Arch de Triomphe in Paris. In fact, the Triumphal Arch was planned to
be so large that it’s French predecessor would be able to fit underneath it. Everything needed to be grandiose so that
military marches and parades with thousands of soldiers and tanks could traverse the city. The main causeway was not to be used by pedestrians,
and so plans to create underground walkways and roads were drafted. Hitler could not have the common folk crowding
up his massive avenue. Above ground the streets would be lined with
statues and monuments to celebrate the Nazi party. Below ground would be a series of barren tunnels. People would only use the tunnels to get from
one spot above ground, to another spot above ground, without creating visible congestion. Basically Hitler wanted to turn the attractive
living spaces of Berlin into monuments of order. Attractiveness would always come second to
efficiency in Germania. If that sounds crazy, you’ve seen nothing
yet. When architects and urban planners look back
at the plans for Germania one thing is clear. Hitler’s world capital would have been a
nightmare for people to live in. Getting anywhere would be a difficult route
of above and below ground roads. Also, keeping with character, Speer did not
believe in traffic lights or trams, so the roadways would be complete chaos. It is unclear what the procedure would have
been if an underground accident happened. Knowing Hitler and Speer the solution would
probably be to collapse the tunnel with the accident and victims inside it and just build
a new one. But with the rabble trapped underground, Hitler
could build the most beautiful structure of Germania. The crowning jewel of Hitler’s Germania
would be the Great Hall. The massive domed structure was inspired by
the Pantheon in Rome. It’s dome would be 16 times higher than
Saint Peter’s Basilica, which was the world’s tallest dome at the time. The plan was to make the dome of the Great
Hall 950 feet high. The hall itself would be able to accommodate
over 150,000 people. Presumably all of which would come to hear
Hitler speak. The grandiose nature of Germania and the Great
Hall makes you wonder if Hitler was compensating for something. Adolf Hitler had a dream to make Germania
the new capital of the world. Albert Speer helped design the city. But how was it to be built? Who was going to build it? This is where things get very dark. Although it should come as no surprise when
talking about one of the most evil men in history. Hitler being the megalomaniac that he was,
had very little regard for human life that was not Arian. Even with World War II raging on all fronts
he began destroying parts of Berlin to begin construction on Germania. To do this Hitler killed thousands of innocent
civilians. Even with a war going on all around him that
killed millions, Hitler was busy at home killing his own people. Sometimes you have to wonder if there was
any humanity left in Hitler. What comes next might suggest the answer is
no. The Nazi regime began systematically kicking
Berlin citizens out of their home to start construction on Germania. This began in 1939 as World War II started. German citizens who were removed from their
homes were often given the houses that once belonged to Jewish families. Jewish people had been moved earlier to more
cramped accommodations in run down parts of the cities. These later became known as ghettos and then
evolved into concentration camps. This brings up an important point. Hitler’s dream of having Germania be his
world capital played a key role in enabling the Nazi party to carry out the Holocaust. In preparations for the construction of Germania,
the Nazis had systematically gathered up Jewish families and moved them into areas where they
could easily be controlled and eventually killed. Germania was to be built using the blood and
lives of the Jewish people. Albert Speer would use the SS to ensure that
the Nazi’s had enough slave laborers to begin construction of Germania. Speer pushed for more and more Jewish people
to be rounded up and sent to labor camps, so that materials could be produced faster
and he could begin construction of the mega city. His plan to secure as many Jewish people as
possible for slave labor was so ambitious that even his own father told him he was crazy. His father was right, but nobody had seen
real crazy yet. The path that would lead to the building of
Germania was the path that led to the beginnings of the Holocaust. Obviously for this atrocious part of human
history Hitler is to blame, but Speer and the building of Germania played a crucial
role as well. If Germania had ever been finished it would
have been a monumental testament to the genocide of millions of Jewish people. In order to gather the materials necessary
to build Germania, enormous granite and marble quarries were created. The structures in Germania were to be made
of concrete, but adorned and embellished by granite and marble. This would give buildings the look of ancient
Rome. When examining the locations of quarries around
Berlin and comparing them to the locations of concentration camps, they line up almost
perfectly. You can probably guess who was being used
to mine and shape the marble and granite for Germania. The Nazis used the Jews in the concentration
camps to produce the materials that would build the city of Hitler’s dreams. Though the Jewish people were affected the
most by the building of Germania, but no one was safe from Hitler’s and Speer’s mega
city. The need for labor to construct their monstrosity
of a city was so great that the Nazis began rounding up any male beggar, tramp, or Gypsie
that was fit to work. Once the war started, Hitler had another influx
of slave laborers for building Germania. Prisoners of war were shipped into Berlin
to work in the quarries and construction sites. At its height the POW workforce in Berlin
was as high as 130,000 people. Although, this number fluctuated since death
from being overworked and accidents were common during the construction of Germania. Was Hitler’s dream of building Germania
possible though? In a word, yes. Architects and engineers that look back at
the plans and designs for Germania agree that all of the buildings were technically feasible. The engineers and building experts of the
Nazi party had the technical knowhow to build the massive structures that Hitler wanted. Germany also had the resources and labor needed
to demolish and rebuild Berlin into Germania. So why didn’t the project get completed,
or at least further along? Some of the reasons you may be able to guess,
others might surprise you. In a somewhat ironic way, the war that fueled
Hitler’s desire to build Germania ultimately got in the way of that dream becoming a reality. The close relationship between Hitler and
Speer led to the Fuhrer appointing his close friend as the Minister of Armaments and War
Production. This meant that Speer’s attention was shifted
away from constructing Germania and to more pressing matters that would support the war
effort. The plan was that after Germany secured victory,
the building of Germania would resume. Thankfully this did not happen. There was no doubt in Hitler’s mind that
he would win the war. He expected that once he controlled vast quantities
of lands and people, there would be an endless supply of materials and labor to construct
Germania to all his specifications. This thought process was made evident by the
lack of discussion around the monetary cost of building Germania. It was just assumed that the newly conquered
territories would provide all of the materials and slave labor free of charge. Once everyone was incorporated into the Nazi
empire, Hitler and Speer could do whatever they wanted with them. It never even occurred to the duo that they
would have to pay for labor or materials. It was all supposed to come from winning the
war. Would Germania have been an impressive architectural
sight? Sure, if you could get past the deaths of
millions and homicidal ideologies of the Nazi party. But the world is grateful that it never came
to that. Germania was a mega city dreamt up by an insane
dictator, and although it was never completed, tens of thousands of lives were lost solely
because its construction started. If you want to learn about more things that
might have happened if Germany won World War II check out our video What If Hitler Had
Won? Or if you want to go the other direction watch
What If Hitler Never Existed?
