1938: Nazi Housing (“Hitler Buildings”)

Housing settlements built during the Nazi period in Linz in Upper Austria are still called “Hitler buildings” today. Beginning with the industrialisation of the city – the Hermann Göring Werke were erected in 1938 – and the accompanied need for housing, large mostly courtyard-like housing developments were built immediately after the “Anschluss” (“annexation”). The flagship project was the “Führer Settlement” in Urfahr (today, Harbach Settlement), which was to be available to deserving Nazis. In the postwar decades, scant attention was paid to the political dimension of architecture or to the deployment of forced labourers or the use of granite that had been mined in the Mauthhausen/Gusen concentration camp. Housing as a “social” measure for the “ethnic community” (“Volksgemeinschaft”) was also pushed in other cities of the “German Reich”, such as in Berlin or Hamburg, but also in Vienna.

External Resources (in German only):

http://www.ooegeschichte.at/themen/architektur-und-stadtentwicklung/hitlerbauten-in-linz/hitlerbauten-in-linz/