Chapter

The Nazi “Voyages of Technology”

October 2023

DOI:10.1007/978-3-031-32056-9_9

In book: Nazi Volksgemeinschaft Technology (pp.163-193)

Authors:

American School of Paris (emeritus)

In 1938–1939, as part of plebiscite campaigns, Fritz Todt and his engineers undertook traveling exhibitions to showcase German technology in Austria and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. These voyages demonstrate the way that Todt and the Nazis used propaganda to further their Volksgemeinschaft ideology. In addition to the latest technological advances, the full range of Nazi social projects was applauded, including excluding Jews from the national community. Another planned voyage to Southeast Europe was canceled due to Hitler’s plans for war, demonstrating the limits of Todt’s influence. However, a final floating engineer‘s “congress” to the Norwegian fjords—man, machine, and nature in harmony—was highly symbolic of Todt’s technical ideology at its apogee.

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