Kelsey Fritz
Vorstädtische Kleinsiedlung Genthien. Image provided to Palmer by Adolf Friedrichs of the Deutsche Bau- und Bodenbank. (Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Charles F. Palmer papers, Box 164, Folder 8)
In the summer of 1934, Atlanta real-estate developer Charles F. Palmer [Figure 1] undertook a long journey across Europe, visiting Italy, Austria, Poland, the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Palmer set out on his “grand tour” of Europe with one particular purpose in mind: to gather information about the continent’s public housing projects in order to inform the design, construction, and management of the slum clearance and public housing project in Atlanta for which he had successfully gained federal funding, Techwood Homes.[1] On August 9, 1934, Palmer arrived in Berlin, the capital of the new National Socialist (Nazi) government of Germany.[2] The date of Palmer’s arrival in Berlin is significant, as he arrived in Germany at an important moment in the development of the Nazi regime.
Figure 1: Charles F. Palmer, c. 1940-46. “Mr. Charles F. Palmer, coordinator of defense housing for the National Defense Office for Emergency Management (OEM). Mr. Palmer is president of Palmer, Inc,. Atlanta; chairman, Atlanta Housing Authority; and president, National Association of Housing Officials” (United States Office of War Information, Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/2017700571/)
Just seven days before Palmer arrived in Berlin, Paul von Hindenburg, the Reichspräsident (President of the German Reich) and hero of World War I, had died. As the country mourned Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler, the Reichskanzler (Reich Chancellor) since January 1933, quickly consolidated power. Hitler combined the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler into a new office: that of Führer. With this move, Hitler and the Nazis now had unhindered power in Germany.[3] Whether Palmer was fully aware of the implications of Hindenburg’s death is unclear. Palmer did not mention Hindenburg’s death in his account of his Berlin trip in his autobiography, Adventures of a Slum Fighter.[4] However, in an earlier, unpublished draft of this account, Palmer noted that he saw flags flying at half-mast in Berlin, and he learned from his translator that this was because of Hindenburg’s death.[5] Why this reference to current events did not make it into the final version of Adventures of a Slum Fighter is unknown.
In any case, Palmer’s focus on this trip was not German politics, but German public housing. Over the course of several days in Berlin, Palmer met with bankers and mid-level government officials, who informed him about German public housing policies and financing methods. Through the information that Palmer gathered on his trip to Berlin, we can see that public housing in Germany in 1934 was at a transition point, as the Nazis began to alter existing housing policies in accordance with their goal of creating a racially homogenous people’s community (Volksgemeinschaft).[6]
Industry and Modernism: German Social Housing Before the Nazis
Palmer chose to visit Germany on his European tour, because public housing – often called social housing in Europe – was already well-established in Germany by 1934. The advent of social housing programs in Germany was a response to the country’s rapid industrialization in the second half of the nineteenth century. As populations exploded in factory towns and industrial cities, existing housing was not sufficient to accommodate the new industrial workforce. Realizing that providing decent, affordable housing was critical to retain workers and avoid discontent over poor living conditions, some German companies financed the construction of company housing projects.[7] Notable examples of company-built housing include communities constructed by the Krupp steel and armaments company in Essen, the chemical company BASF in Ludwigshafen, and the pharmaceutical company Bayer in Leverkusen.[8] These company-sponsored housing projects established a model of a “self-contained settlement for low- and middle-income citizens on the edge of a city” that would be copied by many housing planners of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) and Nazi regime (1933-1945).[9] The Kleinsiedlungen (small suburban developments) of the early 1930s, which were a central topic of Palmer’s meetings with German housing officials, conformed to this model.
Social housing in Germany became a government priority with the establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1919. Article 155 of the Weimar constitution declared that the “distribution and utilization of the land shall be supervised by state authorities … with the object of ensuring a healthy dwelling to every German and to all German families, especially those with numerous children.”[10] However, given the political and economic instability in Germany in the first five years after World War I, the Weimar government’s pledge to provide decent housing for all Germans was easier made than fulfilled. It was only in 1924, when the economy stabilized, that construction of social housing projects could begin.[11] By this time, Weimar Germany faced a growing housing shortage, caused by the lack of construction over the previous decade, the wartime movement of people to cities, and the loss of territory after World War I, which had triggered migration into interior Germany.[12]
As construction of new housing began, Berlin was a particular focus for Weimar housing planners. Berlin was the third-largest city in Europe by population size in the 1920s, yet it lacked affordable housing for lower-income people, many of whom were forced to live in the city’s notorious Mietskasernen (tenements; literally, rental barracks).[13] [Figure 2] The Mietskasernen, dating to the late nineteenth century, were dense multi-story blocks of apartments that occupied nearly the entire block on which they sat. For many people living in Mietskasernen, the only access to light and air was through dark and gloomy interior courtyards.[14] Seeking to fulfill the Weimar government’s pledge to provide every German with a healthy home, and drawing on popular contemporary ideas about the importance of light and fresh air, modernist architects set out to replace the Mietskasernen with a radically new kind of housing estate.[15]
Figure 2: Mietskasernen (tenements) in Berlin, c. late 1800s – early 1900s. (Berliner Mietskasernen. Verlag Dr. Hans Epstein/Wien & Leipzig 1929. https://aaroncrippsblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/mietskasernes-working-class-berlin-1871-1922/)
The modernist housing estates built in Berlin in the mid-to-late 1920s and early 1930s replaced the dank courtyards and imposing historicist facades of the Mietskasernen with “generously spaced rows of sleek buildings that would afford their residents better access to light, air, and open space.”[16] Weimar Berlin’s modernist architects sought to decentralize housing, to reduce housing densities, and, ultimately, to replace the Mietskasernen entirely.[17] While circumstances intervened before this latter goal could be achieved, a number of modernist housing projects were constructed, six of which are now listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[18] [Figure 3] Not all of the new social housing projects in Weimar Berlin were built in the modernist style, however. Some, such as the Neue Scholle development (built in 1932), which Palmer visited in 1934, were Kleinsiedlungen (small, suburban developments).[19] These projects were located on the edges of the city and were composed of houses rather than apartment blocks.
Figure 3: Großsiedlung Britz (Hufeisensiedlung), one of the modernist housing projects constructed in Berlin in the 1920s. (© A.Savin, WikiCommons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hufeisensiedlung#/media/File:Berlin_Hufeisensiedlung_UAV_04-2017.jpg)
From Modernism to Traditionalism: Nazi Housing Policy
As we follow Palmer through Berlin in 1934, we see German housing policy in transition, as the Nazis turned away from the modernist architecture of the 1920s and began to impose their own vision of social housing, rooted in their conception of the Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community). During the three days that Palmer was in Berlin, he spent much of his time meeting with German bankers and mid-level government officials who were involved with slum clearance and social housing projects. Palmer’s records of his meetings provide a glimpse of the direction in which the Nazis intended to take German housing policy. For instance, in notes from Palmer’s conversations with German officials, the Weimar-era modernist housing estates in Berlin are never mentioned. Palmer’s attention was instead directed by his hosts toward the Kleinsiedlungen, which were built to resemble traditional rural communities. Their rural aesthetic appealed to the Nazis, who sought to move architecture and design away from the “degenerate” urbane modernism of the Weimar period.[20] [Figure 4]
Figure 4: Vorstädtische Kleinsiedlung Genthien. Image provided to Palmer by Adolf Friedrichs of the Deutsche Bau- und Bodenbank. (Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Charles F. Palmer papers, Box 164, Folder 8)
Materials sent to Palmer by Dr. Adolf Friedrichs, a director of the Deutsche Bau- und Bodenbank, a bank that financed housing construction, clearly illustrate the emphasis placed on the Kleinsiedlungen. [Figure 5] These materials included a memorandum on Kleinsiedlungen published by Friedrichs’ bank and photographs of six different Kleinsiedlungen across Germany, all small, relatively rural housing communities on the outskirts of large urban areas.[21] The Kleinsiedlungen are composed of houses, either single- or multiple-occupancy, rather than the apartment blocks commonly found in Berlin’s modernist housing developments.[22] The photographs also decenter Berlin in the narrative of German public housing projects, as they depict Kleinsiedlungen in locations ranging from the Ruhr Valley in western Germany to East Prussia. Taken together, the photographs of Kleinsiedlungen provided to Palmer portray German housing projects that fit with the Nazis’ ideas about architecture.
Figure 5: Business card of Dr. Adolf Friedrichs (Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Charles F. Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2)
Palmer also discussed methods of financing public housing projects with his German contacts, particularly Friedrichs. In his notes, Palmer recorded detailed information about how German social housing projects were subsidized by the government through direct financing and mortgage loans guaranteed by the state.[23] [Figure 6] He also paid attention to officials’ discussions of the ownership and leasing arrangements between the city or state (which owned the housing project) and the tenants. Palmer learned that tenants were generally prohibited from selling their property; if a tenant wanted to move, property ownership would revert to the city to prevent speculation leading to increased housing prices.[24] Furthermore, he noted that when seeking tenants, many state-owned projects preferred employed tenants who were more likely to pay their rent reliably and on time.[25] German housing officials’ preference for employed tenants may have influenced Palmer’s thinking about the management of Techwood Homes, which, after opening in 1936, had income requirements and rigorous tenant screening that prevented unemployed people from living there.[26]
Figure 6: Palmer’s typed notes on methods of financing German social housing. (Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Charles F. Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2)
As they discussed the management of public housing projects, one of Palmer’s contacts provided Palmer with a Fragebogen für Wohnungsbewerber (Questionnaire for Residence Applicants) in the original German with an English translation.[27] [Figure 7] This questionnaire, dated 1933, appears to have been used by managers of German social housing projects to screen potential tenants. Most of the questions are practical, inquiring about applicants’ employment status and total income, whether they drew any pensions, and whether they were able to pay rent without subletting part of the residence.[28] Palmer likely saw this questionnaire simply as a model for a similar document that could be used at Techwood Homes in Atlanta. What he almost certainly did not realize is that this questionnaire reveals something important about the nature of the Nazi regime in 1934 – namely, that it was still a work in progress. The questionnaire’s content suggests that a significant degree of continuity existed, at least initially, between the bureaucracies of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime. There is no racialized language in the questionnaire; it does not ask if the applicant is a “Aryan” or Jewish, or if they are a member of the Nazi Party or any Nazi organizations. The lack of “Nazi language” in this document reveals that the Nazis had not yet rewritten all of Germany’s bureaucratic documents to align with their racialized worldview and reminds us that the Nazi regime did not spring fully-formed into existence.
Figure 7: Fragebogen für Wohnungsbewerber (Questionnaire for Residence Applicants) provided to Palmer by an unknown contact. Left: the original German; right: the English translation. (Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Charles F. Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2)
Segregating “Good” Citizens from “Bad”: Environmental Determinism and Exclusionary Housing
Beyond the practicalities of financing and managing projects, Palmer’s conversations with German officials also linked affordable housing with an improved economy and citizenry. In his notes, Palmer wrote that “Hitler says the only way to absorb the unemployed is by shorter hours and subsistence homesteads,” although this statement is without citation.[29] [Figure 8] It is possible that Dr. Friedrich Schmidt, an official in the Reichswirtschaftsministerium (Reich Ministry of Economy) with whom Palmer met, was the source of this information. [Figure 9] During Palmer’s meeting with Schmidt, the two discussed the benefits of slum clearance and public housing for the German economy and people. According to Palmer, Schmidt argued that “when we combine housing with slum clearance, we have the perfect make-work program – making better homes and making better people.”[30] Building new housing would not only provide jobs in a variety of industries for the unemployed. It would also create a healthy environment for the residents of the new housing projects, which would in turn produce better citizens.[31] Palmer likely agreed with Schmidt, as he himself believed that one of the purposes of public housing was to transform so-called slum dwellers into respectable citizens.[32]
Figure 8: Palmer’s typed notes. See the last sentence for his paraphrasing of Hitler’s comments on subsistence homesteads. (Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Charles F. Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2)
Figure 9: Business card of Dr. Friedrich Schmidt. (Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Charles F. Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2)
Schmidt’s statement that housing makes better people could be a product of the Nazi idea of the Volksgemeinschaft, namely that creating a (racially) healthy people’s community would benefit the German nation.[33] However, it also reflects contemporary, transnational ideas about environmental determinism, the belief that “the physical conditions within which people live have great influence over their behavior and life chances.”[34] A “bad” housing environment, such as a big-city slum, it was believed, would greatly – and deleteriously – impact the development of those who lived in that environment.[35] Ideas about environmental determinism were very popular in the United States, where housing reformers saw slum clearance and public housing programs as the ideal solution to the environment problem. Clearing slums would excise the “bad” environment; constructing public housing would create a healthy environment in the former slum areas, shaping residents into good citizens.[36]
American housing reformers were not the only people who were concerned about the impact of the environment on the development of slum residents. Nazi housing planners also worried about the effect that living in slums had on their own citizens, as Palmer’s conversation with a German architect named Otto Becker demonstrates. [Figure 10] Palmer met with Becker to discuss a special housing project currently under construction near Kiel in northern Germany.[37] According to Palmer, this project had been developed for “Storm Troopers,” although other tenants were permitted to apply.[38] Almost certainly, the “Storm Troopers” to whom Palmer refers were members of the S.A., or Sturmabteilung (the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party), who were commonly called Storm Troopers.[39] [Figure 11]
Figure 10: Business card of Berlin architect Otto Becker. (Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Charles F. Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2)
Figure 11: Page from Palmer’s draft of his autobiography, describing his meeting with Berlin architect Otto Becker. (Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Charles F. Palmer papers, Box 95, Folder 7)
As reported by Palmer, Becker remarked that, while the housing project near Kiel was open to “slum people” from cities as well as members of the S.A. and their families, future communities would be more segregated. The reason for this, Becker stated, was because the Storm Troopers, who had learned to be “clean” during their time in the S.A., did not like living near the “poor people,” who were “unclean.”[40] The solution, Becker said, was to “separate the houses next time” or else to “build one Siedlung [development] for Storm Troopers; another Siedlung for poor people.”[41] Becker thus sought to prevent “corruption” of good citizens by separating – segregating – those considered “good” citizens from “bad” citizens, or people who had not yet become full-fledged members of the people’s community.
Becker’s worries, as described by Palmer, about the effect that “unclean” slum dwellers from cities might have on good citizens are, on a fundamental level, remarkably similar to those of American housing reformers. Likewise, Becker’s solution – to segregate “good” citizens from “bad” – is analogous to policies implemented by American housing planners during the New Deal. Like the Nazis, the Roosevelt administration sought to use public housing to create better citizens from so-called slum dwellers. However, New Deal housing administrators restricted access to public housing along income and racial lines, much as Becker sought to restrict access to the Kiel social housing development to members of Nazi organizations.[42]
Widening the lens beyond public housing alone, Black Americans were blocked from accessing many New Deal programs intended to lift Americans out of the Great Depression.[43] The “ideal” citizen in 1930s America was envisioned as white, meaning that African Americans and other racial minorities were excluded from full membership in the national community. Obviously, it is important to be careful here; it is not my intention to directly compare the New Deal United States to Nazi Germany, where the state-sanctioned exclusion of a particular group resulted in genocide. Rather, I simply want to note that, for a brief moment in the early 1930s, social welfare programs, such as public housing, in both the United States and Germany were driven by similar ideas of environmental determinism.[44] In each case, the national government sought to construct a national community of “good” citizens through new housing construction, while excluding certain members of the population from that effort.
Conclusion: Looking Back on Nazi Berlin
Almost eighty years after the collapse of the Third Reich, Nazi architecture and buildings are typically remembered in one of two ways. On the one hand, buildings such as the Olympiastadion (Olympic stadium) and the Finance Ministry building (formerly Göring’s Aviation Ministry) are seen as symbols of Hitler’s ambition to transform Berlin into Germania, a monumental new capital for Greater Germany.[45] [Figure 12] On the other hand, locations such as Tiergartenstrasse 4 (where the Nazi euthanasia program was headquartered), the Wannsee Conference house, and the Topography of Terror documentation center (on the former site of Gestapo headquarters) are viewed as “places of the perpetrators,” places from which the Nazis planned and organized the Holocaust, the euthanasia program, and other forms of persecution.[46] [Figure 13] With the focus on these two extremes of the Nazi urban landscape, it can be easy to forget that the Nazis did, in fact, construct buildings that were neither monumental nor part of a “topography of terror.”
Figure 12: Surviving Nazi “monumental buildings.” Top: the Olympiastadion (Olympic Stadium); bottom: the Finance Ministry (formerly the Nazi aviation ministry). (© Kelsey Fritz)
Figure 13: “Places of the perpetrators” in Berlin, or locations where the Nazis planned the Holocaust and other crimes. Clockwise from top: the Wannsee Conference house; the Topography of Terror; and the Tiergartenstrasse 4 Memorial. (© Kelsey Fritz)
Charles F. Palmer’s conversations with German bankers and officials, and the social housing projects that he was shown during his August 1934 trip to Berlin serve as a reminder that the Nazis did in fact construct “ordinary” buildings, typically in connection with their plans to create a Volksgemeinschaft. Furthermore, Palmer’s accounts of his Berlin trip provide us with a view of Nazi Berlin as it was in 1934, a city still under construction, much like the Nazi regime itself at that time. Moreover, as he traveled around Berlin to meet with his German contacts and to visit social housing projects, Palmer was, however unknowingly, a witness to a Berlin that to a considerable degree no longer exists after the years of war and division in the second half of the twentieth century. His accounts of his time in Berlin thus not only provide valuable information about the Nazis’ plans for German social housing, but also preserve a glimpse of a city that soon would be utterly changed.
Notes
[1] For the history of Techwood Homes and Palmer’s role in its construction, see Robert M. Craig, Atlanta Architecture: Art Deco to Modern Classic, 1929-1959 (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 1995); Carol A. Flores, “US public housing in the 1930s: the first projects in Atlanta, Georgia,” Planning Perspectives, 9 (1994): 405-430; Mark B. Lapping, “The Emergence of Federal Public Housing: Atlanta’s Techwood Project,” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 32, no. 4 (1973): 379-385; and Lawrence J. Vale, Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2013).
[2] Palmer does not specify the date of his arrival in Berlin in his autobiography, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, but I was able to reconstruct the timeline of his trip using a draft of his Berlin chapter, which is longer and more detailed than the final, published chapter. For Palmer’s draft chapter, see: Charles F. Palmer, “Europe 1934 – Berlin” (Chapter Draft for Adventures of a Slum Fighter): Charles F. Palmer papers, 1903-1973, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library, Emory University (hereafter Palmer papers), Box 95, Folder 7.
[3] For discussions of Hindenburg’s death and Hitler’s subsequent consolidation of power, see Volker Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939, trans. Jefferson Chase (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016), 473-476, and Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power (New York: Penguin, 2005), 42-44.
[4] Charles F. Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter (Atlanta: Tupper and Love, Inc., 1955), chapter 8.
[5] Charles F. Palmer, “Europe 1934 – Berlin” (Chapter Draft for Adventures of a Slum Fighter), p. 7: Palmer papers, Box 95, Folder 7.
[6] For an in-depth analysis of the Nazi idea of the Volksgemeinschaft, and its appeal to ordinary Germans, see Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008).
[7] Michael Honhart, “Company Housing As Urban Planning in Germany, 1870-1940,” Central European History 23, no. 1 (1990): 5, 8-9.
[8] Honhart, 14-15.
[9] Honhart, 21.
[10] “The Constitution of the German Reich / August 11, 1919 / Translation of Document 2050-PS / Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel,” Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection, Cornell University Library, last modified 2017, http://lawcollections.library.cornell.edu/nuremberg/catalog/nur:01840.
[11] Kiki Kafkoula, “On garden-city lines: looking into social housing estates of interwar Europe,” Planning Perspectives 28, no. 2 (2013): 180.
[12] Dan P. Silverman, “A Pledge Unredeemed: The Housing Crisis in Weimar Germany,” Central European History 3, no. 1/2 (1970): 119.
[13] Kafkoula, “On garden-city lines,” 183.
[14] Kafkoula, 183.
[15] Brian Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), 104.
[16] Ladd, 104.
[17] Ladd, 104.
[18] These are Gartenstadt Falkenberg, Siedlung Schillerpark, Großsiedlung Britz (Hufeisensiedlung), Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Weiße Stadt, and Großsiedlung Siemensstadt. See http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1239/ for more information on these projects.
[19] For Palmer’s account of his visit to Neue Scholle, which is in the Buckow area of the Neukölln district of Berlin, see Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, chapter 8. For Palmer’s original notes on Neue Scholle and Kleinsiedlungen, see: Typed notes, pp. 14-16: Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2.
[20] Evans, The Third Reich in Power, 168-175; Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin, 105, 141.
[21] Letter from Dr. Adolf Friedrichs to Charles F. Palmer, 11 August 1934: Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2; Photographs of Kleinsiedlungen: Palmer papers, Box 164, Folder 8.
[22] Photographs of Kleinsiedlungen: Palmer papers, Box 164, Folder 8.
[23] Typed notes, pp. 14-16: Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2.
[24] Typed notes, pp. 14-16: Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2.
[25] Typed notes, page 15: Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2.
[26] Vale, Purging the Poorest, 67-70.
[27] Fragebogen für Wohnungsbewerber [Questionnaire for Residence Applicants], 1933: Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2.
[28] Fragebogen für Wohnungsbewerber [Questionnaire for Residence Applicants], 1933: Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2.
[29] Typed notes, page 15: Palmer papers, Box 28, Folder 2.
[30] Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, 85. This conversation is also described in Palmer’s draft chapter: Palmer, “Europe 1934 – Berlin,” pp. 8-9: Palmer papers, Box 95, Folder 7.
[31] Palmer, 85.
[32] Palmer was not alone in this belief. Many proponents of Techwood Homes believed that its “good” environment would cure the ills of former slum dwellers. See Vale, Purging the Poorest, 70-71. For Palmer’s comments on public housing and the environment, see Palmer, Adventures of a Slum Fighter, 4, 11-13.
[33] See Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich for analysis of the Nazi idea of the Volksgemeinschaft.
[34] Edward G. Goetz, New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2013), 25.
[35] Goetz, 25.
[36] Goetz, 25.
[37] Palmer omitted his conversation with Becker from Adventures of a Slum Fighter, but described it in an earlier draft of the chapter on Berlin. See Charles F. Palmer, “Europe 1934 – Berlin” (Chapter Draft for Adventures of a Slum Fighter): Palmer papers, Box 95, Folder 7.
[38] Palmer, “Europe 1934 – Berlin,” p. 10: Palmer papers, Box 95, Folder 7.
[39] While Palmer equated Storm Troopers with the S.S. in his account of the meeting with Becker, the two organizations were in fact separate from each other. See Evans, The Third Reich in Power, 29, 50-53. Palmer was not alone in misunderstanding the complex structure and hierarchy of Nazi organizations. Many Americans, including journalists and political commentators, made similar mistakes in the 1930s and 1940s. For a discussion of American attempts to understand Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s, see Michaela Hoenicke Moore, Know Your Enemy: The American Debate on Nazism, 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
[40] Palmer, “Europe 1934 – Berlin,” p. 10-11: Palmer papers, Box 95, Folder 7.
[41] Palmer, “Europe 1934 – Berlin,” p. 11: Palmer papers, Box 95, Folder 7.
[42] See Vale, Purging the Poorest, for a discussion of economic and racial barriers to public housing erected during the New Deal.
[43] See Karen Ferguson, Black Politics in New Deal Atlanta (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), Introduction.
[44] Several scholars have explored the existence of similarities among social welfare programs (such as, for instance, public works programs) in the United States and Nazi Germany in the 1930s. See Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939 (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006) and Kiran Klaus Patel, Soldiers of Labor: Labor Service in Nazi Germany and New Deal America, 1933-1945, Publications of the German Historical Institute (Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute, 2005).
[45] Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin, 134-138.
[46] Ladd, 153.
CITATION
If you are citing this story, we recommend the following format using the Chicago Manual of Style:
Kelsey Fritz, “Palmer in Berlin,” Atlanta Housing Interplay, ed. Christina E. Crawford, accessed [the date accessed], https://www.atlhousing.org/palmer-in-berlin.
Bibliography
Archival Material
Charles F. Palmer papers, 1903-1973, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library, Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia)
Published Primary Sources
Palmer, Charles F. Adventures of a Slum Fighter. Atlanta: Tupper and Love, Inc., 1955.
“The Constitution of the German Reich / August 11, 1919 / Translation of Document 2050-PS / Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel.” Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection, Cornell University Library. 2017. http://lawcollections.library.cornell.edu/nuremberg/catalog/nur:01840.
Secondary Sources
“Berlin Modernism Housing Estates.” UNESCO. Accessed July 13, 2021. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1239/
Craig, Robert M. Atlanta Architecture: Art Deco to Modern Classic, 1929-1959. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 1995.
Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin, 2005.
Ferguson, Karen. Black Politics in New Deal Atlanta. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Flores, Carol A.“US public housing in the 1930s: the first projects in Atlanta, Georgia.” Planning Perspectives, 9 (1994): 405-430.
Fritzsche, Peter. Life and Death in the Third Reich. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008.
Goetz, Edward G. New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013.
Honhart, Michael. “Company Housing As Urban Planning in Germany, 1870-1940.” Central European History 23, no. 1 (1990): 3-21.
Kafkoula, Kiki. “On garden-city lines: looking into social housing estates of interwar Europe.” Planning Perspectives 28, no. 2 (2013): 171-198.
Ladd, Brian. The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Lapping, Mark B. “The Emergence of Federal Public Housing: Atlanta’s Techwood Project.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 32, no. 4 (1973): 379-385.
Moore, Michaela Hoenicke. Know Your Enemy: The American Debate on Nazism, 1933-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Patel, Kiran Klaus. Soldiers of Labor: Labor Service in Nazi Germany and New Deal America, 1933-1945. Publications of the German Historical Institute. Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute, 2005.
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006.
Silverman, Dan P. “A Pledge Unredeemed: The Housing Crisis in Weimar Germany.” Central European History 3, no. 1/2 (1970): 112-139.
Ullrich, Volker. Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939. Translated by Jefferson Chase. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.
Vale, Lawrence J. Purging the Poorest: Public Housing and the Design Politics of Twice-Cleared Communities. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2013.