The architect who sees opportunities everywhere
By Catrien Spijkerman and Luz Blanco Davelaar
During the war, Rudolf Hillebrecht works as a young architect for Albert Speer, a high-ranking Nazi. Despite that he manages to build a serious career after the war very fast. He gains fame as an urban planner for his ‘Miracle of Hanover’ where he builds a city centred entirely around car traffic.
The back room of a pub in the outskirts of Hanover is thick with smoke. Standing before a group of civil servants, architects, landowners and entrepreneurs is a stocky man with large black glasses. He wears a suit and – striking detail – a tie without a knot: no ‘intersections’ for Rudolf Hillebrecht. With great enthusiasm and a booming voice, he paints a picture of enormous roundabouts, elevated highways and underground trams. It is obvious Hillebrecht has a vision for Hanover. From now on, car traffic must be leading in city planning. Broad highways are to bring motorists right into the heart of the centre without them having to worry about traffic jams.
His audience can barely suppress its laughter. It is the spring of 1949 and the streets are full of potholes and, above all, strewn with more than six million cubic metres of rubble. The odd outdated pre-war car might drive by – mostly running on gas for scarcity of gasoline – but what do you mean, traffic jams? But Hillebrecht warns: ‘One day we will have as many cars as Sweden or Switzerland. It might take another fifty years, but when that time comes, Hanover will be a death trap. At this point we can still do something about it.’ Hillebrecht considers the largely destroyed city as an opportunity. He calls it a ‘gigantic testing ground’ for innovation.
A miracle
Ten years and no fewer than 410 meetings in back rooms later, his vision has become reality. The international press calls it nothing short of a ‘miracle’. Motorists can drive directly into the city centre at unlimited speed, unhindered by intersections or traffic lights. ‘Hanover is the only city in Germany with an urban highway network’, German newspaper Der Spiegel rejoices in a lengthy tribute. ‘And Hillebrecht most likely is the single one Hanover resident with an international reputation.’
Due to his car-friendly city, Hillebrecht is seen as a hero of the reconstruction. The war did not damage his career. On the contrary, he has a career because of it. Hillebrecht has always been good at seeing opportunities, even during the war.
Forced labourers
Freshly graduated, Hillebrecht becomes office manager at a Hamburg architectural firm in 1937.The firm has won a competition to build a 250-meter-high skyscraper for the Nazi party, at the request of Adolf Hitler himself. Hillebrecht applies for Nazi party membership. It is not mandatory, but membership can be useful if you want to work on large, prestigious projects. And Hillebrecht is a clever guy.
From 1941, the architectural firm becomes an ‘Office for war-related Operations’: it has to build bunkers, clear rubble and arrange alternative housing after bombings. Hillebrecht turns out to have great organisational talent. He coordinates the deployment of forced labourers and organises the procurement of construction materials. After the bombardments on Hamburg, he starts working for the reconstruction staff of Albert Speer, Hitler’s chief architect and confidant. The knowledge and expertise regarding reconstruction projects he gains here, will serve him well later.
Near the end of the war, Hillebrecht is called up for the Wehrmacht and eventually ends up in American hands as a prisoner of war. His mandatory time in an internment camp to ‘denazify’ lasts only six months, and almost directly thereafter he is offered a job at the British military administration. As one of the Allied parties, the British have temporary control over Northwestern Germany to restore order.
The British authorities are in desperate need of people to rebuild the country. In their search they primarily look for stability and expertise. Instead of proposing people from resistance groups, they prefer to appoint more experienced people who already held important positions during the regime. For Hillebrecht this represents another opportunity: he gains administrative experience with the British and builds a network. He also positions himself as an expert in large-scale reconstruction works. That is why, despite his past, he can become the city architect of Hanover in 1948.
Looking ahead
Hillebrecht achieves a lot. For instance, he manages to convince landowners to voluntarily give up parts of their land, without receiving anything in return. That land is needed to create wider roads. ‘If you don’t want to, fine, I don’t care’, Hillebrecht would say to them. ‘But don’t be surprised if soon nobody comes to shop here anymore because they can’t get through by car. What you give up voluntarily now is an investment in the future.’ No less than fifteen percent of the city centre has been donated this way.
Hillebrecht’s clear vision and approach become an example for other cities looking for a practical solution for all the devastation. It is not a secret that Hillebrecht used to work for the Nazis, but it is no reason to openly criticise him. People want nothing more than to look ahead and are desperate for people like Hillebrecht, who can manage to build up a modern new city from the ground in no time.
There still is criticism though. Hillebrecht and his bulldozers are extremely rigorous. Even historic buildings that did survive the bombings are flattened to give way to his street plan. Later, Hillebrecht admits that some of his actions might have been somewhat short-sighted. In the sixties and seventies, critics also begin to wonder if designing a city purely around cars was such a good idea after all. Hillebrecht himself feels that he mainly solved problems but he also realises that everything is transitory: ‘Only few urban planners are lucky enough to see their plans come to life. My generation did get that chance but also notice how ephemeral their work can be.’
