Audiobook9 hours
Hitler's Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway
Written by Despina Stratigakos
Narrated by Suzanne Toren
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
The fascinating untold story of how Nazi architects and planners envisioned and began to build a model “Aryan” society in Norway during World War II
Between 1940 and 1945, German occupiers transformed Norway into a vast construction zone. This remarkable building campaign, largely unknown today, was designed to extend the Greater German Reich beyond the Arctic Circle and turn the Scandinavian country into a racial utopia. From ideal new cities to a scenic superhighway stretching from Berlin to northern Norway, plans to remake the country into a model “Aryan” society fired the imaginations of Hitler, his architect Albert Speer, and other Nazi leaders. In Hitler’s Northern Utopia, Despina Stratigakos provides the first major history of Nazi efforts to build a Nordic empire?one that they believed would improve their genetic stock and confirm their destiny as a new order of Vikings.
Drawing on extraordinary unpublished diaries, photographs, and maps, as well as newspapers from the period, Hitler’s Northern Utopia tells the story of a broad range of completed and unrealized architectural and infrastructure projects far beyond the well-known German military defenses built on Norway’s Atlantic coast. These ventures included maternity centers, cultural and recreational facilities for German soldiers, and a plan to create quintessential National Socialist communities out of twenty-three towns damaged in the German invasion, an overhaul Norwegian architects were expected to lead. The most ambitious scheme?a German cultural capital and naval base?remained a closely guarded secret for fear of provoking Norwegian resistance.
A gripping account of the rise of a Nazi landscape in occupied Norway, Hitler’s Northern Utopia reveals a haunting vision of what might have been?a world colonized under the swastika.
Between 1940 and 1945, German occupiers transformed Norway into a vast construction zone. This remarkable building campaign, largely unknown today, was designed to extend the Greater German Reich beyond the Arctic Circle and turn the Scandinavian country into a racial utopia. From ideal new cities to a scenic superhighway stretching from Berlin to northern Norway, plans to remake the country into a model “Aryan” society fired the imaginations of Hitler, his architect Albert Speer, and other Nazi leaders. In Hitler’s Northern Utopia, Despina Stratigakos provides the first major history of Nazi efforts to build a Nordic empire?one that they believed would improve their genetic stock and confirm their destiny as a new order of Vikings.
Drawing on extraordinary unpublished diaries, photographs, and maps, as well as newspapers from the period, Hitler’s Northern Utopia tells the story of a broad range of completed and unrealized architectural and infrastructure projects far beyond the well-known German military defenses built on Norway’s Atlantic coast. These ventures included maternity centers, cultural and recreational facilities for German soldiers, and a plan to create quintessential National Socialist communities out of twenty-three towns damaged in the German invasion, an overhaul Norwegian architects were expected to lead. The most ambitious scheme?a German cultural capital and naval base?remained a closely guarded secret for fear of provoking Norwegian resistance.
A gripping account of the rise of a Nazi landscape in occupied Norway, Hitler’s Northern Utopia reveals a haunting vision of what might have been?a world colonized under the swastika.
Related to Hitler's Northern Utopia
Related audiobooks
Trail of Hope: The Anders Army, An Odyssey Across Three Continents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Polish History 966 - 2022: 3 Books In 1: Commonwealth, Holocaust, Communist Poland & Modern Capitalism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Case White: The Invasion of Poland 1939 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic: The Rise of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lenin on the Train Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stalingrad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nazi Titanic: The Incredible Untold Story of a Doomed Ship in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spies Who Never Were: The True Story of the Nazi Spies Who Were Actually Allied Double Agents Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5WWI: The War to End all War, Part I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No Greater Ally: The Untold Story of Poland's Forces in World War II Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5History Of Poland Between 1933-1945: Holocaust In Auschwitz & Genocide Of The European Jews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Berlin Airlift: The Cold War's most remarkable operation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Burned: The Inside Story of the 'Cash-for-Ash' Scandal and Northern Ireland's Secretive New Elite Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Architects of Terror: Paranoia, Conspiracy and Anti-Semitism in Franco’s Spain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOrderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Holodomor: The History and Legacy of the Ukrainian Famine Engineered by the Soviet Union Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler's Brownshirts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prevail until the Bitter End: Germans in the Waning Years of World War II Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Paul Joseph Goebbels: Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Wars & Military For You
The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Founding Mothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diary of Anne Frank Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kill Anything That Moves Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Korean War: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Code Name: Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Spy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America's First Black Generals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps' Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Hitler's Northern Utopia
Rating: 4.555555611111111 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
9 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It is incredible how thoughtful the Nazi architects, engineers and leaders were in their efforts. Equally enlightening how much German military leaders cared for mothers and German women's dignity.
One cannot help but imagine the world filled with men of chivalrous and moral natures had the Nazis won.
I definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in history. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Perhaps I esteem this book just a little too much but, at this stage of my reading career, It's hard for anyone to tell me something new about the Hitlerian regime from basically any angle, but Prof. Stratigakos did so. The particular stroke of imagination here is how Stratigakos manages to illuminate the Nazi mindset and policy through the building types that were particular to their endeavor. These range from the outfitting of the "Lebensborn" natalist centers, through official buildings, to the concepts for the rebuilding of Norway's damaged cities, up to what would have been the crowning effort of the German colonization (there is no other appropriate word), the construction of a whole new German city to go with the planned naval base to be located at Trondheim.The author also deals with the flip side of the coin, in examining what the experience of occupation meant for Norway, such as the various flavors of collaboration, what Himmler's coveting of Norway's precious genetic heritage meant in practice, the post-war acts of retribution, and the continuing influence of the occupation on Norway's towns and infrastructure.I can't recommend this book enough, though it is probably not the first book you want to start with relating to Nazi occupation and social policy.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I found this book fascinating as I learned more about the far-reaching Nazi plan to promote a superior race by invading Norway, attempting to establish close ties with Norway's "Nordic" people whom they regarded as "pure" ( blond hair, blue eyes, sturdy build, good-looking) and promoting a new generation of people of Germanic/Nordic people to be inculcated in "Germanic" ways ( and of course subjugated to the Nazi regime). I highly recommend this interesting book!