Reichssiedlungsgesellschaft

Reichssiedlungsgesellschaft
Name	Reichssiedlungsgesellschaft
Formation	1933
Type	Public housing corporation
Headquarters	Berlin
Region served	Germany
Leader title	Director

Reichssiedlungsgesellschaft

The Reichssiedlungsgesellschaft was a public housing corporation established in 1933 during the National Socialist period in Germany, tasked with coordinating settlement construction, social housing, and land consolidation across the Third Reich. It operated within the administrative frameworks shaped by the Reichstag, the Prussian state apparatus, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, interfacing with municipal authorities in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Leipzig and other cities. The corporation’s activities intersected with policies influenced by Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Konstantin von Neurath and organization leaders in the SA and SS.

History

The organization emerged in the aftermath of the 1932 electoral shifts that affected the Weimar Republic and after the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor when the Reichstag enacted measures to centralize planning across Prussia, Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony. Early interactions involved the Reichsverkehrsministerium, the Reichsbank, the Deutsche Arbeitsfront and the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, reflecting debates that had earlier involved Gustav Stresemann, Paul von Hindenburg, and Heinrich Brüning. During the 1930s, the corporation coordinated projects alongside municipal planners from Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Hannover and with industrial interests represented by IG Farben, Krupp, Thyssen, and the Reichsvereinigung der Deutschen Industrie. Wartime adjustments connected its remit with armaments priorities in Essen and the Ruhr under Albert Speer, and with forced labor policies linked to the SS, Ostindustrie and organizations such as Organisation Todt and the Wehrmacht.

Organization and Leadership

Leadership drew from conservative technocrats, architects and officials who had previously worked within the Prussian Ministry of Public Works, the Reichsarbeitsministerium, and municipal building departments in Stuttgart, Dresden, and Breslau. Executive contacts included figures from the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, and the Reichskolonialbund, interacting with architects associated with the Bauhaus diaspora, the Deutscher Werkbund and state-led planners who had links to Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Bruno Taut, and Ernst May. Board members often held simultaneous posts in the Reichsbank, the Reichsverkehrsministerium, the Staatsrat of Prussia and chambers of commerce in Hamburg and Frankfurt. Legal oversight involved jurists from the Reich Justice Ministry and administrative law specialists influenced by Carl Schmitt and Franz Gürtner.

Housing Projects and Development Activities

Projects ranged from suburban garden colonies influenced by Ebenezer Howard’s ideas to large-scale municipal estates in Berlin, the Siedlung Haselhorst, and worker housing tied to factories in Wolfsburg, Kassel, and Magdeburg. Collaboration occurred with municipal councils in Nuremberg, Bremen, Mannheim, and Augsburg and with industrial patrons including Volkswagenwerk, Vereinigte Stahlwerke and Heinkel. Development activities included land consolidation in the Rhineland, drainage and reclamation work in Pomerania and East Prussia near Königsberg, and agricultural settlement schemes linked to the Reichsnährstand, the Four Year Plan and the Ostmark integration in Austria after the Anschluss. Architectural inputs referenced projects comparable to those by Bruno Taut in Berlin, Ernst May in Frankfurt, and Paul Troost in Munich.

Role in Nazi Urban and Rural Policy

The corporation implemented policies consonant with aims articulated by Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring and the Reichsleitung, intersecting with plans in the Generalplan Ost, the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and directives from the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. It worked alongside the Reichsautobahn program initiated under Fritz Todt, and with municipal initiatives influenced by Albert Speer’s Vision for Berlin (Welthauptstadt Germania), as well as rural resettlement schemes supported by Richard Walther Darré and the Reichsnährstand. Its operations had connections to demographic and social engineering policies that also involved Heinrich Himmler’s SS, the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and Nazi cultural institutions such as the Reichskulturkammer.

Financial Structure and Funding

Funding combined allocations from the Reichshaushalt, subsidies channeled through the Reichsbank, loans coordinated with public banks like the Landesbank and mortgage mechanisms involving the Hypothekenbank. Partnerships included investment from corporate entities such as IG Farben, Siemens, and Krupp, and transfers associated with the Four Year Plan administered by Hermann Göring’s offices. During wartime the corporation’s budgetary priorities shifted in coordination with the Reich Ministry of Finance, the Reichswerke Hermann Göring and armaments procurement overseen by Albert Speer, while property acquisitions sometimes involved expropriations under laws promulgated by the Reichstag and decrees by the Führer.

Public Reception and Criticism

Reception varied regionally: municipal officials in Munich, Dresden, and Stuttgart sometimes praised settlement outputs, while opponents among Social Democratic and Communist circles in the Reichstag, the trade union movement prior to Gleichschaltung, and émigré critics such as Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht and Stefan Zweig criticized ideological aims. International observers including the League of Nations, British press outlets and American journalists noted tensions between aesthetic claims and coercive practices. Postwar historians, urbanists and planners—examples being Lewis Mumford, Siegfried Giedion and Reyner Banham—debated the corporation’s architectural legacy and social impacts.

Legacy and Postwar Fate

After 1945, many functions were dissolved or absorbed by municipal housing companies in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and Cologne and by Allied occupation administrations including the British Military Government, the American Military Government and the Soviet Military Administration. Properties and records were seized or repurposed during denazification overseen by the Control Council and later integrated into Federal Republic institutions such as the Deutsche Bundesbank and the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit. Postwar reconstruction engaged architects and planners previously associated with prewar efforts, including Ernst May alumni, while scholarship by historians at universities such as Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Munich, University of Frankfurt and institutions like the Deutsches Historisches Museum examined continuities and ruptures involving the corporation’s estates and policies.

Category:Organizations established in 1933 Category:Third Reich institutions