The dome of the Great Hall is pictured at the exhibition Myth Germania in Berlin. The exhibition shows pictures, plans and architectural models of the Great Hall and the North-South Axis designed by Hitler's architect Albert Speer during the Nazi regime.

Johannes Eisele / Reuters

It's one of those spine-chilling what-ifs. What if Hitler and his helpers had been successful in their aggressive striving for world power? A new exhibition in Berlin attempts to answer this question in part by looking at the devastating architectural consequences Hitler's success would have had for the German capital.

In close collaboration with his confidant and architect of choice, Albert Speer, Hitler sought to cast his megalomania in concrete by radically re-shaping the city's center. His dystopian World Capital Germania, in the Fuehrer`s own words, would "only be comparable with ancient Egypt, Babylon or Rome. What is London, what is Paris by comparison!"

The plans included the construction of two main boulevards, 120 meters (131 yards) wide and running cross-shaped through the city, lined with a number of gigantic buildings, halls, squares and triumphal arcs.

"If the plans had been realized", says spokesman Sascha Keil, "Berlin's historical center would have forever been destroyed."

Read the rest on Time.

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | Monday, March 24, 2008

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