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The Nature of Berlin: Green Space and Visions of a New German Capital, 1900–45

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2014

Barry A. Jackisch
Barry A. Jackisch*
Affiliation:
University of Saint Francis
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Extract

In the conclusion of his 1915 dissertation, the influential German urban planner Martin Wagner argued forcefully for a new approach to the role of green space in city planning. Referring to recent efforts to improve urban hygiene and general cleanliness in major German cities, especially the public bathhouse movement of the late nineteenth century, Wagner claimed that expansion and promotion of accessible green space constituted the next big challenge for those interested in improving urban living:

The health conditions of the big cities demand an expansion of sanitary living space. To incorporate nature into this development will be the communal-political challenge of the coming years. Cities, which encompass more than half of Germany's total population, have a duty . . . to secure the health of the German body and increase German strength. We must solve this challenge before we reach a point where a solution through natural means is no longer possible.

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 307 - 333
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Copyright © Central European History Society of the American Historical Association 2014 

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References

1 Martin Wagner, Das Sanitäre Grün der Städte. Ein Beitrag zur Freiflächentheorie (Ph.D. diss., Imperial Technical College Berlin, 1915).

2 Ibid., 92.

3 By “green space,” I refer in this essay to city parks, allotment gardens, playgrounds, sports fields, and forests.

4 For a survey of the development of urban environmental history in the American context, see Tarr, Joel, “Urban History and Environmental History in the United States: Complimentary and Overlapping Fields,” in Environmental Problems in European Cities in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. Bernhardt, Christoph (Münster and New York: Waxmann Verlag, 2001)Google Scholar. Several recent, edited collections also offer excellent historiographical overviews and highlight the international scope and methodological diversity of this growing field. See Brantz, Dorothee and Dümpelmann, Sonja, eds., Greening the City: Urban Landscapes in the Twentieth Century (Charlottesville, VA, and London: University of Virginia Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Clark, Peter, ed., The European City and Green Space: London, Stockholm, Helsinki, and St. Petersburg, 1850–2000 (Aldershot and Hants, U.K., and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006)Google Scholar; Isenberg, Andrew C., ed., The Nature of Cities: Culture, Landscape, and Urban Space (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006)Google Scholar; and Schott, Dieter, Luckin, Bill, Massard-Guilbaud, Geneviève, eds., Resources of the City: Contributions to an Environmental History of Modern Europe (Aldershot and Hampshire, U.K., and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005)Google Scholar.

5 Brantz, Dorothee, “The Natural Space of Modernity: A Transatlantic Perspective on (Urban) Environmental History,” in Historians and Nature: Comparative Approaches to Environmental History, ed. Lehmkuhl, Ursula and Wellenreuther, Hermann (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, 2007), 195–225Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., 209.

7 For example, see Gandy, Matthew, Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Rawson, Michael, Eden on the Charles: The Making of Boston (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Green, Nicholas, The Spectacle of Nature: Landscape and Bourgeois Culture in Nineteenth Century France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; and Thorsheim, Peter, “Green Space and Class in Imperial London,” in The Nature of Cities, ed. IsenbergGoogle Scholar.

8 For aspects of German green space theory from the urban planning perspective, see Die Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung, Städtisches Grün in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Band 101 (Hannover: Schroedel Verlag, 1975)Google Scholar; and Schöbel, Sören, Qualitative Freiraumplanung. Perspektiven städtischer Grün- und Freiräume aus Berlin (Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin, 2003)Google Scholar. Two excellent exceptions to this trend in the field of history are Stürmer, Rainer, Freiflächenpolitik in Berlin in der Weimarer Republik. Ein Beitrag zur Sozial- und Umweltschutzpolitik einer modernen Industriestadt (Berlin: Berlin Verlag A. Spritz, 1991)Google Scholar; and Lachmund, Jens, Greening Berlin: The Co-Production of Science, Politics, and Urban Nature (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

9 The standard work on urban planning and the reform movement in Imperial Germany is Ladd, Brian, Urban Planning and Civic Order in Germany, 1860–1914 (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1990)Google Scholar. For his discussion of green space within the context of planning and social reform, see especially 67–73. On the urban social reform movement itself, see Lees, Andrew, Cities, Sin, and Social Reform in Imperial Germany (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 In 1910, pre-expansion Berlin offered each resident only 0.9 square meters of green space. This ranked dead last among Germany's ten largest cities. By contrast, Frankfurt am Main led the way with 105 square meters per resident. Other notable cities included Stuttgart (33.5) and Leipzig (17.6). Statistisches Jahrbuch der deutschen Städte (Breslau: Verlag von Wilh. Gottl. Korn, 1910)Google Scholar, 448. See also Stürmer, Freiflächenpolitik, 41.

11 Some of old Berlin's best-known parks included the Tiergarten, Friedrichshain, Humboldthain, Treptower Park, and Viktoriapark. These parks were originally designed in the nineteenth century by famous architects, including Peter Joseph Lenné, Carl Friedrich Schinkel, and Gustav Meyer. For a comprehensive history of these green areas, see Weber, Klaus Konrad, ed., Berlin und seine Bauten. Teil XI Gartenwesen (Berlin: Ernst Verlag, 1972)Google Scholar; Entwicklung der Volksparke (Berlin: Kulturbund der DDR/Zentrales Parkarchiv, 1979)Google Scholar; and Martin, Hans, “Die Geschichte der Berliner Grünanlagen,” in Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Berlins, Heft 2 (Berlin: Mittler Verlag, 1931): 33–54Google Scholar. Individual histories of these parks also exist. For example, see Naumann, Heike, Der Friedrichshain. Geschichte einer Berliner Parkanlage (Berlin: Heimatsmuseum Friedrichshain, 1994)Google Scholar; Wendland, Folkwin and Gustav and Wörner, Rose, “Der Berliner Tiergarten. Vergangenheit und Zukunft,” in Gartendenkmalpflege, Heft 3 (Berlin: Der Senator für Stadtentwicklung und Naturschutz, 1986)Google Scholar; and most recently, Hennecke, Stefanie, “German Ideologies of City and Nature: The Creation and Reception of Schiller Park in Berlin,” in Greening the City, ed. Brantz and Dümpelmann, 75–94Google Scholar. For the history of Berlin's allotment gardens, see Ein starkes Stück Berlin 1901–2001. 100 Jahre organisiertes Berliner Kleingartenwesen (Berlin: Landesverband Berlin der Gartenfreunde e.V., 2001)Google Scholar.

12 For a contemporary analysis of the importance of green space for public health, see Ziethen, Oskar, “Wald- und Wiesengürtel für Groß-Berlin,” in Fragen der kommunalen Sozialpolitik in Groß-Berlin, Band II. Schriften der Gesellschaft für Soziale Reform-Ortsgruppe Berlin (Jena: Fischer Verlag, 1912)Google Scholar.

13 M. Wagner, Das Sanitäre Grün.

14 At least two major scholarly collections address aspects of Wagner's life and work: Martin Wagner 1885–1957. Wohnugsbau und Weltstadtplanung. Die Rationalisierung des Glücks (Berlin: Akadamie der Künste-Berlin, 1986)Google Scholar; and Wagner, Bernhard, ed., Martin Wagner 1885–1957. Leben und Werk. Eine Biographische Erzählung (Hamburg: Wittenborn Söhne, 1985)Google Scholar.

15 von Reuß, Jürgen, “Freiflächenpolitik als Sozialpolitik,” in Martin Wagner 1885–1957, ed. Wagner, B., 57–58Google Scholar.

16 Wagner's dissertation broke down categories of green space as well as needs for specific age and gender groups. Based on this data, Wagner concluded that about twenty square meters of green space per person should be the goal. The old center of Berlin at the time offered roughly 1/20th of that ratio. Most contemporary German cities also failed to reach Wagner's ambitious target. M. Wagner, Das Sanitäre Grün, 23–35.

17 For further detail on both men, see Haney, David, When Modern was Green: Life and Work of Landscape Architect Leberecht Migge (London and New York: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar; and Land, Dietmar und Wenzel, Jürgen, eds., Heimat, Natur und Weltstadt. Leben und Werk des Gartenarchitekten Erwin Barth (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 2005)Google Scholar.

18 Bodenschatz, Harald et al. , Stadtvisionen 1910/2010. Berlin, Paris, London, Chicago. 100 Jahre Allgemeine Städtebau-Austellungen in Berlin (Dortmund: DOM Publishers, 2010)Google Scholar.

19 B. Wagner, Martin Wagner 1885–1957, 12. In spite of Wagner's limited time at the front, his son Bernhard marveled at his father's ability even to consider a detailed dissertation topic on green space in the face of such horrible conditions on the battlefield.

20 Collins, George R. and Collins, Christiane Crasemann, Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2006)Google Scholar.

21 Camillo Sitte first published a separate article entitled “Großstadt Grün” or “Greenery Within the City” in 1900. An English translation of this essay can be found in Collins and Crasemann, Camillo Sitte, 303–321.

22 M. Wagner, Das Sanitäre Grün, 1–12.

23 Ibid., 3.

24 For Wagner's detailed discussion of the legal and planning challenges of green space policy, see ibid., 51–91.

25 For more on the Prussian Constitutional Convention and its role in the creation of Greater Berlin, see Orlow, Dietrich, Weimar Prussia 1918–1925: The Unlikely Rock of Democracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986)Google Scholar, esp. 109–114 and 137–139; Herzfeld, Hans and Heinrich, Gerd, eds., Berlin und die Provinz Brandenburg im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Berlin: de Gruyter Verlag, 1968)Google Scholar, esp. 117–125; and Engeli, Christian, Landesplanung in Berlin-Brandenburg. Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte des Landesplanungsverbandes Brandenburg-Mitte 1929–1936 (Stuttgart and Berlin: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1986)Google Scholar, esp. 11–60. For the background leading up to 1920, see Fischer, Felix, Berlin und sein Umland. Zur Genese der Berliner Stadtlandschaft bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1985)Google Scholar, esp. 246–320. There is also a recently completed dissertation on the creation of Greater Berlin: Parker Everett, “The Incorporation of Greater Berlin, 1900–1933: A Critical Historical Study” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2012).

26 Stürmer, Freiflächenpolitik, 38. One hectare is roughly equivalent to 2.47 acres.

27 For example, Dr. Hamburger, Karl, Spiel-Raum für Großstadtkinder. Vorschläge zur besseren Ausnutzung der großstädtischen Freiflächen, erläutert an dem Beispiel Großberlins (Berlin: Teubner Verlag, 1919)Google Scholar.

28 Most of these areas had already been secured from real estate development by the Prussian state and the Zweckverband Groß-Berlin before the formal creation of Greater Berlin in 1920. These earlier efforts culminated in the Permanent Forest Agreement of 1915. After the creation of Greater Berlin, all of the forest parcels that fell within the new city boundaries came under direct municipal control. On this aspect of Berlin's forest history, see Klees, Martin, “Der Berliner Waldbesitz im Wandel der Zeiten,” Allgemeine Forst Zeitschrift (July 1963): 450–454Google Scholar; Wilson, Jeffrey K., “Environmental Protest in Wilhelmine Berlin: The Campaign to Save the Grunewald,” German Historical Institute Bulletin Supplement 3 (2006): 9–25Google Scholar; and Wilson, Jeffrey K., The German Forest: Nature, Identity, and the Contestation of a National Symbol, 1871–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 3.

29 Stürmer, Freiflächenpolitik, 68–69. Greater Berlin's gardeners also benefited from a 1919 national law designed to stabilize prices, regulate leasing and purchasing better, and ensure allotment garden space. For the Allotment Garden and Plot Lease Law of 1919, see Ein Starkes Stück Berlin, 69–75; and Stein, Hartwig, Inseln im Häusermeer. Eine Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Kleingartenwesens bis zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Reichsweite Tendenzen und Groß-Hamburger Entwicklungen, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), 415–433Google Scholar.

30 Stürmer, Freiflächenpolitik, 61.

31 Ibid., 8–9. See also Hennebo, Dieter, “Berlin. Hundert Jahre Gartenbauverwaltung. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Stadtgrüns im Industriezeitalter: Vom Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg,” Das Gartenamt (June 1970): 258–287Google Scholar. For a broader overview of green space policy and planning in Germany during this period, see Gröning, Gert and Wolschke, Joachim, “Zur Entwicklung und Unterdrückung Freiraumplanerischer Ansätze der Weimarer Republik,” Das Gartenamt (June 1985): 443–458Google Scholar.

32 Stürmer, Freiflächenpolitik, 157–166.

33 Ibid., 131–133.

34 Ibid., 201; and Klees, “Der Berliner Waldbesitz im Wandel der Zeiten,” 452–453.

35 Ibid., 202; and Hennebo, “Berlin. Hundert Jahre Gartenbauverwaltung,” 281–284.

36 Koeppen, Walter, ed., Die Freiflächen der Stadtgemeinde Berlin-Denkschrift des Amtes für Stadtplanung, vol. 2 (Berlin: Amt für Stadtplanung der Stadt Berlin, 1929)Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., 3–6.

38 Ibid., 9–14.

39 Ibid., 14.

40 B. Wagner, Martin Wagner 1885–1957, 33.

41 A number of excellent recent studies exist on the history of the conservation movement and its relationship to the Nazi regime. For example, see Brüggemeier, Franz-Joseph, Cioc, Marc, and Zeller, Thomas, eds., How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment, and Nation in the Third Reich (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Lekan, Thomas M., Imagining the Nation in Nature: Landscape Preservation and German Identity, 1885–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Radkau, Joachim and Uekötter, Frank, eds., Naturschutz und Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 2003)Google Scholar; and Uekötter, Frank, The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 On the Reich Nature Protection Law, see Closmann, Charles, “Legalizing a Volksgemeinschaft: Nazi Germany's Reich Nature Protection Law of 1935,” in How Green Were the Nazis, ed. Brüggemeier, et al. , 18–42Google Scholar.

43 For the Speer plans to reshape Berlin, see Kropp, Alexander, Die politische Bedeutung der NS-Repräsentationsarchitektur. Die Neugestaltungspläne Albert Speers für den Umbau Berlins zur “Welthauptstadt Germania”1936–1942/43 (Neuried: Ars Una, 2005)Google Scholar; Reichhardt, Hans J. and Schäche, Wolfgang, Von Berlin nach Germania. Über die Zerstörungen der “Reichshauptstadt” durch Albert Speers Neugestaltungsplanungen, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Transit Verlag, 1998)Google Scholar; and Helmer, Stephen D., Hitler's Berlin: The Speer Plans for Reshaping the Central City (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1985)Google Scholar. On Speer's career, see Sereny, Gitta, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (New York: Pan Macmillan, 1996)Google Scholar.

44 The main German federal archive in Berlin, the Bundesarchiv, holds the massive document collection from Speer's planning office. It is cataloged as BA R4606 “Generalbauinspektor für die Reichshauptstadt” (hereafter BA R4606).

45 On Schelkes and his relationship to Speer, see Sereny, Albert Speer, 73–74, 146–149. Schelkes's age—he was 33 at the time of his appointment—and relative inexperience led several other more established and prominent landscape architects to question Speer's choice for Berlin's “green plan” designer. See, for example, a lengthy letter from the well-known garden and landscape architect Heinrich Wiepking-Jürgensmann to Speer, October 13, 1937, BA R4606/1604, np. Speer himself was actually one year younger than Schelkes when Hitler appointed him General Building Inspector.

46 Architekt Dipl.-Ing. Willi Schelkes, “Der Grünflächenplan des Generalbauinspektors für die Reichshauptstadt,” BA R4606/1592, 1–84, and “Grundsätze des Generalbauinspektors für die Reichshauptstadt über die Behördenzusammenarbeit bei der künftigen Grünflächengestaltung,” BA R4606/1595, np. Schelkes found a willing collaborator in the new City Garden Director Joseph Pertl. Pertl assumed the position in December 1935, and as an enthusiastic Nazi, he worked closely with Speer's office on the green space master plan. See Hennebo, “Berlin. Hundert Jahre Gartenbauverwaltung,” 286. For an example of Pertl's conflation of Nazi ideology and garden planning, see a copy of his July 1937 presentation entitled “Weltanschauung und Gartenkunst,” BA R4606/1594, np.

47 See the transcript of the May 13, 1938, meeting about the green plan, BA R4606/1593, 11–15. In spite of the clear delineation of the GBI's overall leadership, occasional challenges came from city leaders that prompted intervention from Speer's office to reaffirm its control over the Berlin master plan. For example, see Speer to Bürgermeister Steeg, August 27, 1941, BA R4606/4880, 98–102; and Speer to Oberbürgermeister der Reichshauptstadt Berlin, April 20, 1942, BA R4606/1599, np.

48 For examples of press reports, see “Die Grünflächenpolitik der deutschen Gemeinden,” Die NS-Gemeinde, March 15, 1938, BA NS 5/VI/19517; and “Berlin wird Stadt der Parks und Sportstätten,” Nationalsozialistische Partei-Korrespondenz, April 16, 1939, BA R4606/1592, 85–87.

49 Schelkes, “Der Grünflächenplan,” BA R4606/1592, 8.

50 Ibid., 12–22.

51 “Berlin wird Stadt der Parks und Sportstätten,” Nationalsozialistische Partei-Korrespondenz, April 16, 1939, BA R4606/1592, 33–34. In private meetings Schelkes explained that it was simply unrealistic to expect that large allotment garden spaces that fell within the GBI's planned construction zones could be maintained or even replaced. For example, see “Niederschrift über eine Besprechung in der Durchführungsstelle des Generalbauinspektors für die Reichshauptstadt am 13. Mai 1938,” BA R4606/1593, 13.

52 “Stand des Kleingartenwesens der Reichshauptstadt Berlin zu Beginn des Jahres 1941,” BA R4606/1631, np.

53 Ibid., third page of the original document. In a letter to Berlin's mayor, Speer offered some vague ideas about compensating “green space” owners once the war had ended. Speer to Oberbürgermeister der Reichshauptstadt Berlin, April 20, 1942, BA R4606/1599, np.

54 Ultimately encompassing more than three million members, the Nazi Reichsbund Deutscher Kleingärtner und Kleinsiedler absorbed all previously independent gardening associations. For more on this organization, the “coordination” of independent gardening groups, and the history of allotment gardening in Nazi Germany, see Stein, Inseln im Häusermeer, 627–691; and Ein Starkes Stück Berlin, 98–148.

55 Mielke, Hans-Jürgen, Die kulturlandschaftliche Entwicklung des Grunewaldgebietes (Berlin: D. Reimer Verlag, 1971), 82–83Google Scholar. For a more detailed history of the Villenkolonie Grunewald, see von Berlin, Bezirksamt Wilmersdorf, ed., 100 Jahre Villenkolonie Grunewald 1889–1989 (Berlin: Möller Verlag, 1989)Google Scholar. For the neighborhood's own recounting of its development, see the thirtieth anniversary edition of the monthly newspaper entitled Grunewald-Echo, December 1929.

56 Wilson, The German Forest, 86–131.

57 Schlösser, Staatliche und Berlin, Gärten, ed., 450 Jahre Jagdschloss Grunewald 1542–1992 (Berlin: Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Berlin, 1992)Google Scholar.

58 Wilson, The German Forest, 88–97. Numerous contemporary accounts recalled both the ceremonial pomp of the royal hunt and the gradual encroachment of Berlin's ever-growing throngs. For example, see Berdrow, Hermann, Der Grunewald. Schilderungen und Studien (Berlin: Eichblatt, 1902)Google Scholar, esp. 81–105; and Trinius, A., Die Umgebungen der Kaiserstadt Berlin in Wort und Bild (Berlin: Lehmann, 1889), 204–223Google Scholar.

59 For the campaign's composition and goals, as well as Wilhelm II's changing attitude about the forest, see Wilson, The German Forest, 102–103 and 114–119.

60 Ibid., 124–130; Mielke, Die kulturlandschaftliche Entwicklung des Grunewaldgebietes, 96–104; Klees, “Der Berliner Waldbesitz,” 451–452; and Stadtentwicklung, Senatsverwaltung für und Berlin, Umweltschutz, ed., Vom Kulturwald zum Naturwald. Entwurf eines Landschaftspflegekonzeptes am Beispiel des Berliner Grunewaldes (Berlin: Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umweltschutz Berlin, 1991), 34–35Google Scholar.

61 Behm, Hans Wolfgang, Zehntausend Jahre Grunewald. Die Natur- und Entwicklungsgeschichte eines großstadtnahen Forstes (Berlin: Kulturbuch Verlag, 1957), 107–108Google Scholar. Behm reports, for example, that the Grunewald's fallow deer population dropped from more than 1,000 to less than 300 by the end of the war as a result of illegal trapping and hunting.

62 Mielke, Die kulturlandschaftliche Entwicklung des Grunewaldgebietes, 105–108.

63 On these plans, see the files in BA R4606/1666, 1671, 1672. For a particularly honest assessment of the GBI's plans for the Grunewald, see Joseph Pertl, “Denkschrift über die Neugestaltung des Grunewaldes zu einem Volkspark,” July 12, 1937, BA R4606/1672, np.

64 For example, see the GBI press release dated May 19, 1938, entitled “Die Neugestaltung des Grunewalds,” BA R4606/1671, np.

65 Emil Borm to Dr. Hedicke (Der Provinzialbeauftragte für den Naturschutz Berlin), November 26, 1942, np; Hedicke to Borm, December 19, 1942, np; and Borm to Hedicke, December 30, 1941, np; all in Landesarchiv Berlin, A Rep. 009–01 Der Provinialbeauftragte für den Naturschutz in Berlin/7.

66 Mielke, Die kulturlandschaftliche Entwicklung des Grunewaldgebietes, 108–121. See also Speer's own comments about building plans in the Grunewald in an account of his visit to the area. “Betrifft: Grunewald Besichtigung mit Speer, Pertl, Maranke, Heine, Schelkes,” April 26, 1941, BA R4606/1607, np.

67 For more details, see a copy of the presentation by Willi Schelkes at the Berlin Technical University, “Vortrag gehalten vor dem Seminar Prof. Freese an der Technischen Hochschule Berlin-Charlottenburg am 2. Februar 1944.” BA R4606/5210, np; and Willi Schelkes, “Erster Grunewaldweg dem Verkehr übergeben,” December 1940, BA R4606/607, np.

68 Mielke, Die kulturlandschaftliche Entwicklung des Grunewaldgebietes, 142–147. For a recent concise overview of the Teufelsberg and its development, see Behling, Klaus and Jüttemann, Andreas, Der Berliner Teufelsberg. Trümmer, Truppen, und Touristen (Berlin: Berlin Story Verlag, 2011)Google Scholar.

69 See the protocol of an August 7, 1941, meeting between Speer, Schelkes, and other GBI leaders, BA R4606/1659, np.

70 Schelkes to Hettlage, March 14, 1942, BA R4606/1660, np. On Karl Hettlage, see Sereny, Albert Speer, 155–157.

71 Schelkes to Hettlage, March 14, 1942, BA R4606/1660, np.

72 Hettlage to Stadtrat Pfeil, June 23, 1942, BA R4606/1660, np.

73 Der Reichsminister der Luftfahrt und Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe to Speer, July 19, 1937, BA R4606/1601, np.

74 See the protocol of a March 22, 1941, meeting between Schelkes and Major Memmert, in BA R4606/1601, np.

75 Proposals dated July 14 and August 18, 1943, BA R4606/1594, np.

76 For reports of public forest theft in August and November 1942, see Landesarchiv Berlin A Rep. 040-08/1041 Bezirksamt Zehlendorf, 7–8.

77 See the protocol of a May 11, 1944, meeting between Schelkes and other GBI leaders regarding the wide-scale destruction in the Grunewald as a result of Allied bombs and uncontrolled clear-cutting in BA R4606/1652, 1–3. In his study of the Grunewald, Hans-Jürgen Mielke estimates that roughly sixty percent of the Grunewald's trees were wiped out during and immediately following the war. Mielke, Die kulturlandschaftliche Entwicklung des Grunewaldgebietes, 121–124. For a postwar eyewitness account of the damage in the Grunewald, see Behm, Zehntausend Jahre Grunewald, 110–112.

78 Hennebo, “Berlin. Hundert Jahre Gartenbauverwaltung,” 286; and Ein Starkes Stück Berlin, 152–167.

79 Brantz, Dorothee and Dümpelmann, Sonja, “Introduction,” in Greening the City, ed. Brantz and Dümpelmann, 1–13, 12Google Scholar.