INFRASTRUCTURE (Economics), MUNICIPAL water supply, TECHNOLOGY transfer, WATER reuse, BERLIN (Germany) -- Buildings, structures, etc., and BERLIN (Germany) -- History -- 1918-1945

This article takes an historical perspective on current attempts to ‘open up’ established, centralized systems of urban infrastructure to alternative technologies designed to minimize resource use and environmental pollution. The process of introducing alternative technologies into, or alongside, centralized urban infrastructures is not a novel phenomenon, as is often assumed. The physical and institutional entrenchment of large technical systems for urban energy, water or sanitation services in industrialized countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries did not close the door completely on alternatives. I investigate a number of alternative technologies used in Berlin in the interwar period (1920–1939), in order to reveal the rationales developed around each technology and the ways in which each emerged, disappeared and re-emerged or survived across highly diverse political regimes. The selection of cases is guided by the desire to illustrate three different phenomena of alternative technology diffusion (and exclusion) experienced in Berlin: (1) technologies promoted by early pioneers and discarded by their successors (waste-to-energy), (2) technologies modifying traditional practices that were at odds with modernized systems (wastewater reuse for agriculture) and (3) technologies co-existing alongside the dominant centralized system throughout the 20th century (cogeneration). The empirical findings are interpreted with reference to their contribution to scholarship on urban socio-technical transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLITICAL violence, WEIMAR government, 1918-1933, NATIONAL socialism, WEIMAR Republic, 1918-1933, COMMUNISM -- Germany -- History, NAZIS -- History, BERLIN (Germany) -- History -- 1918-1945, TWENTIETH century, and HISTORY

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CHURCH & state in Nazi Germany, CHURCH building design & construction, CHURCH buildings -- Germany, PROTESTANTISM -- 20th century, NATIONAL socialism, PATRIOTISM, BERLIN (Germany) -- History -- 1918-1945, NAZI Germany, 1933-1945, and NAZI Germany, 1933-1945 -- Religion

The article discusses the relationship between church and state during the early stages of the German Third Reich. It examines church-building in Germany during that period, particularly the Berlin, Germany, Martin Luther Memorial Church. The article discusses assumptions concerning Nazi hostility toward Christianity, attempts by then-German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to recruit German Protestantism as a partner of the Nazi program, and the construction and exterior and interior design of the Martin Luther Memorial Church. The article also discusses how the church became a symbol of Protestantism, German patriotism, and National Socialism. The article also discusses the significance of parish pastor Franz Karl Hermann Rieger.

POLITICAL party organization, POLITICAL movements -- History, WEIMAR government, 1918-1933, GRASSROOTS movements, POLITICAL parties -- Germany -- History, BERLIN (Germany) -- History -- 1918-1945, TWENTIETH century, and HISTORY

What made it possible for the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) to evolve from a fragmented political sect to a movement with an unprecedented potential for political mobilisation by the early 1930s? Based on the Nazi movement in Berlin, this article seeks to explore a new approach to the growth of the NSDAP which synthesises organisational refinement and a new look on Nazi propaganda prior to 1933. Through the creation of cells in residential areas and the workplace, by educating and training party cadres and through the insistence on Kleinarbeit as an alternative to mass propaganda, these developments interacted with each other, and were an attempt to project Nazism as an ideology and a political movement into spaces that had previously been closed to it. Both developments should be considered as bottom-up mobilisations of the party's grass-roots and were the results of a conscious, long-term strategy that aimed to bring about a radical transformation of German society. Together they helped transform the Nazi movement into a flexible mass movement with the ability to mould an inchoate and diverse group of sympathisers into an integrated body of committed and skilled activists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FINANCIAL crises, GERMANY -- Economic conditions -- 1918-1945, BERLIN (Germany) -- History -- 1918-1945, CAPITALISM, CONSUMERISM, URBAN life, and DEMOCRACY -- Germany

The article examines the impact of economic crisis on the nature of urban consumer culture and capitalism through a case study of interwar Berlin, Germany. The author argues that such a focus is necessary because too many studies of capitalism focus on its operation during times of economic stability. Topics addressed include the impact of hardship on German democracy, Weimar officials' understanding of the cityscape in relation to national politics, and public space.