1841: Dessau's first rail line opens
1892: Hugo Junkers and industrialization of Dessau In its glory, Dessau was a city invested in industrialization and new technology. In 1837, the first coalfield Auguste was founded in the city and earned Dessau its reputation as a mining city. The first train line from Berlin opened in 1841, and the Dessau-Bitterfeld line opened around 20 years later. The Deutsche Continental Gasgsellschaft by engineer Hugo Junkers in the 1890s was one of the city’s first large industrial and commercial sites. The company produced many different inventions from gas meters to gas engines at their facility in the northern district of Dessau and eventually expanded westward where the main factory was built. [1] Before the Weimar Republic, German cities were regarded as self-sufficient and only witnessed intervention from the national government when the national interest or interests of the ruling elite were threatened. The designs of early 1900s German cities aimed to create brand new cities instead of advocating for programs that reformed older cities struggling with the effects of industrialization such as overcrowding, pollution, and poor infrastructure. Architects like Theodor Fritsh advocated for the prioritization of industry and agriculture in a Gartenstadt setting (figure below). This idea of escaping the industrialized city is evident in the 1902 formation of the German Garden City Association. The organization emphasized “the need to preserve rural values, return to nature, and recreate a craft/guild society”; as industrialization continued, these goals were replaced by the desire to reform urban housing and develop satellite cities as a solution. When the creation of new satellite cities was not feasible, the city looked within for reform and advocated for guidelines developed by Baron Haussmann. Haussmann's ideas for developed cities emphasize the importance of fulfilling the population’s health needs; healthier, better cities to live in could be achieved by “lower densities, increasing air flow, providing park land and laying sewer and water lines”. The overall goal of planning during this time was to change the organic character of the medieval German city to a rational, orthogonal modern city. [2] Above: Drawing of facade in Leipzig by Oscar Fischer [2]
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Above: Map of Dessau c. 1872 [3]
Above: Map of Dessau c. 1927 [4]
Above: Theodor Fritch's design of radial garden cities. [2]
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Left: Dessau town hall, 1924 [5]
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In 1915, Hugo Junkers developed the world’s first all metal cabin airliner plane in his Dessau factories. These planes went on to be used by the German Air Force during World War I. After losing World War I, the German Kaiser abdicated and the Weimar Republic was founded with a new government. In 1918, Dessau was named the capital of the free state of Anhalt. This new government was doomed with turmoil from World War I casualties, resentment over the Versailles Treaty, and economic troubles. World War I left the country’s economy decimated since most natural resources and means of industrialization were destroyed, and resulted in serious hyperinflation within the German market By 1924 however, years of tax and finance reform combined with foreign loans gave way to a stabilized economy and the start of the “Golden Age” of the Weimar Republic from 1924 to 1929. [2][6][7]
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