Postwar planning came to focus on traffic through a unique meeting of conservative and progress ideas on traffic. Conservatives were inspired by the suburbs and greenery of the Garden City movement and how these smaller city units must be connected to the inner city. Progressive ideas, on the other hand, focused on the city’s functions of housing, work, and recreation, and how traffic flow linked them all together[1]. Altogether, they both aimed to improve traffic connections throughout the city, particularly by linking suburbs to the inner city.
After the war, many cities - including Dessau - were able start anew after bombings destroyed the town. Planners seized the opportunity to correct traffic planning issues; they particularly focused on street planning as they did not have jurisdiction over the railway system. A common postwar planning attribute was widening of the street in these main, “arterial” connections, that would eventually absorb the increased use of the automobile. However, these widened streets failed for a number of reasons, including an inability to keep up with the quick escalation of car use in Germany, and a critique of city life from activist Jane Jacobs and psychoanalyst Alexander Mitscherlich that called for the use of pedestrian-only zones. As such, many of the widened avenues became pedestrian-only streets[1].
As for the public transportation planning,however, the Hauptbahnhof was rebuilt in the 1950s (see image above [2]). However, under the GDR, the rail network was dense but in much poorer condition than in East Germany. By 1990, only about a third of the Reichsbahn was electrified, and less than a third of the network had more than one track. On the other hand, the Bundesbahn’s network of West Germany had half of its rails electrified, and half of its network had more than one track. East Germany’s infrastructure was dated, and after the reunification it was clear that serious change was necessary. The rail could clearly not keep up with road and air transport, and as a result was deeply in debt with no effective solution until the early 1990s. The changing political context after the reunification allowed for the consolidation of the Reichsbahn and Bundesbahn into the Deutschebahn, allowing for “deregulation while introducing new legal requirements that would make market-driven, cost-conscious management possible and inevitable,” according to the Deutschebahn’s website[3].
Citations [1] Diefendorf, Jeffry (Feb., 1989). “Artery: Urban Reconstruction and Traffic Planning in Postwar Germany.” Journal of Urban History. Accessed 1 Aug. 2018 through ProQuest. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1297903567/CD77B050881947B0PQ/1?accountid=14945 [2]http://www.ak-ansichtskarten.de/ak/91-Alte-Ansichtskarte/1672-Strassen/7103253-AK-Dessau-Hauptbahnhof-und-Strassenbahn [3]“The Foundation of Deutsche Bahn AG.” (2018). https://www.deutschebahn.com/en/group/history/topics/foundation-1210924