Atlantropa
Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 4:01 pm
Got into a research spiral and stumbled upon some mentions of something called Atlantropa. I'd never heard about this crazy, ambitious, asshole colonialist project. Really interesting "what if".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa
Atlantropa, also referred to as Panropa,[1] was a gigantic engineering and colonisation idea that was devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s, and promoted by him until his death in 1952.[2][3] The project was devised to contain several hydroelectric dams in key points of the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Strait of Gibraltar and the Bosporus, to cause a sea level drop and create new land to settle. It had been proposed as a peaceful Pan-European alternative to the Lebensraum concepts in Nazi Germany.
Its central feature was a hydroelectric dam to be built across the Strait of Gibraltar, which would have provided enormous amounts of hydroelectricity[4] and would have led to the lowering of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea by up to 200 metres (660 ft), opening up large new lands for settlement, such as in the Adriatic Sea. The project proposed four additional major dams as well:
Across the Dardanelles to hold back the Black Sea
Between Sicily and Tunisia to provide a roadway and lower the inner Mediterranean further
On the Congo River below its Kwah River tributary to refill the Mega-Chad basin around Lake Chad to provide fresh water to irrigate the Sahara and create a shipping lane to the interior of Africa
Suez Canal extension and locks to maintain a Red Sea connection
Sörgel saw his scheme, which was projected to take over a century, as a peaceful Pan-European alternative to the Lebensraum concepts, which later became one of the stated reasons for Nazi Germany's conquest of new territories. Atlantropa would provide: land; food; employment; electric power; and, most of all, a new vision for Europe and neighbouring Africa.
The Atlantropa movement, throughout its several decades, was characterised by four constants:[8]
Pacifism, in its promises of using technology peacefully
Pan-European sentiment, seeing the project as a way to unite a wartorn Europe
Eurocentric attitudes to Africa, which was to become united with Europe into "Atlantropa" or Eurafrica
Neocolonial geopolitics, which saw the world divided into three blocs: America, Asia and Atlantropa.[9]
Active support was limited to architects and planners from Germany and a number of other primarily-Northern European countries. Critics derided it for various faults, ranging from lack of any co-operation of Mediterranean countries in the planning to the impacts that it would have had on the historic coastal communities that would be stranded inland when the sea receded. The project reached great popularity in the late 1920s to the early 1930s and again briefly in the late 1940s to the early 1950s, but it soon disappeared from general discourse after Sörgel's death.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa
Atlantropa, also referred to as Panropa,[1] was a gigantic engineering and colonisation idea that was devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s, and promoted by him until his death in 1952.[2][3] The project was devised to contain several hydroelectric dams in key points of the Mediterranean Sea, such as the Strait of Gibraltar and the Bosporus, to cause a sea level drop and create new land to settle. It had been proposed as a peaceful Pan-European alternative to the Lebensraum concepts in Nazi Germany.
Its central feature was a hydroelectric dam to be built across the Strait of Gibraltar, which would have provided enormous amounts of hydroelectricity[4] and would have led to the lowering of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea by up to 200 metres (660 ft), opening up large new lands for settlement, such as in the Adriatic Sea. The project proposed four additional major dams as well:
Across the Dardanelles to hold back the Black Sea
Between Sicily and Tunisia to provide a roadway and lower the inner Mediterranean further
On the Congo River below its Kwah River tributary to refill the Mega-Chad basin around Lake Chad to provide fresh water to irrigate the Sahara and create a shipping lane to the interior of Africa
Suez Canal extension and locks to maintain a Red Sea connection
Sörgel saw his scheme, which was projected to take over a century, as a peaceful Pan-European alternative to the Lebensraum concepts, which later became one of the stated reasons for Nazi Germany's conquest of new territories. Atlantropa would provide: land; food; employment; electric power; and, most of all, a new vision for Europe and neighbouring Africa.
The Atlantropa movement, throughout its several decades, was characterised by four constants:[8]
Pacifism, in its promises of using technology peacefully
Pan-European sentiment, seeing the project as a way to unite a wartorn Europe
Eurocentric attitudes to Africa, which was to become united with Europe into "Atlantropa" or Eurafrica
Neocolonial geopolitics, which saw the world divided into three blocs: America, Asia and Atlantropa.[9]
Active support was limited to architects and planners from Germany and a number of other primarily-Northern European countries. Critics derided it for various faults, ranging from lack of any co-operation of Mediterranean countries in the planning to the impacts that it would have had on the historic coastal communities that would be stranded inland when the sea receded. The project reached great popularity in the late 1920s to the early 1930s and again briefly in the late 1940s to the early 1950s, but it soon disappeared from general discourse after Sörgel's death.[10]
