Berlin: New city plan on exhibit

Adolf Hitler's dream was to create a capital that would serve as a monument to his Third Reich.

Hitler's, blueprint for Berlin - plans calling for huge public squares and immense buildings - are to go on display in the German capital. The exhibition named "Mythos Germania" reveals the street plans, architectural models and photographs by the Nazi's chief architect, Albert Speer.

At the heart of the plans for colossal structures was The Great Hall, a massive domed structure that would have been built on the spot where the Reichstag parliament building is located today.

Included is also a model of Hitler's "Triumphbogen". It would have a mass 49 times greater than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It was to be located at the south end of the 'North-South Axis' - one of two massive boulevards that would have dissected the city centre. The two thoroughfares were to be bordered by grand architectural works on all sides.

Graves were also dug up, to make way for tunnels beneath the city. Berlin's Jewish quarter and other areas were evacuated after 1933 so that the homes could be used for Germans whose houses had been demolished to make way for the ambitious plan.

Lasse Martensen, visitor, said, "It was impressive, and now I finally realize why my parents had to move in 1940 from Schoeneburg to Friedenau, where I then grew up. I know the apartment had belonged to a Jewish family. We still have their furniture, but we could never trace the people."

The exhibition is part of the Berliner Underworlds, founded in 1997. It documents subterranean architecture. It's sited between the "Fuehrer Bunker" where Hitler committed suicide in 1945 and the Jewish Holocaust Memorial built in 2005. The new exhibition runs through to the end of 2008.