Berlin: a building site at the Funkturm, 1937
Workers dig, shovel and tip wagons on a wide site in the west of Berlin, and a REICHSKRAFT filling station stands below the Funkturm.
On a broad sandy site men in caps and shirtsleeves shovel earth onto conveyors, heave tipper wagons along field rails and level the ground, while a tram glides past long hall buildings and a balloon hangs in the sky; sand pours onto a trailer before a long office block. Then the steel lattice of the Funkturm rises above a streamlined filling station lettered REICHSKRAFT, a swastika flag flying beside it.
In January 1937 Hitler made Albert Speer inspector-general of building for the capital, charged with turning Berlin into the monumental Germania. The everyday work on its streets still depended on shovels and muscle, and every busy building site was meant to show that the mass unemployment of 1932 was over.
Film Reichskraft filling station below the Funkturm, Berlin 1937
Film Building site near the exhibition halls, Berlin 1937
Film Workers levelling ground as a tram passes, Berlin 1937
Film Tipping a loaded wagon on the building site, Berlin 1937
Film Conveyor loading sand onto a trailer, Berlin 1937
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