Opposition to the Nazi regime declined near the Autobahn faster than everywhere else.

Wiki Commons via Vladislav Bezrukov and Heinrich Hoffmann

Today marks the 70th anniversary of D-Day, among the most pivotal moments of the most pivotal event of the 20th century. The beach landing at Normandy may not have had a direct impact on the nature of U.S. cities, except insofar as no American life was the same that day forth. But in the spirit of looking back on that era we turn our attention to something with very clear relevance to the character of our metro areas: the Autobahn.

Germany's impressive road network partly inspired the Interstate Highway System that changed the shape of American cities (for better and worse). It also might have hastened Hitler's rise to power.

That's the conclusion reached by economists Nico Voigtlaender of UCLA and Hans-Joachim Voth of University of Zurich in a fascinating new working paperon the Autobahn's role in the Nazi regime. By analyzing voting records between November 1933 and August 1934 alongside highway patterns, Voigtlaender and Voth found that any opposition to Hitler swung in his favor significantly faster in areas where the Autobahn was being built than elsewhere. With the country still recovering from the Great Depression, Germans might have seen the new roads as a sign the Hitler regime could jumpstart the economy.

Hitler himself broke ground on the highway system in September 1933, and within a year construction was underway in 11 major corridors.

"We find strong evidence for changes in voting behavior in one of the most salient examples of infrastructure spending," Voigtlaender tells CityLab. "Also, we show this in a context of attracting votes from the opposition — i.e., people who were hardest to convince."

As Hitler rose to power in 1933, he wanted to show that his government could get things done in a way the Weimar government had not. Building the Autobahn was the perfect demonstration. Hitler himself broke ground on the highway system in September 1933 — telling the crowd to "get to work" — and within a year construction was underway in 11 major corridors. The propaganda that followed referred to "roads of the Führer" as a way of connecting highway completion with an effective Nazi regime....Continue Reading

> via citylab.com