Article ID: CBB699417054

Flugplattformen zwischen Arbeitsbeschaffungsprogramm und Raumplanung. Vom Scheitern einer transatlantischen Technikvision, ca. 1927–1943. (Airborne Platforms between Employment Program and Spatial Planning. On the Failure of a Transatlantic Technical Vision, c. 1927-1943) (2020)

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In der allgemeinen Luftfahrteuphorie der Zwischenkriegszeit wurde die Möglichkeit einer regelmäßigen, sicheren und schnellen Ozeanüberquerung nicht nur unter technischen und ökonomischen, sondern vor allem auch unter politischen Gesichtspunkten diskutiert. Die damalige Spannbreite gesellschaftspolitischer Ordnungsvorstellungen auf dem Gebiet der Luftfahrt lässt sich exemplarisch an einer heutzutage wenig bekannten, da nie umgesetzten technischen Vision aufzeigen: der Installation von schwimmenden künstlichen Inseln, die vordergründig einer sicheren Passage der Nordatlantikroute dienen sollten. Zu dieser Idee kursierten in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren in nahezu allen Luftfahrtnationen zahlreiche Entwürfe mehr oder weniger ähnlicher Bauart. Der Beitrag stellt zwei dieser Pläne vor: Zum einen das „Seadrome“-Projekt des kanadischstämmigen Ingenieurs Edward Robert Armstrong, dem geistigen Urheber und prominentesten Vertreter der Idee schwimmender Inseln, der in den USA im Zuge des New Deals der Umsetzung eines solchen Bauvorhabens recht nahekam. Zum anderen das wehrtechnische wie raumplanerische Projekt atlantischer Flugplattformen des Bauingenieurs, NSDAP-Gründungsmitglieds und NS-Ideologen Gottfried Feder, das dieser als Inhaber eines Lehrstuhls für Raumplanung in einer 1940 erschienenen Denkschrift entwickelte. In vergleichender Perspektive fragt der Beitrag nach dem jeweiligen Verständnis dieser beiden Akteure bezüglich des Verhältnisses von Technik und Politik, und setzt dieses in Beziehung zu den institutionellen und politischen Rahmenbedingungen, innerhalb derer sie ihre Projekte entwickelten. Dieser Fokus erlaubt, dezidiert außertechnische Ursachen des letztendlichen Scheiterns dieser Idee in den Blick zu nehmen. During the interwar period, the feasibility of regular, safe and fast transatlantic flight was being enthusiastically discussed not only with regard to technical and economic aspects, but above all to the attached political issues. The wide range of socio-political concepts of order in the field of aviation at that time can be exemplified by a technical vision that is little known today because it was never implemented: the installation of floating artificial islands primarily intended to provide safe passage along the North Atlantic route. During the 1920s and 1930s, numerous somewhat similar construction designs were being circulated in almost all the aviation nations. This article presents two of these plans: One is the so-called “Seadrome” project by the Canadian-born engineer Edward Robert Armstrong, originator and most prominent advocate of this technological vision, who came very close to making it reality in the USA during the New Deal. The other is the project by the civil engineer Gottfried Feder, an ideological founding father and early key member of the Nazi Party. As professor of settlement policy at the Technische Hochschule Berlin, he designed a spatial planning project for landing platforms on the Atlantic that was published in a memorandum published in 1940. The article assumes a comparative perspective to examine the respective views of these two actors concerning the relationship between technology and politics and relates them to the institutional and political framework in which they developed their projects. This approach makes it possible to identify the clearly nontechnical causes for the ultimate failure of this idea.

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Authors & Contributors
O'Reagan, Douglas Michael
Katrin Jordan
Schaberg, Christopher
Serling, Robert J.
Berghoff, Hartmut
Rachel K. Gibson
Concepts
Technology and politics
Cross-national comparison
Airports
Air transportation
World War II
Technology
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
20th century, late
19th century
20th century, early
Places
United States
Germany
France
Soviet Union
Great Britain
United Kingdom
Institutions
Transcontinental Air Transport
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
United States Navy
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