Weaponized Architecture

WEAPONIZED ARCHITECTURE

Architecture as a political tool in the Third Reich Exhibition at MAAT Lisbon May — June 2021

WEAPONIZED ARCHITECTURE

Architecture as a political tool in the Third Reich Exhibition at MAAT Lisbon May — June 2021

CONTENTS

10 Introduction

1.

2.

3.

4.

Words in Stone: 14 Totalitarian Architecture 24 Instrument of Manipulation

Inside the Reich: 40 Architectural Megalomania 46 The Greatest Assignment 54 The New Chancellery 60 Empire Style

Dark side of Architecture: 66 Auschwitz- Birkenau 70 Forced Labour 74 Gas Chamber

Modern Day: 82 Uyghur Genocide 88 Forced Labour 94 Growing Parallels

INTRODUCTION 10.

11.

“Architecture in Nazi Germany truly became “politics in stone.”

Barbara Lane

Throughout history, art and architecture have been commissioned by powerful leaders of the past in order to display the best attributes of their society. Buildings stands the test of time and this ensures that their legacy lives on. Hitler knew the importance of architecture and seen this as an excellent way of influencing people.

According to Hitler, architecture would “bear powerful witness to the strength of the new German phenomenon, help to unite and strengthen the people, and fill the citizens of the German community with an everlastingconsciousness of what it meant to be German”. He believed immense monuments would become tangible memorials to his achievements.

Historian Barbara Lane has suggested that architecture is seen as the spiritual expression of the Nazi spirit. Lane states that the Nazis exercised control over architectural style because they saw it as a symbol of a specific political view.

This paper sets out to explore how architecture could be an important instrument as a political tool to dominate society on an example of Germany during totalitarian Nazi State. It undertakes the task to point out main architectonical instruments extensively used to achieve political aims of Nazis Fűhrer Adolf Hitler.

12.

WORDS IN STONE

TOTALITARIAN ARCHITECTURE 14.

15.

Totalitarianism derives from the Latin word totalis which meant something utter, absolute, thorough, entire, undivided & is politically used for a governance system in which the State has entire control over the society & aims to spread it to all possible aspects of private & public life. It is essential to characterize main streams of this system as these have direct relation to architecture created under its influence: autocracy - full control of all aspects of life carried by one man or narrow group of persons. In this case it took form of so called fűhrerprinzip related to the only one leader – Adolf Hitler. The interference in all possible forms of life like beliefs, opinions & behaviour of the society was implemented by expanded constraint authority apparatus, especially secret police.

Generally, it might be defined as architecture created in frames of totalitarian State activity & under its strict control, due to its thorough character of the policy in order to strengthen & spread its ideology. These ideologies Fascist architecture is one such example of totalitarian ideology manifesting itself into the physical realm of a society.

Developed in the early 20th century by the Italian and German regimes of the day, fascist architecture borrowed much from neo-classical and ancient roman architecture by stripping away the ostentatious and stressing simplicity and symmetry. Cold and forbidding in nature, these structures were built to symbolize an unwavering power over the regimes people.

16.

Nazi structures had to surpass every man-made structure.

Nazi architecture in this sense was designed to influence citizens through an implicit propaganda encoded into its structures. It is architectural influences contributed to a symbolic representation of firstly power, size and strength in an attempt to intimidate, and moreover, the influences from which it was inspired coded an implicit message of “racial superiority”.

Hitler was obsessed with the size of his architectural monuments. To him, the larger the structure, the more magnificent and inspirational it would be. He often used the seven wonders of the ancient world as architectural guides and examples. Hitler was convinced that the reason they were all wonders was because of their excessive size.

Early in 1939, in a speech to construction worker, Hitler undertook to justify the dimensions of his architectural “wonder”.

Speer believed that Hitler was obsessed with his huge structure as if his architectural work would be the measure of his greatness.

The construction of enormous buildings would leave lasting reminders of his presence, and, as Speer wrote, Hitler willed and projected himself into history. Plans for the reconstruction of Berlin were designed to dwarf the closest modern rivals of Paris and Vienna. The primary criterion of Nazi architecture was always size ; Nazi structures had to surpass every man-made structure.

17.

The Zeppelinfield Grandstand

18.

German Pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris, 1937

19.

“Why always the biggest?

I do this to restore to each individual German his selfrespect. In a hundred areas I want to say to the individual: we are not inferior, on the contrary, we are the complete equals of every other nation.”

Adolf Hitler

20.

“Here the eagle sha over the swatika, entire globe. The c biggest building in the German eagle Adolf Hitler

all no longer stand it will rule the crowning of this n the world must be over the globe”

21.

Scale model of the Volkshalle planned by Hitler and Speer

22.

23.

INSTRUMENT OF MANIPULATION 24.

25.

Manipulation is used here in terms of false activity, set to influence the society for entirely other, hidden unwanted ideas.

Usually, the persons or society is not aware of the manipulation means by the use of which they are influenced. The manipulation in architecture is inspired to implicate its specific perception & induce the society interaction. We might define the whole art of architecture as one great manipulation for its creator - i.e., an architect - intends to transfer ideas, thoughts & feelings of his own or his principals. Particularly in the case of Nazi architecture manipulations, the word is used in the paper for the description of architecture impact on the society to trigger political reaction.

Adolf Hitler believed in great possibilities of architectural influence on the society moods & opinion. In the primary period of Nazi’s reign, the use of simple & cheap evoking instruments in architecture were welcome according to the rule: minimum expenses & maximum effect. The best results with lowest costs might be always achieved by use of sophisticated space marking by elements of little architecture which role played in this case commonly implemented Nazi signs detailing like numerous flags with swastikas as well as sculptures. As for the simplicity of form & detailing, many resources prove that the ideological message should be understood by widest scope of crowds with different level of education & culture. The architecture codes should be as simple as possible to pass the crowds ideas of messianism, national greatness & primacy recover, racial uniqueness giving the right for ancient empires heritage transmitted into millennium.

“MINIMUM EXPENSES AND MAXIMUM EFFECT”

26.

The Nazi’s use of architecture as a weapon of propaganda presupposed three facts. First, that the language of its architecture could be clearly articulation through style, material, constructional techniques, symbolical applications and the accompaniment of ceremony. Second, that this language and its message, could be received and understood in its intended form and meaning. And thirdly, that architecture had a persuasive communicative power that could be manipulated or otherwise coerce people into altering their opinion or behaviour in a manner beneficial to the architect or government. Hitler firmly believed in the persuasive and communicative power of architecture and believed that these three essential elements were in fact present in his architecture.

In order to assure the best possible conditions for manipulating an audience, the persuader must carefully stage the setting in which the persuasion ceremony will occur. Under the personal supervision of Hitler, Nazi architects created such a stage. Adolf Hitler’s quasi-religious temples elevated him to sainthood, and as he and his propagandists convinced Germany, he also convinced Germany, he also convinced himself that what he was building was not the vanities of one man, but the required architectural evidence of a nation.

However, it was more than just the structure itself which had to be designed for maximum impact. The surrounding spectacle of pomp and ceremony, which was essential to the proper presentation of these Nazi structures, also received the most intense design scrutiny. The greatest emotional, patriotic, and inspirational feelings could be engineered for the participants and viewers alike through rallies, rituals and ceremonies.

27.

As for the simplicity of form & detailing, the ideological message should be understood by widest scope of crowds with different level of education & culture.

“NATIONAL G

GREATNESS”

30.

“In Nuremberg, each constructed so that group always faced architecture was de the inequitable relat people and their lea

Werner Rittich, 194

h structure was t the assembled d Hitler and the esigned to express tionship between the ader”

41

31.

34.

THE CATHEDRAL OF LIGHT

One of the most successful effects used to unite the audience was the visually striking lighting effect called The Cathedral of Light by its creator, Albert Speer. British Ambassador Henderson, who described it as “sacred and beautiful at the same time,” called it a “cathedral of ice.” The French ambassador Francois Poncet described the illusory cathedral as “Mystical ecstasy, a sort of holy illusion,” which gripped theaudience.

This pseudo-religious experience echoed the architecture of the grounds, as well as those of the great Catholic Cathedrals. The effect was accomplished by the use of one hundred and thirty anti-aircraft searchlights to encircle the Rally grounds.

Goering wanted to deny it, as that was the larger portion of their strategic reserve of searchlights. Hitler overruled him on the premise that the use of the lights for a nontactical purpose would give the impression that they had more than they could ever use.

It also serves as evidence of the importance Hitler placed on the image and success of the Rallies, to reallocate important resources to its production. The result was striking beyond Speer’s best expectations; the sharply defined beams soared to twenty five thousand feet, where they then merged into a general glow. The light seemed to form the great pillars and ceiling of a vast room, enclosing the audience within a luminescent architectural marvel together, in the church of Nazism.

“The feeling was of a vas beams serving as migh light outer walls” Albert Speer

st room, with the hty pillars of infinitely

INSIDE THE REICH

A memoir by Albert Speer

Among architects practicing in Germany under the Nazi regime, Albert Speer was the most powerful. Indeed, he was for a time one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich. From 1933-45, Speer was Hitler’s chief architect and Minister of Armaments and War Production from 1942–45. Inside the Third Reich is a memoir written by Speer, the man who kept Germany armed and the war machine running even after Hitler’s mystique had faded, this memoir gives us as complete a view as we will ever get of the inside of the Nazi state.

ARCHITECTURAL MEGALOMANIA 40.

41.

Early in 1934 Hitler surprised me with my first major commission. In Nuremberg the temporary bleachers on the Zeppelin Field were to be replaced by a permanent stone installation. I struggled over those first sketches until the idea came to me: a mighty flight of stairs topped and enclosed by a long colonnade, banked on both ends by stone abutments. Undoubtedly it was influenced by the Pergamum altar. The indispensable platform for honoured guests presented problems; I tried to place it as unobtrusively as possible midway in the flight of stairs. With some trepidation I asked Hitler to look at the model. I was worried because the design went far beyond the scope of my assignment. The structure had a length of thirteen hundred feet and a height of eighty feet. It was almost twice the length of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.

Hitler liked to say that the purpose of his building was to transmit his time and its spirit to posterity. All that remained to remind men of the great epochs of history was their monumental architecture,that he would philosophize. What had remained of the emperors of Rome? What would still bear witness to them today if their buildings had not survived? Periods of weakness are bound to occur in the history of nations, he argued; but at their lowest, their architecture will speak to them of former power. Naturally, a new national consciousness could not be awakened by architecture alone. But when after a long spell of inertia, a sense of national grandeur was born anew, the monuments of men’s ancestors were the most impressive exhortations. Today, for example, Mussolini could point to the buildings of the Roman Empire as symbolizing the heroic spirit of Rome. Thus, he could fire his nation with the idea of a modem empire. Our architectural works should also speak to the conscience of a future Germany centuries from now. In advancing this argument Hitler also stressed the value of a permanent type of construction.

42.

The building on the Zeppelin Field was begun at once, in order to have at least the platform ready for the coming Party Rally. To clear ground for it, the Nuremberg streetcar depot had to be removed. I passed by its remains after it had been blown up.

The iron reinforcements protruded from concrete debris and had already begun to rust. One could easily visualize their further decay. This dreary sight led me to some thoughts which I later propounded to Hitler under the pretentious heading of “A Theory of Ruin Value.” The idea was that buildings of modem construction were poorly suited to form that “bridge of tradition” to future generations which Hitler was calling for.

It was hard to imagine that rusting heaps of rubble could communicate these heroic inspirations which Hitler admired in the monuments of the past. My “theory” was intended to deal with this dilemma. By using special materials and by applying certain principles of statics, we should be able to build structures which even in a state of decay, after hundreds or (such were our reckonings) thousands of years would more or less resemble Roman models.

43.

“Hitler liked to say that the purpose of his building was to transmit his time and its spirit to posterity.”

Albert Speer

The Zeppelinfield Grandstand

THE GREATEST ASSIGNMENT 46.

47.

As Hitler told me, his conception of an enormously wide avenue went back to the early twenties, when he began to study the various plans for Berlin, found them all inadequate, and was impelled to develop his own ideas. Even then, he said, he had decided to shift the Anhalter and Potsdam railroad stations to the south of Tempelhof Field. This would release broad strips of trackage in the centre of the city, so that with only a little further clearing, starting from the Siegesallee, a magnificent avenue lined with impressive buildings could be built, three miles long.

To be sure, all the architectural proportions of Berlin would be shattered by two buildings that Hitler envisaged on this new avenue.

On the northern side, near the Reichstag, he wanted a huge meeting hall, a domed structure into which St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome would have fitted several times over.

The diameter of the dome was to be eight hundred twenty-five feet. Beneath it, in an area of approximately four hundred and ten thousand square feet, there would be room for more than a hundred and fifty thousand persons to assemble standing.

During these first discussions, when our general views on the city plan were still fluid, Hitler thought it necessary to explain to me that the size of meeting halls should be governed by medieval conceptions. The cathedral of Ulm, for example, had thirty thousand square feet of area; but when the building was begun in the fourteenth century only fifteen thousand people lived in Ulm, including children and the aged.“Therefore they could never fill the space. Compared to that, a hall for a hundred fifty thousand persons could be called small for a city of millions like Berlin.”

48.

To balance this structure Hitler wanted an arch of triumph four hundred feet high. “At least that will be a worthy monument to our dead of the world war. The names of our dead, all 1,800,000 of them, will be chiselled in the granite. What a paltry affair the Berlin monument put up by the Republic is. How wretched and undignified for a great nation.”

He handed me two sketches drawn on small cards. “I made these drawings ten years ago. I’ve always saved them, because I never doubted that someday I would build these two edifices. And this is how we will carry it out now.”

The proportions of the drawings showed, Hitler explained, that even then he had intended a diameter of more than six hundred and fifty feet for the dome and a height of more than three hundred thirty feet for the arch of triumph. What is startling is less the grandiosity of the project than the obsessiveness with which he had been planning triumphant monumental buildings when there was not a shred of hope that they could ever be built. And today it strikes me as rather sinister that in the midst of peacetime, while continually proclaiming his desire for international reconciliation, he was planning buildings expressive of an imperial glory which could be won only by war.

49.

“all the architectural proportions of Berlin would be shattered by two buildings.”

Albert Speer

50.

“I made these drawings always saved them bec that someday I would b And this is how we will Adolf Hitler

s ten years ago. I’ve cause I never doubted build these two edifices. carry it out now.”

51.

“it strikes me as rather the midst of peacetime proclaiming his desire reconciliation, he was expressive of an imper be won only by war” Albert Speer

r sinister that in e, while continually e for international planning buildings rial glory which could

THE NEW CHANCELLERY 54.

55.

Hitler now demanded an architectural stage set of imperial majesty. He described the Chancellery into which he had moved on January 30, 1933, as “fit for a soap company.”

It would not do for the headquarters of a now powerful Reich, he said. At the end of January 1938 Hitler called me to his office.

“I have an urgent assignment for you,” he said solemnly, standing in the middle of the room. ‘’I shall be holding extremely important conferences in the near future.

For these, I need grand halls and salons which will make an impression on people, especially on the smaller dignitaries. For the site I am placing the whole of Voss Strasse at your disposal. The cost is immaterial. But it must be done very quickly and be of solid construction. How long do you need? For plans, blueprints, everything? Even a year and a half or two years would be too long for me. Can you be done by January 10, 1939? I want to hold the next diplomatic reception in the new Chancellery.” I was dismissed.

‘’I shall be holding extremely important conferences in the near future. For these, I need grand halls and salons which will make an impression on people.”

Adolf Hitler

56.

The oblong site was an invitation to string a succession of rooms on a long axis. I showed Hitler my design: From Wilhelmsplatz an arriving diplomat drove through great gates into a court of honour. By way of an outside staircase, he first entered a medium-sized reception room from which double doors almost seventeen feet high opened into a large hall clad in mosaic. He then ascended several steps, passed through a round room with domed ceiling, and saw before him a gallery four hundred eighty feet long. Hitler was particularly impressed by my gallery because it was twice as long as the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Deep window niches were to filter the light, creating that pleasant effect I had seen in the Salle de Bal at the Palace of Fontainebleau.

As a whole, then it was to be a series of rooms done in a rich variety of materials and colour combinations, in all some seven hundred twenty-five feet long. Only then came Hitler’s reception hall. To be sure, it was architecture that revealed in ostentation and aimed at startling effects. But that sort of thing existed in the baroque period, too-it has always existed.

57.

“On the long walk from the entrance to the reception hall they’ll get a taste of the power and grandeur of the German Reich!”

Adolf Hitler

58.

The Reich Cahncellery

59.

EMPIRE STYLE 60.

61.

Hitler’s favorite project was our model city, which was set up in the former exhibition rooms of the Berlin Academy of Arts. In order to reach it undisturbed,he had doors installed in the walls between the Chancellery and our building and a communicating path laid out. Sometimes he invited the supper guests to our studio. We would set out armed with flashlights and keys. In the empty halls, spotlights illuminated the models. There was no need for me to do the talking, for Hitler, with Hashing eyes, explained every single detail to his companions. There was keen excitement when a new model was set up and illuminated by brilliant spots from the direction in which the sun would fall on the actual buildings. Most of these models were made on a scale of 1: 50; cabinetmakers reproduced every small detail, and the wood was painted to simulate the materials that would actually be used. In this way whole sections of the grand new avenue were gradually put together, and we could have a three-dimensional impression of the building intended to be a reality in a decade. This model street went on for about a hundred feet through the former exhibition rooms of the Academy of Arts.

Hitler was particularly excited over a large model of the grand boulevard on a scale of 1: 1000. He loved to “enter his avenue” at various points and take measure of the future effect. For example, he assumed the point of view of a traveller emerging from the south station or admired the great hall as it looked from the heart of the avenue. To do so, he bent down, almost kneeling, his eye an inch or so above the level of the model, in order to have the right perspective, and while looking he spoke with unusual vivacity. These were the rare times when he relinquished his usual stiffness. In no other situation did I see him so lively, so spontaneous, so relaxed, whereas I myself, often tired and even after years never free of a trace of respectful constraint, usually remained taciturn.

62.

Hitler was particularly excited over a large model of the grand boulevard on a scale of 1: 1000. He loved to “enter his avenue” at various points and take measure of the future effect. For example, he assumed the point of view of a traveller emerging from the south station or admired the great hall as it looked from the heart of the avenue. To do so, he bent down, kneeling, his eye an inch or so above the level of the model, in order to have the right perspective and while looking he spoke with unusual vivacity. These were the rare times when he relinquished his usual stiffness. In no other situation did I see him so lively, so spontaneous, so relaxed, whereas I myself, often tired and even after years never free of a trace of respectful constraint, usually remained taciturn.

64.

DARK SID ARCHITE

DE OF ECTURE

65.

AUSCHWITZ -BIRKENAU

66.

67.

Few surviving buildings connote the horrors of the Holocaust more than the entrance Guard House at the gates of the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

This is no work of architecture as we usually think of it, that is, something aesthetic and worthy of analysis. Indeed, we are so familiar with this building that we really do not see it anymore. It appears on the covers of books, provides the opening shot of documentary films, and shows up in countless movies or works of art, not to mention survivor testimonies. We see it always as the stable, massive, and symbolic form it is. Yet, it is not only a static symbol—it is also a product in time, whose final form resulted from the many hands that constructed the building and who changed its meaning more often than we might think.

But while some of those involved were architects, we still think of this building as a marker of genocide, not as architecture.

Such a smooth separation of architecture from genocide, however, soon falls apart if we attend more closely to the building not as symbol but rather as process. What happens if we move our attention from the general significance of the building and think about its individual forms over time. Take the example of a particular detail, something that disrupts our attention to the form as a whole: a seam in the brickwork just to the right of the central tower as one approaches.

Once observed, it is hard not to notice it over and over again in the photographs.

This seam marks the building-as-process, a building not static. The addition of a new wing at this seam marks a rise in the ambitions of the SS in 1943, men who saw no contradiction between murdering more of Europe’s Jewish population and expanding the capacity to slowly work to death tens of thousands of others.

Marker of genocide

FORCED LABOUR

70.

71.

This institutional perspective on the perpetrators is not the whole story. For it too had to be constructed. Bricks and mortar had to be brought to the site, foundations dug, and pipes laid. Site foremen consulted plans and adapted orders. And finally, this building had to be coordinated with the hundreds of others under construction at the same camp both to make room for more forced laborers and to accommodate the SS, for example by adding a matching entrance pavilion to the new SS housing facility just down the road. The bricklayers also attended to detail, for example aligning the bevelled cornice of three diagonally placed rows of brick to establish unity with the previous structure. All of this work was accomplished using forced labour. We cannot lose site of the fact that the building represents not only the plans of perpetrators but also the activity of victims; it embodies their oppression or, occasionally, their acts of survival. From the generation of designs to the coordination of construction to the hauling of materials to the laying of bricks, the building process was one in which the goals of the SS intersected with victims’ experience. These groups had different understandings of this grotesque site, but it was here, in space, at this seam, that we see the evidence of how individual histories and architectural ambitions converged in 1943.

In tandem with its transformation into a killing canter, the economic significance of the Auschwitz camp complex also grew.

The massive I. G. Farben factory was never completed, but thousands of prisoners were involved in its construction over the years.

In addition, other factories were set up at Auschwitz for different products. Additional factories and workshops were built near the camps and prisoners were sent to work in them. Auschwitz also served as the canter for collection and distribution of forced laborers to all areas of German industry.

The largest allocation of Auschwitz prisoners was made in the spring of 1944, when some 100,000 prisoners from the Auschwitz complex were transferred to the German aircraft industry.

72.

Buildings represents not only the plans of perpetrators but also the activity of victims; it embodies their oppression and their acts of survival.

73.

GAS CHAMBERS 74.

75.

Shortly after construction had begun at Birkenau, the decision was made to change its designation, and turn it into an extermination camp. They repurposed the morgues into gas chambers. Gas chambers require different design elements than morgues, so the architects redesigned the doors. They removed handles from the inside and installed latches to lock them from the outside. That way, prisoners could be trapped inside, and only the guards could open and close the doors. The hinges were adjusted and repositioned to swing the doors outward, so that they could be opened even with 2,000 corpses crushed against them. A peephole allowed SS guards to see that everyone inside was dead before entering the room to dispose of the corpses.

They screened the peephole with steel mesh on the inside so panicking victims could not break the glass.

The first experiments with gas were carried out in the main camp in the fall of 1941, and in the light of their success, the SS decided to build four permanent installations in Birkenau, for the specific purpose of gassing people to death. The construction began in 1942, directed by the Topf and Sons company, supervised by the SS. As a stopgap measure until the installations were completed, the Germans converted existing buildings to erect two makeshift gas chambers next to the camp.

The four extermination installations started operating in 1943. They each included an undressing room and a gas chamber, both underground, and a crematorium for incinerating the bodies of the murdered.

These facilities made the murder of the Jews a far more efficient process.

76.

An early blueprint of Crematorium II, Birkenau, 1941

77.

78.

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Gas chamber door at Auschwitz, 1944

80.

MODERN DAY

81.

UYGHUR GENOCIDE 82.

83.

The government of China is perpetrating human rights abuses on a massive scale in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region), known to local people as East Turkistan, targeting the Uyghur population and other Turkic and Muslim-majority peoples on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. These abuses include arbitrary mass detention of an estimated range of 1 million to 1.8 million people and a program to “cleanse” ethnic minorities of their “extremist” thoughts through re-education and forced labour.

This involves both detainee labour inside internment camps and multiple forms of involuntary labour at workplaces across the region and even in other parts of China.

UN human rights experts have raised concerns that “these ‘centres’, due to their coercive character, amount to detention centres”, and taken note of “increasing practices of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, absence of judicial oversight and procedural safeguards and restrictions of ...[fundamental freedoms] within an increasingly securitized environment, particularly for designated minorities, notably Uyghurs [...]”.

These repressive policies—which human rights practitioners have deemed likely “crimes against humanity”—are bolstered by a pervasive, technology-enabled system of surveillance. United Nations (UN) antidiscrimination experts have called this system “alarming”, based on reports of practices “disproportionately targeting ethnic Uighurs, [sic] such as frequent baseless police stops and the scanning of mobile phones at police checkpoint stations; additional reports have been received of the mandatory collection of extensive biometric data in the Xinjiang Uighur [sic] Autonomous Region, including DNA samples and iris scans, of large groups of Uighur residents”.

84.

Drone footage of Uyghur Muslims being transferred to “re-education centres”

CRIME AGAINS

ST HUMANITY

85.

Aerial photograph of one of the many Xinjiang interment camps

FORCED LABOUR 88.

89.

The Chinese government is also transporting Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim majority to other parts of China, where they are working in factories under conditions that strongly indicate forced labour. Reports in 2020 revealed that the forced labour of Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim-majority peoples has been expanded beyond the Uyghur Region, with at least 80,000 Uyghurs or other Turkic and Muslim-majority peoples transferred to factories across China where they cannot leave, are under constant surveillance, and must undergo “ideological training” to abandon their religion and culture. Recent video evidence shows that some of these transfers occurred earlier this year, when much of China was under lockdown as a result of the expanding COVID-19 outbreak.

This means these labourers were forced to work and exposed to the virus while much of the country’s population sheltered at home.

There is grave risk that brands across sectors are benefiting from human rights violations including forced labour, both in and from the Uyghur Region. This is especially true in the apparel and garment sector, which has been the focus of the majority of forced labour investigations in the region. More than 80 percent of China’s cotton is grown in the Uyghur Region, approaching almost 20 percent of global production. There is also extensive yarn spinning, as well as textile and garment production. Fabric made with cotton or yarn from the Uyghur Region is used by apparel factories across China and across the world. Almost every major apparel brand and retailer selling cotton products is potentially implicated.

Forced labour in cotton fields and textile factories

Corporations must prevent the use of forced labour in facilities elsewhere that use workers forcibly transferred from the Uyghur Region.

92.

Amidst the horror unfolding in the Uyghur Region, which is compounded by the concerns for the health of workers who are likely working in substandard conditions during the global COVID-19 pandemic, the only way corporations can ensure they are not unwittingly bolstering the government’s repression is, therefore, to fully extricate their supply chains from the Uyghur Region.

Further, corporations must prevent the use of forced labour in facilities elsewhere that use workers forcibly transferred from the Uyghur Region, including by ending relationships. Companies must take these steps in order to maintain compliance with laws in the United States, Europe, and other jurisdictions prohibiting the import of goods made with forced labour and mandating human rights due diligence and in order to meet the corporate responsibility to respect human rights as defined by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Footwear and Garment Sector. Both the UN Guiding Principles (Principle 19) and OECD Due Diligence Guidance (3.2.5) note businesses should end or disengage from business relationships where prevention or mitigation of harm is not possible by other means.

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GROWING PRALLELS 94.

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SLELLARP GNIWORG

The Nazi Party and Modern day Chinese Communist Party

Nuremberg Rally and police rally in Xinjiang

Reich Chancellery and Great Hall of the People in Beijing

Aerial photograph of Auschwitz concentration camp and Xinjiang “re-education camp”

Wired fence at Auschwitz concentration camp and Xinjiang “re-education camp”

Persecution of the Jewish people and Uyghur Muslims

108.

Speer, Albert, Richard Winston, Clara Winston, Eugene Davidson, and Albert Speer. Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs.

1970. Print.

Jaskot, B., Paul. The Architecture of Opression, The SS, forced labour and the Nazi monumental building economy.

Psychology Press, 2000. Print.

Antoszczyszyn, Marek. Manipulations of Totalitarian Nazi Architecture. IOP Conf.

Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 245 052062. 2017. https://iopscience.iop.org/ article/10.1088/1757-899X/245/5/052062/pdf Barbara Miller Lane, Architects in Power: Politics and Ideology in the Work of Ernst May and Albert Speer. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17: 283310. doi: 10.2307/204134. 1986. https:// repository.brynmawr.edu/cgi/viewcontent cgi?article=1002&context=cities_pubs

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2020. Web. https://enduyghurforcedlabour. org/wp-content/uploads/sites/44/Call-toAction-on-Human-Rights-Abuses-in-theUyghur-Region-October-2020.pdf Gupta, Manoj. China’s Genocide on Uyghurs: Ethnicity in Danger. SAMRIDDHI Volume 12, Issue 2. 2020. Web. https://smsjournals.com/index.php/ SAMRIDDHI/article/view/2075 China’s secret internment camps.

Youtube. Uploaded by Vox. May 7, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=cMkHcZ5IwjU&t=352s Xinjiang: China’s Muslim minorities.

Youtube. Uploaded by DW Documentary.

Feb 15, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=XZP93IEudag&t=592s

“Architecture will bear powerful witness to the strength of the new German phenomenon”

— Adolf Hitler