{"product_id":"hitlers-northern-utopia-by-despina-stratigakos-9780691198217","title":"Hitler’s Northern Utopia","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fascinating untold story of how Nazi architects and planners envisioned and began to build a model 'Aryan' society in Norway during World War II. Between 1940 and 1945, German occupiers transformed Norway into a vast construction zone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis remarkable building campaign, largely unknown today, was designed to extend the Greater German Reich beyond the Arctic Circle and turn the Scandinavian country into a racial utopia. From ideal new cities to a scenic superhighway stretching from Berlin to northern Norway, plans to remake the country into a model \"Aryan\" society fired the imaginations of Hitler, his architect Albert Speer, and other Nazi leaders. In \u003cem\u003eHitler's Northern Utopia\u003c\/em\u003e, Despina Stratigakos provides the first major history of Nazi efforts to build a Nordic empire—one that they believed would improve their genetic stock and confirm their destiny as a new order of Vikings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDrawing on extraordinary unpublished diaries, photographs, and maps, as well as newspapers from the period, \u003cem\u003eHitler's Northern Utopia\u003c\/em\u003e tells the story of a broad range of completed and unrealized architectural and infrastructure projects far beyond the well-known German military defences built on Norway's Atlantic coast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese ventures included maternity centres, cultural and recreational facilities for German soldiers, and a plan to create quintessential National Socialist communities out of twenty-three towns damaged in the German invasion, an overhaul Norwegian architects were expected to lead. The most ambitious scheme—a German cultural capital and naval base—remained a closely guarded secret for fear of provoking Norwegian resistance. A gripping account of the rise of a Nazi landscape in occupied Norway, \u003cem\u003eHitler's Northern Utopia\u003c\/em\u003e reveals a haunting vision of what might have been—a world colonised under the swastika.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDrawing from a staggering trove of archival letters, maps, plans and diaries, Stratigakos's \u003cem\u003eHitler's Northern Utopia\u003c\/em\u003e gracefully juxtaposes the oppressor's dream with Norway's brutal reality as she examines the country's occupation and the labour force that worked on building the Nazi fantasy state that never was.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e - Lucy Tiven, \u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAs well as being a fascinating account of an unfamiliar but important aspect of the Second World War, this book is an exemplary model of scholarship... It is a remarkable achievement, compelling in its originality and fascination, and a vital addition to the huge literature on the most horrific war in modern history.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e - Simon Heffer, \u003cem\u003eThe Telegraph\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA fascinating archival study, \u003cem\u003eHitler's Northern Utopia\u003c\/em\u003e is the result of meticulous sleuthing through newspapers and old documents written in three different languages.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e - Johanne Elster Hanson, \u003cem\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"NewSouth Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47558927089900,"sku":"9780691198217","price":86.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691198217-hitler-s-northern-utopia.jpg?v=1776922787","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/hitlers-northern-utopia-by-despina-stratigakos-9780691198217","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}