History has addressed the many wishful and often contradictory dreams within Nazi Germany’s polity pertaining to Europe’s future. Few survived the imperatives of war, but many of those that did caused devastating effects. The idea of a European New Order, central to this book—an ambiguous notion in the first place—crumbled as Adolf Hitler’s war fortunes disappeared.
Various disciplines have brought value added to the historical understanding of the Nazi endeavors and visions, including architecture. Stratigakos’ book elaborates the character and purpose of Nazi physical aesthetics and the Nazi assumption that technology complemented nature. By focusing on Norway, Stratigakos successfully explicates the utopian dreams of a society holding a privileged position in the Nazi racial hierarchy.
The short introduction neither assesses relevant scholarship nor raises an overall research question. Stratigakos describes the book’s purpose only indirectly—to show how “the physical conditions for a national socialist revolution in Norway would … involve...