Highways to the Reich

Highways to the Reich (Reichsautobahn), 1984/1986

West Germany, 35mm, 91’, Black & White, German

Though today highways have become part of everyday life, at the time of the National Socialist party a myth of the ‘highway as lifeline’ was created via the media and presented as an object of prestige and art rather than an infrastructure element. Among the film material produced by the Nazi regime, which Bitomsky examined while working on Images of Germany, the director encountered a vast amount of footage on the planning and construction of the highways and so, used these archive materials in his documentary to show how highways were stylized as symbols of development and modernity.