Strasse, Bahn, Panorama: Verkehrswege und Landschaftsveranderung in Deutschland von 1930 bis 1990 (review)

For a long time transport history was devoted to particular modes and not much concerned with the environmental changes associated with the building of new infrastructure. Neither was transport among environmental history's principal concerns. Now, Thomas Zeller combines both disciplines and integrates them into the history of technology. By concentrating on the relationship between transport and landscape, his book analyzes how motorways and high-speed railways changed the natural environment in Germany. At the same time, he contributes substantially to ongoing debates about the history of German motorways (Autobahn) during the Nazi period. He also develops a new field of research by extending his studies into the period after World War II, concentrating not only on the motorways built in the 1950s and 1960s but also on the new high-speed rail lines of the 1980s.

In the first part of his book, Zeller expertly explores "landscape" in its different shapes and meanings. He develops this as an analytic tool through an excellent discussion of the term's various theoretical approaches, drawn from a range of disciplines. In the second part, he goes on to show that although the idea of the Autobahn emerged in the 1920s, it flourished only after the Nazis took over. Landscape architects and road engineers struggled for influence and power, bringing together previously separate dialogues over Autobahn and landscape. "Landscape" was most important for the Autobahn project, because the fusion of the two terms allowed the Nazis to present motorways as a project to enhance the scope and prestige of German technology. In this way the Nazis proposed to modernize both the economy and society while simultaneously avoiding negative side effects. Zeller reveals how different groups of engineers, architects, consultants, conservationists, and politicians shaped the process of integrating the technology of motorways into the landscape without destroying it, keeping landscape's "German" origins.

The third part of the book shows how motorways in Germany fundamentally changed their meaning between 1930 and 1970. After World War II, traffic engineers emphasized mathematical and geometrical methods in an attempt to gain status and demonstrate their modern approach, and to disassociate themselves from "Hitler's roads." Understandably, they avoided mentioning the symbolic significance that motorways had had for the Nazis. Instead, they stressed rational continuity and attacked the concept of roads aesthetically integrated into landscape as a romantic "Sonderweg" (special path). Landscape architects had no influence on the design of roads; they could only plant "greenery" alongside. Motorways should no longer provide panoramic views but function only as efficient facilities for moving traffic. Zeller impressively shows how politicians and other public-interest groups in the 1960s adopted this rhetoric and rejected demands for the naturalistic integration of roads into the landscape, calling this inappropriate to the construction of effective modern roads. This perception only changed in the late 1970s and 1980s, when nature again gained in importance.

In the fourth part of his book, Zeller analyzes how the "Shinkansen shock" provoked new plans for high-speed trains in West Germany during the 1960s, though it was only in 1984 that the German Federal Railway decided to build a high-speed network. Rights-of-way were designed by analogy with motorways, where new infrastructure had guaranteed the success of this traffic mode. Interestingly, the minister of transport demanded new lines for both passenger and freight trains, but in the wake of the oil-price crisis plans shrank to a small network for passengers only. In contrast to the example of motorways, civic-action groups heavily criticized the plans for high-speed trains, raising the specter of noise (Verlärmung) and a loss of "Kulturlandschaft." Their protests led to extensive tunneling, deep cuts, and noise barriers—even to route changes.

Straße, Bahn, Panorama shows how, between the 1930s and the 1980s, the perception of landscape changed from the ideal of "untouched nature" designed for motorists' enjoyment to developed and cultivated land that...