Friday, April 02, 2021

Germany - The Beautiful Travel Country

In 1936 the German Railways Information Bureau created and released a pictorial map of Germany, designed to promote tourism in Nazi Germany. In 1936 Germany hosted both the winter and summer Olympics. Adolf Hitler saw the games as a perfect opportunity to promote his twisted ideology, encompassing Aryan racial supremacy and antisemitism. The map 'Germany, the Beautiful Travel Country' mixes 'völkisch' scenes rooted in German rural life with pictures of vibrant industrial cities. Also portrayed on the map are a number of scenes of soldiers and people marching under Nazi flags. 

You can explore the 1936 map 'Germany, the Beautiful Travel Country' in close detail on the Butter or Canons interactive story map. Butter or Canons uses the map as the perfect backdrop for an examination of how and why the Nazi party rose to power in Germany. The map provides plenty of examples of the Nazi's "nostalgia for the rural Germany of yore where race-related fantasies thrive around theories linking blood and land".

As Butter of Canons progresses to tell of the horrific crimes carried out in Nazi Germany, particularly on the Jewish people, the map provides a jarring juxtaposition of the idealized myth of a Third Reich with the harsh reality of the totalitarian mass murder of large parts of the German population.

Butter or Canons was created by Tristan Landry, a professor of European history. Tristan explains (in French) on his blog how he created the Butter or Canons story map with the help of Leaflet.js and Waypoints. It looks to me as if the map also uses Jack Reed's Leaflet-IIIF plug-in as well (used to import the vintage 1936 map into the Leaflet.js interactive map library).

No comments: