Hi,
I’m aware that the Olympic torch relay in the prelude to an Olympic event is of Nazi origin. I also read somewhere that the Eurovision Song contest was Goebbels’s idea or at least has its origins in Nazi Germany(not sure about how true that is). Can anyone think of any other benign ideas/concepts originating in Nazi Germany? I look forward to your feedback.
I’m not sure whether the idea of criss-crossing a country with Autobahnen/highways to make remote areas accessible from any part of the country was necessarily an Nazi idea. The Romans presumably had the same idea.
There is always the Volkswagen beetle.
The innovation there was in the design and engineering of the Autobahns. They enabled faster travel at safer speeds by reducing curves and grades, improving sight lines, including medians, etc.
Hitler saw really good highways as very important to his Big Plans for Germany, and so they pioneered the modern highway. We based the design of our Interstates on the design of Hitler’s highways.
So yep, I’d say the Nazis get a point for modern highways.
The Nazis laid the groundwork for Germany’s labor law and the tenancy law which to this day is very favorable to workers and tenants respectively, i. e. the “common man”. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, one of the first measures by the newly appointed Minister of the Interior, Hermann Göring, was a decree that made eviction judgements temporarily unenforcible, thus saving many destitute families from homelessness.
The juvenile criminal law was progressive even by modern standards by putting an emphasis on education and reform, rather than punishment and locking kids away (this is a development that started before the Nazis took over, though).
In 1941, old age pensioners in Germany were included in the health insurance system (almost a quarter-century before Medicare in the U. S.).
Keep in mind, though, that these social goodies were also paid for with money stolen from Jews who had been driven out of the country or murdered.
The idea didn’t originate in Nazi Germany, but the Nazis had a notable early antismoking campaign that paralleled the ones that came out in the English speaking world 50 years later.
It is not really benign per se because it is a weapon of war (though it is not racist or anything like that), but the modern jet fighter was developed by the Nazis.
Fahrvergnugen.
From the wiki
[Universal health insurance for workers](The Nazi regime promoted a liberal code of conduct regarding sexual matters, and was sympathetic to women who bore children out of wedlock)
Non-judgmental about out of wedlock births and sexually liberal if you were heterosexual
Progressive public health programs
Support for single mothers
Big on environmentalism and nature preserves
Leni Riefenstahl brought an artist and dancer’s viewpoint to documentary filmmaking. Dismissed as a propagandist, she elevated the medium beyond the then-popular newsreels.
Instant coffee - you may sneer at it, but I use a lot.
But is it a positive or negative point?
Well this thread seems to have turned into just “stuff that was invented in Germany while the Nazi’s were in power” rather than stuff which was actual Nazi policy or a product of the government.
So in that case heres the Z1 computer. The first freely programmable computer in the world which used Boolean logic and binary floating point numbers.
The later Z3 was the world’s first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer.
Not funded by the government or used in the war effort (they didn’t see the applications of it…).
The Englishman Frank Whittle invented the jet engine.
The Germans were the first to put a jet fighter into service, but only by a few months.
Kindergarten?
The term kindergarten originated in 1837 and the concept of a pre-elementary school goes back even further. The first kindergartens in the US were established in the 1850s.
