The greatest architectural dream of the Third Reich was the Volkshalle, also called the Großehalle (“Great Hall”) or Ruhmeshalle (“Hall of Fame”). “People’s Hall”, while a literal translation of Volkshalle, fails to convey the racial subtleties of the word völkisch. “Folkish” defines an organically cohesive community (in German, a Volksgemeinschaft), pure and unpolluted by contamination with alien mixing, but rooted in the soil of a culturally united people. The Volkshalle, therefore, was meant to metaphorically embrace the entire Aryan people under its colossal dome. This symbolism was made clear in the statue of an eagle grasping a globe atop the great dome signifying the sky. Critics have tried to twist its original conception, insisting that the Volkshalle was meant to celebrate Hitler’s world conquest. But they are contradicted by the very essence of the word völkisch, which, as explained earlier, celebrates one people only, and is as far removed from internationalism of any kind as conceivable. Moreover, the pan-Aryan idea is affirmed by two sculptures of Greek mythic figures, each 47 feet high, which flanked the north façade of the building. At its west end, Atlas up-held the heavens; on the east, Tellus supported the Earth. Both statues were chosen by Hitler himself. The Volkshalle signified the worldwide triumph of the National Socialist Idea, the global unity of Aryan mankind.

It was inspired by one of the Fuehrer’s favorite structures, the Pantheon begun by Emperor Hadrian, circa 130 A.D. Like his Roman predecessor, Hitler did live long enough to see its completion. Although his earliest known sketch for a German version of the domed structure dates back to 1925, he did not personally visit the Pantheon until May, 1938. "From the time I experienced this building,” he said, “no description, picture or photograph did it justice. I became interested in its history. For a short while, I stood in this space (the rotunda). What majesty! I gazed at the large open oculus, and saw the universe, and sensed what had given this space the name Pantheon: God and the world are one." His insight led to the grandest architectural conception of modern times and, had it been completed, would have ranked as one of the wonders of the world. Its dimensions were so large that it would have dwarfed every other structure in Berlin. The oculus of the dome, 140 feet in diameter, could have accommodated the entire rotunda of Hadrian's Pantheon and the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. The Volkshalle dome, 750 feet across, was to rise from a massive granite podium 950 by 950 feet and 225 feet high, to a total inclusive height of 870 feet. A large niche at the north end of the Volkshalle was supposed to be surfaced with gold mosaic, and to enclose an eagle 75 feet high with its dimensions of 150 feet high by 60 feet wide. The hall would accommodate an audience of 180,000 persons, some standing in the central round arena, others seated in three concentric tiers of seats crowned by 100 marble pillars 75 feet high, which rose to meet the base of the coffered ceiling suspended from steel girders sheathed on the exterior with copper. The three concentric tiers of seats enclosing a circular arena 425 feet in diameter was modeled on Rome’s Colosseum.

The Fuehrer drafted the Volkshalle’s conception himself in great detail, assigning Albert Speer to take care of the physical details."Hitler believed that as centuries passed,” Speer later recalled, “his huge domed assembly hall would acquire great holy significance and become a hallowed shrine as important to National Socialism as St. Peters in Rome is to Roman Catholicism." Before the advent of war interrupted work on the People’s Hall, engineers built a Schwerbelastungskörper, or “heavy load-bearing device”, comprising 12,650 tons of concrete, as part of an early feasibility study. Although the 56 foot-tall a mushroom-shaped cylinder was as far as they got in their work on the Volkshalle, the revenge-crazed Allies, intent on obliterating every remnant of National Socialism, failed to eradicate the Schwerbelastungskörper. Their demolition explosives could not budge it from Berlin’s on Dudenstrasse, where it may still be seen. Also surviving are the colossal project’s architectural plans, together with a Third Reich-era model of the colossal structure, which appears in our poster under the words, in German: “The Gateway to the New Millennium”, when, National Socialists dream, Hitler’s Volkshalle and the triumph it represents may yet come into being.