Imagine a single wall of concrete rising across the Strait of Gibraltar, holding back the Atlantic while the Mediterranean slowly drained away, exposing thousands of square miles of brand-new land.
Few ideas capture the technological optimism of the postwar years as vividly as Atlantropa, and this compact book –Atlantropa in His Own Words: The Lost Interview with Herman Sörgel -makes a persuasive case for revisiting it. Its appeal lies in the simplicity of the pitch: dam the Strait of Gibraltar, let the Mediterranean fall, and watch Europe and Africa draw together as new land emerges and the great dams pour out power on an unprecedented scale.
The short overview gives enough context to make sense of Hermann Sörgel’s ambition without bogging the reader down, and it sets the stage well for the centrepiece, the full transcript of his 1952 interview with Ernst von Kuhren.
It is a real treat to hear the plan in his own words, point by point.
He is confident, detailed and utterly sincere, and he tackles the awkward questions head-on, from the fate of the Suez Canal to what would become of the port cities as the coastlines shifted.
What makes the transcript so compelling is the scale of the thinking. Whether you find the scheme visionary, fantastical or faintly unsettling, and its colonial assumptions deserve a critical eye, it is hard not to be gripped by the sheer audacity of a man proposing to redraw the map of two continents.
It is a quick read, but a rewarding one, and a valuable primary source for anyone curious about the history of engineering, utopian planning or the postwar imagination. Recommended.
