Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Ben Sonnenberg
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S iKELETON IN
UTAH'S CLOSET
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BERLIN'S MOST FAR-FLUNG, secretand orphan admire thedecrepit,one-lane bridge thatcrosses
suburbsits in the saltbushdesert aboutninetymiles a swampy patch in Baker Area, not far from
southwest of Salt Lake City. "German Village, " as it thecontroversialbio-warfarelabwhere theArmy
isofficially labeledon declassifiedmaps of theU.S. tinkerswith andromedastrains,guardedby a
Army'sDugwayProvingGround, is the remnantof doubleperimeterof razorwire.GermanVillage is
amuch larger,German-Japanesecomposite "doom a dozen or so miles further west, in a sprawling
town"constructedbyStandardOil in I943.Dugway maze ofmysterious test sites and targetareas that
played a crucial role in the New Deal's last great Dugway's commander is reluctantto includeon
publicworks project:the incinerationof cities in thevisitor itinerary.
He relentedonlywhen we
easternGermanyand Japan. convincedhis press office that theVillage had an
Two years ago, the Army allowed me to tour importantaestheticaura thatmight enhance
GermanVillage brieflywith a dozen of my students "baseheritage":itwas designed byone of
from theSouthernCaliforniaInstituteof Modernism's gods, theGerman-Jewisharchitect
Architecture.Dugway is slighdybigger thanRhode EricMendelsohn.
Islandandmore toxicallycontaminatedthan the
NuclearTest Site innearbyNevada.As thedevil's BurningBerlin'sRedDistricts
own laboratoryfor threegenerationsof U.S. In I943, theChemicalWarfareCorps secretly
chemical, incendiary,and biologicalweapons, ithas recruitedMendelsohn toworkwith StandardOil
alwaysbeen shrouded inofficial secrecyandCold engineers tocreateaminiatureHohenzollem slum
Warmyth. A recent threatof base restructuring, in theUtah desert.Nothing in theappearanceof
however, has prompted the Army tomount a small the survivingstructure-a double tenementblock
public relationscampaignonDugway's behalf known asBuilding 8ioo-identifies itas the
Since napalm, botulism and binary nerve gas are not productof the samehand thatdesigned such
conventionaltouristattractions,theProving landmarksofWeimarBerlin as theofficesof the
Ground insteadadvertisesitspreservationof an BerlinerTageblatt,theColumbushaus, theSternefeld
original sectionof theLincolnHighway.Most villa inCharlottenburg,or theWoga Complex on
visitors arepioneeringmotorists who come to theKurfiirstendamm.Absolute "typicality"in all
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MIKE DAVIS
aspectsoflayout and constructionwas what the attention toensuring that the frames (madewith
ChemicalWarfareCorpswanted. Theywere ina authenticwoods, importedfromas farawayas
hurry.Despite thehorrifyingsuccessof their Murmansk) duplicated theaging and specific
thousand-bomberfireraidsagainstCologne and densityof olderGerman construction.When the
Hamburg inmid-I943, theAllieswere increasingly fireexpertsobjected thatDugway's climatewas too
frustratedby theirinabilityto ignitea firestormin arid, theirStandardOil counterpartscontrivedto
theReich capital.Their top science advisersurged a keep the levelofwood moisture accuratebyhaving
crashprogramof incendiaryexperimentationon GIs regularly"water"the target,to simulate
exact replicasofworking-class housing. (The Prussian rain.
design and constructionprocesseswere planned to The interiorfurnishing,meanwhile,was
dovetailwith secret researchon the flammabilityof subcontractedtoRKORadioPictures'Authenticity
Japanesehomes.) Only theUnited States-or, Division, thewizards behindCitizenKane.Using
rather,thecombined forcesof Hollywood and the German-trainedcraftsmen, theyduplicatedthe
oil industry-had the resourcestocomplete the cheapbut heavyfurniturethatwas thedowryof
assignment ina fewmonths. Berlin's proletarianhouseholds.German linenwas
Mendelsohn's achievementwas theanonymityof carefullystudied toensure the typicalityof bed
his result:six iterationsof the steeplygabled brick coveringsand drapes.While theauthenticators
tenements-Mietskasernen, or rentbarracks-that debateddetailswithMendelsohn and the fire
made theRed districtsof Berlin thedensest slums engineers, theconstructionprocesswas secretly
inEurope.Threeof theapartmentblocks had tileon acceleratedby thewholesale conscriptionof
batten roofs, characteristicsof Berlin construction, inmatesfrom theUtah StatePrison. It took them
while theother threehad slateover sheathing only forty-fourdays tocompleteGermanVillage
roofs,more commonly found in the factorycities and its Japanesecounterpart(twelvedouble
of the Ruhr. Although not as tall as their seven-story apartmentsfullyfurnishedwith hinoki and tatami).
counterpartsinWedding orKreuzberg, the test The entirecomplexwas then firebombedand
structureswere otherwiseastonishingly completelyreconstructedat least threetimes
precise simulacra. between May and September of I943.
Before drawinganyblueprints,Mendelsohn Mendelsohn's secretsignatureonGerman
exhaustively researched the roof area-a critical Village is rich in irony.Likeallof his progressive
incendiaryparameter-of targetneighborhoods in Weimar contemporaries,he had a deep interestin
Berlin and other industrialcities.His datawas housing reformand thecreationof a neue Wohnkultur
"iextended and confirmed,"reportedtheStandard (newcultureof living).Yet, as his biographershave
Oil Development Company, "by amember of the noted, he was never involved in the big social
HarvardArchitectureSchool, an expertonGerman housing competitionsorganizedby theSocial
wooden framebuilding construction."(Couldit Democrats in the late I920s, which were such
havebeenWalterGropius?)The builders,working crucial showcases for the urbanist ideas of the
with fireprotectionengineers, gave extraordinary emergentmodernmovement. His absencewas
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aircrewswere shot out of the skyeverynight, an bombing ofWedding and its redsister,Pankow.
unsustainablesacrificeforBomberCommand. One and a halfmillion Berlinersweremade
Moreover, despite terribledamage to the slums, the homeless, but industrialoutput, again, quickly
realmachineryof power and production inBerlin rebounded.
remainedremarkably undamaged.Strategic
bombing analystsmarveled at theabilityof thecity's OperationThunderclap
industries"toproducewarmaterial in scarcely Roosevelt had thus far in the war reconciled the
diminishedquantitiesalmost up to theend." divergentphilosophies of strategicbombing by
Goebbels cunninglyshifted theparametersof accepting,at the I943CasablancaConference, the
theAllies' calculusof German suffering.More than British conceptof aCombinedBomberOffensive
onemillion nonessential civilians,especially "toundermine themorale of theGerman people,"
children,were sent into thecountryside,while while at the same timepreservingtheArmyAir
hundredsof thousandsof Russian andPolish Force's tacticaloption fordaylight,precision
prisonersofwarwere moved directlyunderAllied targets.AfterHidlerretaliatedforD-Daywith his V-i
bombsights.While Hitlerwas throwingtantrumsin and thenV-2 attackson London, thiscompromise
his bunker,Goebbelswas holding stirringrallies in becameuntenable. Indeed,Churchill's initial
the ruins,harvestingpopulist angerproducedby the reactiontoGermany's secretweapons was to
carpetbombing ofworking-class neighborhoods. demandpoison gas attacksorworse on Berlin: "It is
At the same time,hemassively reinforcedhis absurd toconsidermorality on this topic,"he
sprawlingnetworkof surveillanceand terror hectoredRAFplanners in earlyJuly."Iwant the
ensuring thatany seedof discontentwould be matter studied incold blood by sensiblepeople, and
promptlydestroyedbefore itcould germinate into not bypsalm-singing, uniformeddefeatists."
a largerconspiracy.TheBritish,meanwhile, As BartonBernsteinhas shown,Churchillasked
were seeminglyoblivious to thepossibility that Roosevelt to speed up the delivery of five hundred
"moralebombing"was actuallystrengthening thousandtop-secret"N-bombs"containingdeadly
the Nazi state. anthrax,which had been developedatDugway's
Indeed, theRAFclungwith strikingfanaticism GranitePeakcomplex.The RAF,writes Bernstein,
to its flawedparadigm.Harris convincedChurchill "was putting together a plan for the use of anthrax
that "we can [still] wreck Berlin from end to end if against sixGerman cities:Berlin,Hamburg,
the U.S. Air Force will come in on it." In thewinter Stuttgart,Frankfurt,Aachen, andWilhelmshafen.
and spring of I944, as the sensational new long The expectation was that forty thousand of the 500
rangefightersbegan togiveAmericanB-I7s pound projectiles,containingabout4.25million
unprecedentedprotectionovereasternGermany, four-poundbombs,would kill at leasthalf the
theEighthAir Force,while still theoretically population by inhalation, and many more would die
selectingonlyprecision targets,joinedBritish area laterthroughskin absorption.
bombers in a series of thousand-plane raids on Poison gas and anthrax were too much for the
Berlin,predictablyculminatingwith a second carpet White House, butRoosevelt passionatelywanted to
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