Pabst Plan

The Pabst Plan (German: Neue deutsche Stadt Warschau, lit. 'New German city of Warsaw') was an urban plan by Nazi Germany to reconstruct the city of Warsaw as a Nazi model city. Named after its creator Friedrich Pabst, the Nazis' "Chief Architect for Warsaw", the plan assumed that Warsaw, the historical capital of Poland and a city of 1.5 million inhabitants, would be completely destroyed and rebuilt as a small German town of not more than 130,000 inhabitants. In modern historical works the term is used to denote any of the German World War II plans concerning the destruction and reconstruction of Warsaw. In particular the "Pabst Plan" refers to a plan prepared by Hubert Gross and Otto Nurnberger in 1940 and another plan, prepared by Pabst himself in 1942. Both plans envisioned the destruction of most of Warsaw with its historical monuments and residential areas. In its place a new model city was to be created as a seat for the German ruling class of the occupied Polish territories. It was to house a large Parteivolkshalle ("People's Party Hall") in place of the Royal Castle in Warsaw and serve as a major transportation hub. After the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the Germans decided to simply destroy the city in its entirety as an act of vengeance.