The
Reichsausstellung Schaffendes Volk (The Reich's Exhibition of a Productive
People) of 1937 was held in today's North Park district of Düsseldorf,
Germany, along one mile of the Rhine shoreline. It was opened on May 8, 1937 by
Hermann Göring. Through October of the same year it attracted about six million
visitors.
Originally
planned as an exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbung it finally turned into a
rival to the 1937 International Exposition of Modern Life in Paris. The
exhibition was meant to showcase the domestic accomplishments of the National
Socialists in new housing, art, and science and to prepare the German people
for the upcoming four-year plan which aimed at German autarky in (natural)
resources. The fair's director was Dr. Ernst Poensgen.
The
exhibition was laid out in four main divisions:
- industry and economics
- land utilization and city
planning
- material progress (with an
emphasis on progress in synthetics/ersatz products)
- arts and culture.
Through
the publicity efforts of its CEO, Max Keith, a functioning Coca-Cola GmbH
bottling plant stood at the center of the fairgrounds, with a miniature train
for children, and immediately adjacent to the Propaganda Office.
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