Sept. 23, 1933 Frankfurt
Adolf Hitler broke ground for the construction of the motorway between Frankfurt am Main and Heidelberg.
Contrary to popular belief, the Autobahn was not a Nazi invention; the first plans for a German motorway date back to before the First World War. In 1932, the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, was responsible for the construction of a motorway between Bonn and Cologne.
Initially, the Nazis were opposed to the construction of motorways. They felt that motorways were a superfluous luxury - only for the amusement of the rich and of no use to the common people. But when they came to power, motorways became the symbol of the progress, employment, and prosperity promised by the Nazi regime. Before long, they were called the ‘streets of Adolf Hitler’ (‘die Straßen Adolf Hitlers’). Even so, the Nazis never built as many as they had planned, because the army and the war industry required ever more people.