Once, in the prehistoric era, Africa and Eurasia were together - they were part of a single supercontinent Pangea. In addition to them, it included almost all the land on the planet. At present, Eurasia and Africa are two different continents, while at some points they are close to each other. There are futurological studies that predict the merger of both continents again into a single entity.
However, in recent history there have been projects for the artificial unification of these continents. In this case, we will talk about the Atlantrop project, which was developed by the German architect of the first half of the twentieth century, Hermann Sörgel.
Atlantropa is a project developed by German architect Hermann Sörgel. Shot from the series * The Man in the High Castle *.
It all started in the era of modernism, which presupposed the accomplishment of real feats in science, technology and art, a radical reorganization of the surrounding world. In the twenties, Sörgel, imbued with these ideas, conceived his project. First of all, he proposed blocking the Strait of Gibraltar with a huge dam, on which it would be possible to install a hydroelectric power station.
According to the project, a 400-meter tower was to be located on the dam.
On the same dam a huge tower 400 meters high was supposed to appear, which would signify the greatness of man in general and the feat of joining continents in particular. The dam would lower the water level in the Mediterranean. The Europeans would receive new arable land, as well as the possibility of moving to a neighboring continent. In addition to this main dam, additional ones had to be built - across the Dardanelles, between Tunisia and Sicily. A separate dam was to block the Congo River and form a huge lake.
Atlantrop project.
Then Zörgel planned to begin the European colonization of Africa. Artificial irrigation techniques would turn the Sahara into a real garden. Here, the Europeans, who moved to the African part of the new supercontinent, would establish settlements and develop an extensive economy. According to the architect, Europeans should have come to Africa in the millions.
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The rise to power in Germany of the Nazis did not stop Sörgel, but only instilled in him new hope. Nazi ideologists themselves proposed a lot of crazy, simply schizophrenic projects, in comparison with which Sörgel's proposal looked even somewhat more plausible. He hoped that the idea of colonizing Africa would interest the "true Aryans". Even in his book on Atlantropus, he quoted Hitler. However, Zörgel miscalculated: the Nazis were interested in completely different plans, and they did not listen to his opinion.
Zörgel died shortly after the fall of the Nazi regime - in 1952. He never realized his grandiose ideas. However, the memory of him was not completely erased. For example, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the film Star Trek, knew about this story; one of the fragments of the film shows how Gibraltar is blocked by a huge dam.
