Hitler was confident of winning World War II and planned to give Berlin a monumental makeover by 1950.
Hitler never liked Berlin. He saw it as a dirty, liberal-minded place and was disdainful of its leftist political leanings. But he had an idea for fixing it after World War II came to an end. His famous vision of Berlin for 1950 -- planned in detail by his architect, Albert Speer -- was a grand Fascist city called "Germania".
The Volkshalle, a gargantuan domed auditorium that Speer imagined rising over the River Spree. The Volkshalle dome would have risen 290 meters (951 feet) into the air, higher than some New York skyscrapers.
His Volkshalle was modelled on Hadrian's Pantheon in Rome, and in 1942 he said, "Berlin will be comparable as a world capital only to Egypt, Babylon or Rome. What is London or Paris in comparison?"