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Failed Double-Barrel Cannon and Other Weapons That Absolutely Flopped

Khalid Elhassan November 14, 2021 36 min

Hitler’s proposed Volkshalle. Never Was Magazine

26. Hitler’s Fascination With Big Things

Adolf Hitler was obsessed with big things. The Fuhrer wanted to have the biggest battleship, ever. As seen below, he developed a fixation on and demanded that Germany field the world’s biggest tank. He wanted to transform Berlin into the world’s capital, and dreamt of a massive monumental domed building as its centerpiece. To be known as the Volkshalle (“People’s Hall”) or Ruhmeshalle (“Hall of Glory”), the project was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome – but a Pantheon on steroids.

The Pantheon’s dome has a diameter of 143 feet and rises 71 feet above its base for a total height of 141 feet. Hitler’s Volkshalle was to have a dome whose diameter measured 820 feet and rose 243 feet above its podium for a total height of 950 feet. It could seat 150,000 people, and their respiration in that enclosed space would condense in the dome and lead to rain. So with that track record of fascination with massive objects, it is perhaps no surprise that Hitler also wanted to have the world’s biggest gun, ever. Fortunately, the project failed.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.