Auto(im)mobile Infrastructures in West Germany and Western Europe in the Great Acceleration

Mass motorisation from the mid-20th century onwards triggered a profound social and spatial transformation. In the wake of this phenomenon, known as the “Great Acceleration”, between 1950 and 2000, production, traffic flows and the circulation of goods were accelerated, intensified and interconnected to an unprecedented degree. The car became a central driver of this transformation. The automotive infrastructure created for this purpose – such as bypasses, petrol stations, parking lots and bridges – formed the immobile backbone of a system of motorised transport and logistics that continues to have an impact to this day. It not only shaped logistical and individual patterns of movement and forms of social interaction, but also physically transformed cities and landscapes, for example through land sealing, right-of-way corridors or interventions in spatial structures and neighborhoods.

The research project examines the history of these infrastructural foundations within the system of energy-intensive car societies across four sub-projects. Against the backdrop of ongoing debates on the mobility transition, the sub-projects focus in particular on the historical interplay between physical infrastructure, ecological considerations and integration into everyday life.
Funded by the Leibniz Association under the “Cooperative Excellence” funding line, the project will be carried out from 2026 onwards under the leadership of the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam (ZZF) and in collaboration with the Berlin Social Science Centre (WZB), the Technical University of Berlin and the IRS. Three sub-projects, on the history of bypass roads, petrol stations and car parks, are based at the ZZF and are supervised by Prof. Dr Rüdiger Graf and Prof. Dr Christopher Neumaier.

The sub-project based at the IRS, led by Prof. Dr. Kerstin Brückweh, examines bridges at the interface of mobility, logistics and spatial production. Taking the Elbe bridges in Hamburg as a starting point – which, in addition to the logistical integration of the port, ensured motorized transport – they are not understood solely as technical structures. As infrastructural hubs, they bring together supra-regional interconnections, trade relations, commercial and private transport, as well as the dynamics of local spatial production. The research explores the extent to which bridges exist within the context of overarching transport and trade policies, shape the landscape, and thus became focal points for social conflicts and environmental protests. The focus is on the political and economic objectives of their expansion in the 1960s and 1970s, the associated global and local structural changes in logistics and trade, as well as the social, cultural, spatial and ecological impacts on the Elbe island. In this way, bridges are analyzed as an emblematic expression of an automotive modernity that promised connectivity and prosperity, yet simultaneously gave rise to dependencies, environmental burdens and social conflicts.