Although the construction of a national highway network made the Third Reich less unpopular, this decrease in unpopularity owes a good deal to Fascist dishonesty:

The fact that Autobahn-like highways had already been in general use, both domestically and abroad, long before the [Fascists] ever came to power in Germany has been adequately demonstrated at the beginning of this article. These historical facts, however, seemed to diminish the effectiveness of [Fascist] propaganda surrounding the Autobahn construction, since after all this great project of Reich Chancellor Hitler would appear as merely a copy or, at best, a continuation of already long-established projects.

In order to be able to emphasize the outstanding position of the Reich Chancellor, the Führer [leader] of all Germans, and especially his unique genius, it was not enough for the Reichsautobahn project to be mentioned merely as another point in the long history of highway construction. Rather, various means were to be used to try to portray [the Third Reich’s] Reichsautobahn as an outstanding monumental project, unprecedented anywhere in the world, and in this process to elevate Adolf Hitler as its sole, G-d-given ingenious mastermind.

One of the measures to let Hitler be seen — especially in his perception on the part of the German people — as the “true inventor” of the Autobahn was the subsequent creation of falsified historical facts. Since genuine historical facts, such as the construction and use of foreign highways like the [Fascist] Autostrada could hardly be erased from the history books as well as from the memory of the people, historical facts now had to be invented in retrospect, which were supposed to prove that Hitler had already thought up concrete ideas and plans long before others had begun their (historically secured) planning in this regard.

Especially the time period of Hitler’s imprisonment from March 1924 to December of the same year in the prison of Landsberg am Lech was now officially stated as the period in which Hitler had his ingenious mental inspirations of building a [Reich]-wide highway. In various media this was now stated as a generally known fact, as shown for example by the poem of Herybert Menzel, one of the most famous German poets at the time of the Third Reich:

Während seiner Haft, als seine Bewegung zerschlagen war, als seine Gegner ihn selbst vernichtet hielten, als er das Buch der Deutschen schrieb, da schlug er auch die Karte unseres Vaterlandes auf seinen Knien auseinander und dachte in sie hinein seine Reichsautobahnen: So werden sie laufen! Da kaum noch einer an ihn glaubte, glaubte er so fest an sich und seine Aufgabe und bereitete alles vor.

[During his imprisonment, when his movement was crushed, when his opponents thought he himself was destroyed, when he wrote the Book of the Germans, he also unfolded the map of our fatherland on his knees and thought into it his Reichsautobahn: So it will proceed! Since hardly anyone believed in him anymore, he believed so firmly in himself and his task and prepared everything.]

Herybert MENZEL, Das Erlebnis der Reichsautobahn, Reichsministerium Speer, Munich 1943. Excerpt in: KULKE, 2016

However, in contrast to these invented historiographies, no evidence or hints at his strokes of genius regarding the construction of the Autobahn can be found in Adolf Hitler’s factual history. Even in his two-volume book Mein Kampf, which for the biggest part had been written during his imprisonment in Landsberg and which almost comprehensively describes every detail and motivation of his political and social convictions, there is no mention whatsoever of road building projects he was planning, let alone of a nationwide highway system.³⁹

Facts and evidence that could speak against Hitler as the first thinker of the Autobahn were erased or reinterpreted as far as possible. This is what happened, for example, with the Rheinische Provinzialstraße Köln-Bonn, which had already been in public operation since August 1932. From the state side, this actual Autobahn was “downgraded” and now merely listed as a Kraftwagenstraße erster Ordnung [first-order motor road].⁴⁰

Thus, in [German Fascism’s] historiography, the Reichsautobahn built by Führer Hitler could be praised as the very first. It was not until the end of the 1930s that plans became known to integrate the Rheinische Provinzialstraße Köln-Bonn into the German Reichsautobahn network, deliberately concealing the fact that this road had actually been in active use for several years before the Reichsautobahn conceived by the Führer had been completed. The same was done with the AVUS, which was opened to traffic in 1940 as a connection to the Berlin Ring.

It should come as no surprise that the actual inventors and builders of the preceding Autobahn highways did not agree with the forced erasure of their works from the history books and the memory of the Germans, only to be able to elevate the [Third] Reich Chancellor, who demonstrably had no influence whatsoever on the initial planning and construction of the German Autobahn. Within [the Third Reich], however, those complaints were silenced with sustained pressure from the [Fascists].

For example, German news magazine Der Spiegel printed parts of a letter from Fritz Todt, Generalinspektor now responsible for Reichsautobahn construction, to Kurt Kaftan, the press officer of HAFRABA, which reveal the means [that] the [Fascists] used to silence dissenting voices to the falsification of German historiography:

Ich darf Sie bei dieser Gelegenheit darauf aufmerksam machen, daß Ihre Darlegungen auch insofern nicht richtig sind, als die Jetzige Ausführung der Reichsautobahnen schon auf Pläne des Führers im Jahre 1924 zurückgeht. Diese Reichsautobahnen, wie wir sie jetzt bauen, haben nicht als von der Hafraba vorbereitet, und nicht als von mir […] gebaut zu gelten, sondern einzig und allein als die Straßen Adolf Hitlers. Sehr geehrter Herr Kaftan, ich schreibe Ihnen diesen Brief nicht als Rüge, aber als eine Warnung und in der Absicht, daß Sie für Ihre schriftstellerische Tätigkeit die Einstellung finden möchten, die ich für die einzig richtige halte.

[I would like to take this opportunity to point out to you that your statements also are incorrect insofar as the current construction of the Reichsautobahn already goes back to plans of the Führer in 1924. These Reich highways, as we are building them now, are not to be considered as prepared by the Hafraba, and not as built by me […], but solely as the roads of Adolf Hitler. Dear Mr. Kaftan, I am writing you this letter not as a rebuke, but as a warning and with the intention that you would like to find for your writing activity the attitude which I consider to be the only correct one.]

DER SPIEGEL 3/1963, p. 57