Every Megalomaniac's Dream Trivia Quiz

Answer: Providing power and transportation routes to both continents so they could join peacefully

Herman Sörgel did not fight in World War I, but as a German citizen he saw the amount of destruction such a war could cause. Some scholars predicted that every country from North and South America would combine into one giant unified continent, and every country in Asia would do the same in order to create enormous economic powers. There was no such plan for the rest of the world, so Sörgel took charge of making sure that Europe was not left behind.

His proposed dam system around the Mediterranean Sea would allow Europe and Africa to be combined into its own single continent. The massive amount of water that flows through the Strait of Gibraltar and the Dardanelles would provide massive amounts of hydroelectric energy to solve much of the foreseen energy crisis coming from nonrenewable resources. Water level would drop, allowing a dam built between Sicily and Tunisia to be built to connect the two continents. A fourth dam would be built on the Congo River in order to completely revamp the interior of Africa with two new large bodies of water. Other smaller works would also be included.

Answer: Strait of Gibraltar

In 2008, China completed the Three Gorges Dam, the largest electricity-generating plant in the world at the time. It was 1.45 miles long and 377 feet wide at the base. The proposed Main Gibraltar Dam (Gibraltar Hauptdamm) would have been over 12 times longer and nearly 22 times wider than the Three Gorges Dam. Strangely, Sörgel decided that the best place to put the dam was not the narrowest point of the strait, where it is only 9 miles wide.

Instead, he proposed that the dam would be built farther out towards the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps a 9-mile long dam wouldn't have that same aesthetic appeal.

Answer: There was not enough concrete produced in the entire world to complete it

China's Three Gorges Dam was built with a volume of around 950 million cubic feet. With the given dimensions of the proposed Gibraltar Dam, that project alone would have had a volume of over 750 trillion cubic feet, or about 800 times larger than the Three Gorges Dam. Unfortunately for Sörgel, there may not have been enough concrete in the entire world to finish that single dam, let alone the other proposed dams.

Answer: The Dardanelles at Gelibolu

Sörgel only considered two sites for the Black Sea Dam - the Dardanelles at Gelibolu or across the Bosporus River. If he were to build a dam across the Sea of Marmara, it would (in most places) have to have been larger than the Gallipoli Dam, and a dam where the Aegean Sea meets the Dardanelles at Seddülbahir would be an odd choice since there are plenty of narrower choices on the Dardanelles (despite the fact Sörgel did not choose the narrowest point with Gelibolu).

One possible reason for the location at Gelibolu would be another connection of Europe to the Middle East. Since the Bosporus River could easily be crossed by several existing bridges, a dam at Gelibolu would open up a new high-profile crossing connecting the European continent (even though still part of Turkey) to the heart of Turkey. If built at Seddülbahir, travelers would have to go to the far western border of Turkey and travel up the entire Gallipoli Peninsula. A Gelibolu Dam would give easy European access to Lapseki, Turkey (on the other side of the Dardanelles from Gelibolu), which connects to both Çan and Biga, the two largest cities in the area.

Answer: Just over 2.5 miles

If built at the narrowest point around Gelibolu, the Black Sea Dam would be roughly 2.6 miles, though it is difficult to get an exact location of where Sörgel planned on building the dam. The other possible choices were where the Sea of Marmara meets the Dardanelles (just under 12 miles), one point in the narrows of the Dardanelles (just over 1.25 miles), and on the Bosporus River (0.5 miles). Why Sörgel chose the Gelibolu location may never be known, especially since so much focus is on the Gibraltar Dam.

Answer: Sicily and Tunisia

The length of the Sicily-Tunisia Dam is very hard to accurately measure. As the Mediterranean water level lowered, new land around Sicily and Tunisia would suddenly appear. The resulting gap between the two areas seems very narrow according to Sörgel's predictions.

While the gap between Tunisia and Sicily lies at just under 90 miles, the lowered waters could allow the new dam to be under 20 miles. While that still leaves it longer than the Gallipoli Dam, the volume would be significantly smaller since the Gallipoli Dam would have to hold back the entire Atlantic Ocean.

Answer: Berlin and Cape Town

Staying true to his German roots, Sörgel planned the most lucrative railway to connect Berlin with Cape Town, and thereby the whole of Africa. The small gap between Italy and Sicily would have already been dried up with the lowering sea level, providing a much easier route for a railroad to be built. According to the plan, the railroad would go from Berlin through Rome (possibly via Venice and other stops), Naples, Tunis, and all the way down to Cape Town, South Africa.

A second major railway would connect Paris to Dakar, Senegal, on the western coast of Africa, via the Gibraltar Dam.

Answer: United Kingdom

The resulting drop in sea level would provide over 90,000 square miles of new land to Europe and Africa, close to the land area of the United Kingdom. In the 2001 census, the United Kingdom had a population of just under 60,000,000 people. Sörgel undoubtedly saw this as an unprecedented opportunity to grow the Atlantropan population, creating a stronger economic and military force to stave off the American and Asian continents.

Answer: A 186-mile canal would be built from the remaining Adriatic Sea to the Venetian Lagoon

Venice would be the hardest hit by Project Atlantropa by far, so Sörgel allowed it special consideration by planning a canal from the Adriatic Sea to Venice, with a small dam at the opening of the Venetian Lagoon to keep water levels the same. The Adriatic Sea would dry up all the way to the Adriatic Basin, roughly between Bari, Italy, and Montenegro. That would literally make Venice's closest water source (without the canal) at Genoa, Italy, straight across the Italian countryside.

However, the shoreline around Genoa would also recede making it a slightly longer distance, but this gives it a good estimate.

Answer: Corsica and Sardinia would become one landmass, and also be physically connected to Italy

At their closest points, Sardinia and Corsica are less than 10 miles away from each other, so it's certainly not a stretch they would be connected if the sea level dropped. However, the 50-mile gap between Corsica and Italy would also dry up, connecting the new Corsica-Sardinia to Italy, albeit at a strange location - on or just north of Capraia.

The other choices are simply too far away or the water between the two locations is so deep that it would not dry up. Mallorca is over 100 miles from Spain, Crete is around 60 miles from Greece, and Cyprus and Italy have the Adana Trough running between them.

Answer: Congo River and Congo Lake

No exact estimate for how large Congo Lake would be was given by Sörgel, but based on the maps he produced, it would be smaller than the 135,000 square mile Chad Sea, putting it at around 100,000 square miles. If this Congo Dam had been built, the cities of Mbandaka, Ilebo, Lisala, Kisangani, and Ubundu would most likely not exist.

The dam would presumably be built near Brazzaville, and the lake would not reach as far east as Lake Kivu or Lake Tanganyika.

Answer: Lake Chad would be the Chad Sea

Overflow coming from Congo Lake would allow Lake Chad, normally a very shallow lake (average depth of about 5 feet) covering just over 520 square miles, to expand into a 135,000 square mile sea. It was Sörgel's hope that this sea would irrigate at least part of the Sahara region, and allow higher agricultural production as a result. Eventually, once Congo Lake and the Chad Sea filled to capacity, the overflow would make its way to the Mediterranean, but of course by that time another dam could always be built to regulate the flow.

Answer: More water would be pulled in from the Suez Canal, causing massive erosion

Sörgel planned on lengthening the Suez Canal in order to make up for the new coastline, but water would still flow from the Mediterranean into the canal, done so by regulation with the Sicily-Tunisia Dam. However, the Mediterranean would increase in its salinity level so much that without some kind of counterbalance much of the life in the sea would not be able to survive. Also, the major changes of the world's waterways from the Atlantic Ocean to global precipitation might undergo massive changes, but these concerns were seemingly avoided by Sörgel since they could only go against his plan.

Answer: It was rejected because it helped all of Europe and Africa, and Nazi Germany was not out to help everyone else

When the Nazis rose to power, they did so thanks to a sentiment of German unification, not European. They had no intention of trying to help the rest of Europe, and especially Africa, since this would only make them all stronger (assuming the plan even worked to its proposed effectiveness).

While it might seem logical that they also rejected it due to high costs while Germany was busy rearming, Hitler decided to openly rearm in March 1935, so when Sörgel proposed the plan the Nazis were not fully rearming themselves yet.

Answer: He was hit by a car while riding a bike to his speech

According to reports of Sörgel's death, he was riding on his bicycle on a road "as straight as a die" when he was struck by a car, killing him. The driver was never found. It was actually Christmas Day 1952 when this tragedy occurred, and it signaled the ultimate downfall of Project Atlantropa. By 1960, the Atlantropa Institute was completely gone, and the Mediterranean Sea remains as open as it ever was.