Atlantropa: The $1 Trillion Dam to Drain the Mediterranean

Herman Sörgel, a German architect came up with probably the most insane plan in history: he wanted to quite literally drain the ocean! This would have been the biggest megaproject in the history of humanity! But why did he want to do it? And could his plan have worked?
For more skyscraper & megaproject content make sure to subscribe to Top Luxury!
0:00 Atlantropa: The $1 Trillion Dam to Drain the Mediterranean
0:25 Lebensraum
1:55 Atlantropa
4:08 Sörgel’s Insane Plan
10:23 Problems & Critism
#megaprojects #construction #engineering
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
► OTHER INTERESTING VIDEOS:
Africa’s $80BN Mega Dam
• Africa’s $80BN Mega Dam
The Biggest Megaprojects in the World
• The Biggest Megaprojec...
Three Gorges Dam: The World's Most Powerful Dam
• Three Gorges Dam: The ...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
► OUR OTHER CHANNELS:
Top Luxury in Español: @Megaproyectos.
Top Luxury in German: @Megabauten
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact us:
topluxuryinfo[at]gmail.com

[@MegaBuildsYT]

Do you think humanity could build a dam of this size? 🤔

[@jssky31]

no

[@crazyexperiments4146]

yes i think in next century maybe

[@dan-bz7dz]

Yeah, we could. But we are not gonna

[@LeonRedfields]

sounds like another Aral sea disaster but much worse

[@Sh4d0w_0f_D4rk]

yeah, but it would not be good for us

[@shatterquartz]

"The Sahara desert isn't large enough, let's expand it some more" is quite the take.

[@ouwebrood497]

"Oh wait, there is too much desert. Let's build another humungous dam to solve the problem and create another sea."

[@E3ECO]

Not only that, but the loss of that large a body of water would damage Europe's climate drastically. And the newly exposed sea bottom would be an enormous salt flat with temps hotter than the Dead Sea.

[@jacobj3491]

I'm no meteorologist but I think the global wind patterns are such that the Mediterranean gets most of its wind from the west. That's where the Atlantic ocean is, so it would be very humid. It would mostly not expand the Sahara. The climate would probably be similar to France or Italy in the northern regions, though the southern regions would be more like North Africa, of course. The reason the Sahara is so dry is that it gets most of its wind from the East, which is pretty much entirely covered by land. The wind is extremely dry for most of the year so it rarely rains in the Sahara. This wind continues traveling westward and eventually reaches the Amazon rainforest. Lots of sand/dust/minerals get carried to the Amazon this way and contributes to its fertility. The worst part of this plan is the fact that it will take millennia for the newly exposed land to develop into anything useful. The amount of salt in the ground is going to be a huge issue. The Mediterranean is about 900,000 cubic miles of ocean water. Ocean water has about 120 million tons of salt per cubic mile. All of that salt is just going to be sitting on top of the ground when the water melts away. I haven't actually watched the video yet so I don't know if they have a plan to deal with the salt but I can't imagine it's a good plan. Oh, and that doesn't mention the risk of building things below sea level. It's like New Orleans except one million times the size. So, a pretty terrible idea all around.

[@catholic3dod790]

I heard that they want to nuke bomb on deserts for creating a large lake.

[@JGG3345]

I think they would still let all the river water still come into the "lake" : )

[@spacecube8561]

people today '' no you can't build this building 15m higher, it disrupts sun and local arhitecture'' people 100 years ago *LET'S DAM THE MEDITERANEAN SEA*

[@darthwiizius]

This is the reason that London has such wacky tall buildings, nothing's allowed to be built that blocks the view to St Paul's cathedral nor can it overshadow it. Hence all the weird shapes and lack of skyscrapers, though why one is being built in the shape of a sex toy...

[@01GeoMetriC33]

XD

[@malcolmdeboo3794]

Good spelling 😂😂😂

[@rumaanahadjee7349]

and thats why people today are paying for the mistakes of the people from the past. like the invention of plastic and the stupid smart phone

[@spacecube8561]

@@rumaanahadjee7349 what? xD plastic itself isn't a problem. it's the way we did (not) dispose of it

[@brian9438]

Mr. Sorgel was clearly smoking some seriously good stuff.

[@philiprice7875]

and he was allowed out of the mental hospital to promote it (was he sponsored by shrinks)

[@MrBashem]

My thoughts exactly. Did the first person he suggested this to not give him the are you mad look?

[@JeroenJA]

it was a different time that allowed dreaming big, the mediterian part is crap, but i wonder now if damming the congo river REALLY would have gotten some kind of big lake right into the sahara dessert... now that this mean disrupting so many african countries with all citizen that can't move freely between those african states this can not work.. but in total, making the sahara green by forcing a huge lake next to it.. could you use a huge pipe system to get a big chunk of water from a central african river to really only guide the lake creating right into the border region of the sahara... ?? could that actually work... that way you wouldn't also flood unimaginable areas of rain forest and fertille savana, that lake size really looked.. ridiculous! and you would also not influence local weather paterns that extreme, as a suddes huge lake could influence it.. at leaqst 10.000 times more manageble to try and build and 1000 km pipeline guiding some pretty big fresh water feed from big central african river then it would be to try and dam the mediterian. PS, video was a bit disappointing, climate science clearly would link a 200 meter below sea level cimate to simular climat conditions as death valley ... and the entire climate around the mediterinian would become so much dryer with less sea to start evaporation from... complete disaster.. so the more you limet all to huge changes, on places that are climate wise really okay right now, the better!

[@Bob-te3le]

Man you ain't lying. Dude is crazy.

[@tappajaav]

@@JeroenJA Sahara is so large I doubt building few pipelines from a central african river would prove adequate. More likely that there'd have to be hundreds, if not thousands, of desalination plants all around the coast of northern Africa, connected to vast water infrastructure to turn Sahara green once more

[@PonchoANS7]

That new land would be ridiculously low in elevation, and absurdly, blazingly hot. It would also disrupt pretty much every coastal community in the Mediterranean.

[@darthwiizius]

Not to mention fundamentally altering the climate and weather. Warm up travelling up from Africa is responsible for a lot of Europe's rainfall. What would happen we are already fairly sure of because the African continent is already pushing into Europe, as that happens most of continental Europe will become a desert. Fortunately we'll never see it because it will take millions of years.

[@domcizek]

YES, JUST LIKE THE AMERICAN DESERT IN THE SOUTHWEST,

[@jooproos6559]

@@darthwiizius Well,we could easily cope with a lot less rain than today with all that rain we have already in the past few years!

[@darthwiizius]

@@jooproos6559 Didn't the Rhein almost dry up recently? I live on a island in the North Atlantic (Britain) so rain comes with the territory most of the time.

[@user-xh3lz9xt4l]

What about the Suez Canal and all the rivers flow into the Mediterranean Sea it would need continual pumping etc unless his plan was to use the water to hydrate the Sahara

[@FrancJ5793]

Draining the Mediterranean would have immense consequences

[@ExileLBL]

for example? Im just curious. I mean yes, some species would die ofc

[@edplayssims]

@@ExileLBLCostal cities would lose the coast, port cities would be destroyed, the Suez canal would be unusable, etc.

[@OceanMachine_]

​. You would create a massive salt desert

[@aaaa-sd3wf]

@@ExileLBL african immigration more and more bigger

[@blueboy3990]

​@@aaaa-sd3wf Back then europeans didn't accept black immigrants

[@ianolexsak4054]

The enviromental impact alone would be crazy. Could you imagine how it would change weather patterns?

[@operarioespeculador-trader1776]

Nature causes its natural disasters by itself. I see no harm in humanity causing a "natural disaster" to avoid famine, economic crisis and wars. It is better to build a dam in the Mediterranean than to go back to the Middle Ages or the Stone Age.

[@AnimeAne-fo8iz]

yes i guess impact could be much more danger than we ever thaught

[@operarioespeculador-trader1776]

@@AnimeAne-fo8iz Better to do than not do. If humanity does not develop its means of production, it will die. Better to do than go back to the middle ages.

[@jussikankinen9409]

People believed god made earth for human still many

[@bobs182]

What about ocean level rise due to Mediterranean water going to the ocean? What about the land being useless due to being salted from the evaporated sea?

[@entropybear5847]

You didn't mention the most obvious criticism of such a plan: Creating two shrunken hyper-saline seas at the bottom of the world's newest and biggest death valley which will by proximity cause heating and drying of adjacent former coastal lands lowering precipitation causing desertification would be a disaster rather than of any benefit.

[@johnburns4017]

Levels of the lakes would be maintained through the dams.

[@DinoAlberini]

@@johnburns4017but the lakes would be dead, due to the salinity.

[@johnburns4017]

@@DinoAlberini The point was the levels.

[@DinoAlberini]

@@johnburns4017 fair enough

[@Arthur_Proportions]

money

[@JJustMax]

The problem with big and ambitious projects is that the bigger they are, the more problems they cause, and more problems there are, the more likely they are not to be solved.

[@Data2.0]

Does not have to be so. As long as the project actually makes sense from the get go. But problem is with most big projects these days they do not make sense as they are often created by people with highly inflated egos such as dictators.

[@kidandresu]

This one is big and ambitiously stupid

[@robertslugg8361]

@@kidandresu We really need to make sure liberals don't hear about it then.

[@ErikssonTord_2]

Most likely get half built and then just abandoned.

[@doomoo5365]

They may have to build it just to maintain the status quo in the Mediterranean especially if the collapse of the remaining glaciers on Earth is imminent

[@ArielSaturn]

this would drastically affect my fishing season

[@MegaBuildsYT]

😂

[@2MinuteHockey]

The Germans wanted "Lebensraum" because they have historically looked at Slavic Jewish people as "untermenschen" basic history covered up by English language pro-German propaganda@@MegaBuildsYT

[@Monomorphic]

It would have turned into a huge desert.

[@widjojohuang7854]

What???

[@ericciaramella1984]

In 1900 there were 140 million people in Africa. The population of Europe at that time was 300 million. Basically he was talking about the unpopulated unused areas of Africa not the overpopulated 1.3 Billion people in Africa today so it wasn't the same issue.

[@Ezekiel903]

today we need a wall around Europe!

[@rohankishibe8259]

And what right you have in our continent?! Least entitled European, this is the crux of the world's problems, including Palestine now!! Europeans so entitled they made Palestine pay for European sins against the Jews.

[@dagmarbubolz7999]

1.3 Billion people in Africa over such a HUGE continent is hardly overpopulation. Why do ppl love to point fingers at Africa when the overpopulation really exists elsewhere

[@Ezekiel903]

@@dagmarbubolz7999 overpopulation is a myth, nearly all countries have trouble to hold their current population, and even in African countries like Nigeria, the new middle classe don't want more as two kids. The population is in decline, at the moment we don't see it in the data, bcs people get older, but as soon as we lost our elderly people we will face a decline!

[@ericciaramella1984]

@@dagmarbubolz7999 that would be bc it went from 140 million to almost 10x that in 100 years. It's over populated for what it can support based on the infrastructure there or is that too hard for you to understand

[@hgman3920]

I'd love to see more videos about other unrealized mega-projects from the past, such as the plan to flood the Qatara Depression in Egypt or the plan to build a second Atlantic/Pacific canal in Nicaragua using nukes to dig it.

[@DarthAwar]

She MegaProject Channel some are real some are just theories

[@davidcox3076]

I've always been fascinated by the Qatara Depression project. And the fact that back in the day nuclear blasts for engineering was a perfectly fine idea.

[@rebjorn79]

I'll mention that in 1940, Germany's population was around 70 million, compared to 83 million today. One can imagine that the prospects of 'overpopulation' might have *seemed* very real to people back then - there were fewer high rise buildings/apartment blocks, and food production wasn't as effective as it is today. Anyway, this plan, if realized, would've been a disaster for the planet, flooding other parts of the world, destroying cities and submerging islands, the list goes on.

[@blablup1214]

I don't think they only seemed real. They were in a completly different situation than us Germans today, 1. There died a lot of people in WW2 what cleared a lot of space. 2. Many people were not born because of WW2 3. In 1920 nobody could predict that our population will sudenly stagnate after 1970 as this was a never before seen event If the opulation would have grown as it did back in 1920, we would easily have around 145 milion people here in Germany.....

[@Ninjasty47]

Not the mention that out of those 83 million, about over 15 million are non Germans. Fear of overpopulation turned into fear of native depopulation.

[@caezar55]

70 million white people in 1940. Now there's only around 65 million white people in Germany. You have declined.

[@YTKanexvii]

a desaster to the planet? I think the planet doesnt care if people can live on it.

[@bitbucketcynic]

The bottom of a drained Mediterranean would be an uninhabitable deadly desert of death with temperatures over 160°F/71°C due to adiabatic heating, and the changes in weather and precipitation patterns would have horrific consequences both regionally and globally we can't even calculate.

[@billkallas1762]

Probably have turned Northern Europe into a desert.

[@luis303]

Just a moronic idea.

[@timparker2985]

It would also be extremely salty, so any thought of arable land there would prove to be fantasy.

[@MyVanir]

Imagine thinking the world would say "Yeah, we don't need shipping through the Med, let's turn it into a giant desert".

[@klabauterle89]

I am German and have not heard of this project until today. Thanks for the video

[@2wheels1guy25]

What stone have you been living under? A bunker?? You do know the war has ended right?

[@prabhat7728]

xD @@2wheels1guy25

[@vikky867]

some library may have had this document only 100yrs back to scroll back

[@ohasis8331]

@@2wheels1guy25 There was zero need for that crap answer. This was the first time I'd heard it too.

[@hrushikeshavachat900]

This phenomenon of dependence of Mediterrian on the waters of Atlantic Ocean can be used for tidal power generation. This will help massively in increasing the renewable energy production in Europe

[@Paladin1873]

"Sir, I have a cunning plan." "What is it, Baldrick?" "What if we sawed the Rock of Gibraltar in half and dropped it across the Strait? Then we could drain the Mediterranean Sea so any European could walk to Africa." "Or any African could walk to Europe." "I didn't think of that." "Naturally you didn't. Next you'll be suggesting we excavate an underground passage between England and France and call it the Chunnel." "No sir, I'm not that crazy."

[@SheepWaveMeByeBye]

Make a video about the people who want to drain the Baltic sea and the North sea. Those plans are quite recent!

[@Zero-oh8vm]

Those plans are not about draining the sea but to subdue it.

[@Ready2_Go]

People can be imbeciles at times thinking their reasoning is sound and attainable.

[@hollyingraham3980]

Yes, the Doggerland restoration! It's not just about sea control. They were projecting plans to drain it, bringing the Dogger Banks back to dry land as the were in the Mesolithic. One dam would shut off the English Channel. Canals would keep the ports on some rivers like the Thames, Rhine, etc. in contact with the sea. I've seen maps of the plan.

[@rolandbol7350]

I wonder why Sörgel didn't consider closing the Baltic sea by dams through Denmark. After all, it's closer to Germany. Maybe he understood how Kiel would have a problem with that idea, while ignoring the problems of, say, Marseille.

[@PeterMaddison2483]

Yeah, lets bring back Doggerland 😆

[@JaiAcuneIdeeQuoiMettreIci]

This feels like a reference to a certain mod for a certain game.

[@taffingtonboathouse5754]

Where a ancient kingdom returns as a freaky state

[@valerio5571]

Where someone wants you to verify your clock

[@taffingtonboathouse5754]

Does anyone wanna eat some Streng-Geheim-Os.

[@justusP9101]

The brain rot is real

[@dirkvandierdonck5831]

Politicians and engineers can't even agree on a bridge from Spain to Morocco

[@magnusgranskau7487]

wonder why 🫣

[@alexandredacunha4224]

Usefull for corrupt people and politicians.

[@giorgospapoutsakis5271]

​@@alexandredacunha4224shut up

[@andromedach]

given the flow from Atlantic to the Mediterranean I am surprised the lack of effort to use all that flow with undersea current generation techniques. there is a wave generation system for Gibraltar

[@jmt97400]

We have to forget Atlantropa and think about a project for nowadays. Closing Mediterranean sea from mondial Ocean will have at least 4 major uses: 1- Save the countries around the Mediterranean and Black Seas from rising of water level due to climate change: with increasing temperatures making ice melting and ocean waters dilatation, we have to expect a rise aroung 70m. We have also to increase that height for waves and may be some Atlantic tsunamis 2- produce an hydroelectric power to regulate sun and wind energy productions around Mediterranean Sea with a flow that can be completely managed for that 3- making costal states to stop any pollution sent to the sea 4- making countries having an ocean seashore (Morocco, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherland, Germany, Poland, Russia) to protect their major valleys with anti sea dams and also fresh waters dams over 100m altitude to use il localy and send the exceeding water flow to rivers going to the Mediterranean or Black Sea. I don't think that emerging lands would have to be used to settle new population. They will be used to increase farming and forestry. That will take many years before these lands will go out of sea and will be washed from their salt with fresh water: after the closure of the dams, the sea level will decrease around 2 m per year. Il will need 10 years before the first hydroelectric groups will be available and then some flow will be reintroduced so the decreasing will down to 1m per year . In fact there are 3 dams to build: * one in Gibraltar Strait : max initial height around 380m to close the strait and 100m more after depending of the rise of the Atlantic Ocean. There are two sills in the Atlantic Ocean facing Gibraltar: - Strait Camarinal Sill where depth is 280m and 25km west of entrance of Gibralter Strait 35 ° 56'N 5 ° 45'O Length of dam 25 km - at 20km west Espartel Sill 35 ° 55 'N 5 ° 47'O Length of dam 27 km Il is then possible to build a first dam in rockfill or in roller compacted concrete adn lately with ocean level rising, increase the height. A 300m high dam will be 1500m thick at its basis. For 100m more height, 500m more at the basis. * one in Suez to dam the Red Sea (may be it could be built at Bal El Mandeb Strait, south of Red Sea but it is very deep and on an active tectonic fault (in Gibraltar the tectonic fault is around 30km north of the strait itself) * one between black sea and Mediterranean Sea. Black Sea is a curious sea. Under 150m deep, it is a dead see because of chemical reactions, and the 150m superficial waters are less salted that Mediterranean sea due to major rivers around. These dams will have locks for all types of boats and hydroelectric power stations. From these dams, there will be salt water canals to maintain seashore, allow medium and little boats navigation and feed "salt rivers" able to the same boat transit, to hydroelectric power stations and feed solar desalinisation plants sending with pipes water to wash the soils, after for agriculture and little towns a) canal from Gibraltar to Gulf of Lion b) canal from Gibraltar to Gulf of Gabes c) canal from Gibraltar to Alboran sea d) canal from Port Said to Gulf of Syrte e) canal from Port Said to Syria f) canal fron Port Said to Eastern Mediterranean Basin Adriatic Sea will be damed from South of Po to Dalmatian Islands with other dams between islands to make a fresh waters laguna .On the western seashore, another canal will help to maintain a seashore and collect rain waters. Venice Laguna will be disconnected from the Great Laguna and from industrial zone of Mestre and Porto Marghera, and the level of water regulated for the best of the city. Po river will be worked for navigation, hydroelectric power plant able to pumping to maintain all year a series of lakes full of water, from the laguna to Milano (120m ), italian lakes (65 to 271m high) , Torino (240m high) and Tanaro River (a major tributary on the right side of Po) In case of exceeding water flow Black Sea will need a fresh water canal from Azov Sea (close by a dam) intercepting Flow of Dniper, Dniestr, Bug, Danube and other minor rivers , to Istanbul and then to the Marmara Sea becoming a fresh water reservoir with gates closing Bosphorus Strait and Dardanelles Strait Egean Sea could be worked too with three fresh water canal from Marmara Sea : a) one to west till the Gulf of Salonique able to navigation with middle size boats and after till Eubee Island for small boats and water b) one to south with dams between islands to make fresh water lakes and small boats navigation c) one to south-west till the eastern mediterranean basin see map of Mediterranean and Black Sea depths (www.meteorologie.eu.org/mothy/bathymetrie/images/ba_med3.gif) Mediterranean Sea is divided in two basins by Sicely Strait and Messina Strait.First is 250m deep, second 350m deep. Western basin is 950000km2 and Eastern Basin is around 1560000km2 Evaporation in Western basin is near 1,5m a year ie it is possible to introduce 45000 m3 of salt water from ocean coming from Gibraltar by the 3 western canals. But a bit more water will flow in the various salt water canals to feed desalinisation plants for agricultural use. Western hydroelectric powerplants will have a total power of 4050MW and 35TWh yearly for each 10m of fall. Evaporation in Eastern basin is near 2m a year ie it is possible to introduce 99000 m3 of salt water from ocean coming from Gibraltar by the 3 Eastern canals. But a bit more water will flow in the various salt water canals to feed desalinisation plants for agricultural use.Eastern hydroelectric powerplants will have a total power of 8910MW and 78TWh yearly for each 10m of fall. Due to the less area of sea the total capacity has to be reduced around 10 to15% . The total capacity is then supposed to reach 451 TW and 3955 TWh. As soon as the sea has not reached the final level, this direct production will be only the half. Not included night turbining of water pumped daily with solar electric power in excess at meridian hours (salt produced by desalinisation plants can be turned back to the ocean by that way) Most of coastal underwater lands in Western Basin are in the first 100m depth but a -200m level could be better to dam Sicely Strait and Messina Strait where others hydroelectric power plants and lockers could be built. Eastern Basin could be around 400 to 500m deep because there is most land available at that depth east of Tunisia (around 100000 km2), 2/3 of Adriatic Sea (90000 km2), north of Egypt (40000 km2), and around 60% of the 214000km2 of Egean Sea (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aegean_Sea_map_bathymetry-fr.jpg) depending of the level of th lakes and canals. After the first dams that need to be built before ocean rising, the first step is to reach100m deep ie 10 years after Gibraltar Dam for -20m plus 1m each year ie 80 year may be year 2120.. After about 60 years more for the -200 level everywhere ie year 2180 . After Sicely Strait Dam and Messina Strait Dam, it will need 60 more years to -300 in Eastern Basin ie year 2240. So year 2240 for -400 and year 2300 for -500. There will not be Saharian extense due to arrival of water on former seashores by the canals, allowing to produce fresh water for those regions (and turn back exceeding salt to ocean by boat)

[@thecomment9489]

That was an insane project but another insane project has also been considered and that is to drain out the Baltic Sea by building dams or walls between the UK and Norway in the north and UK and Netherlands in the south.

[@tonys1636]

Before the last ice age the island of Great Britain was connected to both Norway, France and what is now Belgium and the Netherlands. The North Sea was an inland salt water lake.

[@jooproos6559]

Yes!They really think about that!!Its just crazy!That would be a very low "polder"!!I am living in the polder they talked about as a example,but it is massive already and takes a lot of time to put into reality !

[@guidodebacker4205]

you mean the North Sea... Baltic is east of Denmark

[@megamike420]

I love to learn so thanks for the info!

[@blaire7253]

I like how this guy didn’t really think of the ecological collapse that would occur.

[@virgiliustancu9293]

He was a German... those don't think more than two steps in the future.

[@jooproos6559]

They didnt know about ecological problems..

[@cristinabutasimon9159]

@@virgiliustancu9293 cred ca nu ii cunosti pe nemti.

[@artursruseckis4242]

Neither "collapse" nor "problems". "Changes" is the word. Changes.

[@virgiliustancu9293]

@@cristinabutasimon9159 Nemtii sunt niste criminali psihopati la scara industriala. Romanul fura la o masina, doua, neamtul fura la 10 milioane.

[@brianthompson4480]

Sorgel was truly a mad scientist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@BrianZajac]

This has to be the most self-centered architectural concept ever.

[@alidabotes6264]

Definitely a narcissist!

[@reddwarfer999]

@@alidabotes6264 Although he was to his credit thinking of ways to avoid war. Just a very misguided one.

[@adamcheklat7387]

There was a novel made by Cody Franklin about the world if that project came to be. It’s called the Atlantropa Articles.

[@sexgod6909]

Wowser..❤❤

[@alexisios]

I'm Greek and I don't want to to stop going to my beloved sea 🥰

[@anuragtumane5227]

Atlantropa would be a pretty hypothetical scenario.

[@BASTYK14710]

I think they'd be able to do it. When humanity focuses on something they can achieve it. Nothing is impossible🤔🤔🤔

[@dejannincic9671]

Just because u can do it doesnt mean u should do it

[@ANTHONYBOOTH]

well, - off the South coast of Crete the sea floor drops away to around 1800 meters... it is a huge flat plain, tilted at an angle that slowly rises up to around 400 meters below sea level (just next to Gavdos) ...the surface of that plain is well worth a detailed study...

[@oneone3211]

Hi, Sir. Great video. Thanks a lot for the hardwork you have put in to make this wonderful video. Just a request: Can you make a video about what would happen to Europe and Africa if this was constructed? Like, for example: the economic impact, environmental impacts, etc. Can you give your opinion, Sir? Thank you, Sir👍. Great video❤.

[@dejannincic9671]

there was a video on youtube that talked about what would happen and basically all it would do was make North Africa and all of the Mediterranean a massive desert and ruin the nations that were on the coast

[@Chewberto]

Cody from AlternateHistoryHub actually wrote a fiction book, The Atlantropa Articles, set in a world where this project was actually completed. Might be worth checking out if you want to see more speculation over the possible impacts of this plan

[@EtotheFnD]

This is a different type of video for you...i like it

[@martinmaina4084]

Very informative video

[@jlestebanruiz]

Dan Simmons sci-fi saga Ilium-Oliympos also depicts in some chapters a far future Mediterranean Sea, drained and used as huge food producing land...and many evil surprises. Recommended.

[@SiriusTYT]

Such an insane plan 🤯

[@dennis2376]

That is a nuts idea! Thank you.

[@augustomaramonte9619]

So I finally can retake the sunglasses I lost last summer

[@JZsBFF]

Less crazy than going to live on Mars. Amazing historical tidbit. The stuff of which scifi is made.

[@reichtangleanschluss509]

1:00 and 11:28 maps are quite inaccurate (for Interwar period): 1. Ireland is unified (or is still under British rule) 2. Germany doesn't own (southern) Prussia 3. Finland doesn't own Karelia, Salla and Petsamo 4. Belarus and Ukraine are independent 5. Soviet Union doesn't own Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) 6. Turkey seems to have lost Turkisth War of Independence and got even more carved up than it was supposed to be 7. Lithuania owns Vilnius

[@SovietCornCob]

Bro, I saw the first map and instantly needed to see if anyone else talked about it, and now there's more at 11:28?😭

[@danielbenson9942]

I'm by no means an expert on the exact borders but the map looks pretty good for the early 1920s. Which is the period that this video is about.

[@SovietCornCob]

@danielbenson9942 Bro Hitler and the nazis didn't rise to power in Germany till the mid-1930s same with the idea of lebensraum, and the first world war ended in 1918. You cont your timeline completely messed up.

[@reichtangleanschluss509]

​@@danielbenson9942 Here's what borders of Finland looked like in 1920-1940: fi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiedosto:Finland_%281920-1940%29_location_map.svg and borders of Poland, Germany and Soviet Unio looked like during 1920s and 30s: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rzeczpospolita_1937.svg

[@Zireael83]

what are you even talking about ^^ the maps and the project arent new proposals from today...

[@anjummirza1452]

Excellent information and narration...

[@bbracing3925]

The question unasked here, is what do you do with that volume of water? Displacing that much water would only cause more problems than any benefits of the dam. Not to mention the inconceivable ecological damage it would have caused. 😅

[@JL-nb1yc]

Agreed, it's impossible to imagine how many more problems this would create.

[@rodrogers6895]

The best thing that ever happened to Africa was colonialism. When the whites left, civilization left too.😂

[@RedStar441]

There seems to always be a crazy engineer that wants to do something absolutely unhinged. Another dude wanted to fill the San Francisco bay. They sound novel until you see the catastrophic effects, like with the Aral sea.

[@philiprice7875]

was the Aral sea now the Aral salt flats

[@Egg.335]

As someone from Tunisia, i see this an absolute loss 😢

[@Jim-nt7xy]

What a brilliant idea!

[@leekelly9639]

I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that dam blocking the Mediterranean Sea if it was real and it collapsed..

[@stealthis]

But imagine the wave you could ride 🏄

[@mtmadigan82]

The idea that you even think this was ever anything more than a german fever dream is amusing.

[@Carlton-B]

Once his project is competed, he can start building the spiral stairway to the moon. There's a lot of free land up there.

[@dancarter482]

What if, right; open ya mind REAL wide - we use the Moon to clog up the gaps and create the barriers between the seas.

[@mgtowbylogic5592]

Great idea! What could go wrong? Nothing!

[@MehmetBulut12528]

Great video great work I like that

[@Reaganhussy]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT IS THAT A FUCKING FORMER TNO REFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????

[@Jr-fn7oc]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT SOMEONE ELSE KNOWS TNO!!!!!!?????

[@BonDeRado]

I wonder how long it would have taken to desalinize the now-exposed bottom of the sea to a level suitable for any kind of agriculture.

[@sexgod6909]

Genetically modified crops would work just as the Chinese have proved with SEA RICE..

[@BonDeRado]

@@sexgod6909 according to the paper by Chen et al. BMC Genomics (2017) 18:655 DOI 10.1186/s12864-017-4037-3 we a re still talking about 2% germination in water with 0.8% NaCl concentration: the average for seawater is 3.5%. May work, may take time.

[@mr.h2286]

NOT POSSIBLE!!!! Most countries Today who rely on the Mediterranean Sea would never agree to Something this outrageous!!!!

[@EmeraldEyesEsoteric]

If you're going to drain the mediterranean, make sure to hire Dutch Engineers from the Netherlands to do it. Put them in charge of the operation and you can turn all that reclaimed land into the best fertile soil for farming.

[@legionboom4679]

lets not forget that adding all that water from the Med into the rest of the earth's oceans would raise sea levels significantly, so this is a HIGHLY dubious proposition.

[@kimmogensen4888]

Not by much but enough for it to be a bad idea for that reason alone, less water evaporation and rainfall would be even worse and the best way by far for transportation of goods are by ship making the idea crazy

[@kimmogensen4888]

One of the reasons for the success of Europeans is that the European cost line is much longer than Africa despite Europe being much smaller, and the many nice port spots and navigable rivers Europe has compared to Africa which the Mediterranean coast and water evaporation which as stated in the video higher than all the rivers flowing into it, even though the Nile River also flows into it, one of the main reasons Europe is a sweet spot is because of all the water nearby wherever you are in Europe compared to most places. The inability for people like him to understand the consequences of this ideas makes his ideas as deadly as the “Great Leap Forward” in China, which were like this idea meant to improve people’s lives, but instead it was 5 times as deadly as the holocaust 6 million deaths, the Great Leap Forward cost the lives of 30 million people in a few years period, and almost all the birds in China were killed because a Communist can do nothing wrong = blame someone or something else, and a few % of their diet was human food, but almost all was insects like grasshoppers or locust, which you probably can figure out what happened when they didn’t have their natural enemies to eat them 😮 not a lot of food left for smart bird killers, who didn’t have the ability to self criticism or predict what consequences there actions would bring. The road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say. Of course only if you can’t think what are the likely consequences of your actions, good intentions are not inherently bad, people who think they are good and right because they have good intentions are the dangerous ones.

[@constantobjects]

Think of all the lost history under that sea. Also - once they drain it - think of the smell! And the toxic windstorms.

[@Zalis116]

The Aral Sea was just a preview!

[@samsungtvset3398]

Putting a hydro power station at the strait of Gibraltar still sounds like a pretty good idea. The water that flows in to replace evaporation may as well be utilised somehow. It's not as if the water would be prevented from flowing in as first envisaged.

[@MikhailKolesnikov]

Very good idea. Hope we finally realized that.

[@Kededian]

If you give everyone 100m2 of space you can still fit the worldpopulation in 60 percent of Alaska territory. So its nonsense that the world is overpopulated.

[@daneenmurf1043]

The problem is not room to stand up and walk around. Food production is the issue. Since you mentioned Alaska _ how much of the land there is suitable for agriculture ? If you allow for cold, heat, drought, elevation, erosion, roads and cities, forests, rivers and lakes, only a small part of the land on earth is farmable.

[@thecomment9489]

Considering that such a mega project is still impossible shows that humanity still has to advance a lot before hallucinating about becoming interplanetary and interstellar species. Means more advancements in construction engineering and materials engineering is required so that such seemingly impossible megaprojects are very much possible to build and sustain.

[@gineasley3517]

Obviously a BAD idea! The Med, a shallow, warm sea, greatly helps moderate the European climate, making it SO much warmer. Plus all the salt left by drying up the Med, would make farms + ranches impossible-

[@darkyboode3239]

Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Malta, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco would never consider agreeing to this. The Mediterranean is beneficial to the climate and economy of those countries, and it’s also a significant part of their culture.

[@demonhunter505]

Draining the Mediterranean may be the single least intelligent idea any human has ever had…. Can this even really be considered an idea, so much as it seems like they just fell and hit their heads really hard?

[@miningminds4christ]

What an ambitious project and sure African right now will approve it for many reasons.

[@jacoburban2757]

It’s soooo stupid if the Mediterranean Sea drys out or has less water it would lead to drought and desertification

[@s4if7]

cant even be mad at this 😂

[@fodk7021]

I don't. I am an African, from Morocco (north africa) we would lose fishing ports and so much more.

[@lamontjohnson5810]

I like how the countries of Africa are always lumped together. *sigh* There are 54 countries in Africa--all with their own political, economic, and environmental agendas. Even if we were to just consider only the five African countries that border the Mediterranean, what makes you think all five would approve of this plan?

[@fodk7021]

@@lamontjohnson5810 actually and unironically none of them would approve it lmao

[@larrymondello8475]

Thank you

[@topten-ct7eh]

Hi sir, could you please tell me how you animate the maps? Do you use a website or another tool? 😪

[@user-pb3dp2td4i]

Yeah great idea... NO body depends on fishing in that area!! Let's make a dry area even worse. Brilliant!!

[@andyletterman2893]

ATLANTROPA: By blocking the Gibraltar Strait & Black Sea, we can drain the Mediterranean SUEZ CANAL AND EUROPE'S RIVERS: Really?

[@Zalis116]

The video mentions that the Mediterranean loses more water from evaporation than it gains from rivers -- it's the inflow from the Atlantic that maintains the water level.

[@et76039]

Some have already pointed out the effect on the Sahara. The known tectonic movements mean a certainty of catastrophic failure. Much better to use garbage to create artificial islands, if you want to increase land area.

[@MHalblaub]

We might need a dam like this to keep the level in the Mediterranean constant and could also produce a lot of energy. This dam might be far less cheaper than to create a dam for each city around the Mediterranean sea.

[@joshuawest3257]

What about the Nile as well as other waterways that end in the Mediterranean?

[@blueboy3990]

Bro, the guy who proposed this was german, he didn't care at all

[@roeldee5256]

@@blueboy3990 The water evaporates faster than the rivers can supply the sea. Did you even watch the video?

[@blueboy3990]

@@roeldee5256 Yes I watched it but I am talking about the enviromental effects on the rivers

[@darthwiizius]

@@blueboy3990 Rivers north and east of the new land would dry up due to the loss of rainfall from the Med. Even the wet and windy British Isles would see a drop in rainfall as a proportion is carried up by winds from Africa picking up moisture from the med than carrying up over Spain, and of course we lower moisture going into continental Europe less would also arrive from the east. This fellow would have solved the living space issue because he would have killed most of the European population.

[@muftisampurna1884]

I live in Asia. I am so excited if it's going to be true. Totally agree.

[@davidgrisez]

It sure sounds like Herman Sorgel was a really big dreamer of big projects that would have drastically changed the entire Mediterranean Sea area. Such a project would require such huge amounts of money, labor and time to complete that it would be impractical. Also such a massive project to lower the levels of the Mediterranean Sea to reclaim huge amounts of land would have massive effects on the environment and even on the climate in this area of the world. It is likely that Herman Sorgel did not think about the environmental and climate effects.

[@ohasis8331]

Not seeing the pixels for the big screen.

[@trendwaveworld]

These luxury items aren't just possessions; they're timeless pieces of art. They transcend trends, promising enduring beauty for generations to come.

[@SC_14]

This would be a nightmare

[@kalleklp7291]

Bureaucrats today: "No, you cannot have another meter on your building due to regulations, city plan laws and..!" People back then: "Let's dry out the whole Mediterranean Sea, we need land.".

[@lancegoodall5911]

One word - Insanity

[@tomg6284]

He was nuts. Job done.

[@kenhart8771]

Not at all.

[@sexgod6909]

Visionary geniuses are always mocked by plebs..

[@alexis1156]

This seems like an insane idea honestly.

[@knivescom]

Germany .......

[@PatSmith-wi1kz]

Imagine all the archeological treasures

[@cupp17]

I appreciate his imagination, but draining the Mediterranean would turn some of the most popular ports in the world into landlocked cities, essentially destroying the thing people loved about it. Plus, a concrete dam couldn't hold back an ocean for very long

[@creatoruser736]

Damming the Mediterranean would have global environmental consequences that Sörgel never understood. The newly drained land area would have been hot salt flats, not only useless for farming be it would have raised the surrounding temperature of Southern Europe to an unbearable degree. This would have turned Europe as a whole into a hot and dry desert, and sand and salt kicked up would spread across continents further running their capacity to support human life. Sörgel thought his plan would have saved humanity from war, he didn't foresee that it would have doomed humanity by altering the global climate.

[@dragonofhatefulretribution9041]

“Not everybody liked these proposals. In hindsight, they represented the colonialist tone in Europe at the time and didn’t take into account the people who already lived in Africa. People who didn’t want a stream of Europeans flowing into the continent and claiming the land as their own…” Swap these roles around and everyone would cry racism despite that being exactly what’s happening right now on an absolutely gigantic scale. *Oh* the irony!

[@choco.es.unlimited]

He was a smart and ambitious man.

[@shelleycogswell2162]

Very interesting video. What were his plans concerning the rivers that flow into the Mediterranean sea?

[@hasanmohammad3589]

Europe with its existing size did enough problems to the world.

[@devyiron874]

is this a joke?

[@theowlfromduolingo7982]

No? Have you watched the video?

[@devyiron874]

the video is based on extremely loose facts. WW2 was never based on the idea of lebensraum. It was based on the idea of germany dominating europe / the world.@@theowlfromduolingo7982

[@devyiron874]

The video is truly not researched at all, and thrown together. @@theowlfromduolingo7982

[@andrecastillo5232]

The grand debut!

[@Fact-Stax]

This is mad! Would it actually work? No one would be crazy enough to try this now...or would they?

[@toughbutsweet1]

Imagine being a person that has seafront property, and suddenly, you're miles from the water, or one of the people of Africa whose home is now under miles of water.

[@selectthedead]

The dumbest idea of all!

[@XuHaochengRyanHshs]

Herman: We can drain the Mediterranean! Te very limits of engineering: I think not

[@RandomYT05_01]

Anyone who's read the atlantropa articles knows that because of climate, the project, even if successful, wouldn't have done much for providing valuable living space. If anything, it would have destroyed the one thing keeping the Sahara from expanding into Europe, and thus there'd only be a massive desert between Europe and Africa.

[@Chuck_vs._The_Comment_Section]

What the video completely fails to mention are the ecological consequences of this project. For example, that the newly reclaimed land and the surrounding area would have become so hot and dry that it would not have been habitable anyway. Or that the global sea level would have risen by 10 meters.

[@Elephantiago]

Sörgel, the OG no beaches man.

[@mgboltstwitch6921]

Wow its DAM cool idea

[@dglenday8705]

Genius !