Over the course of the twentieth century, Germans have venerated
and maintained a variety of historical buildings--from medieval
fortresses and cathedrals to urban districts and nineteenth-century
working-class housing. But the practice of historic preservation
has sometimes proven controversial, as different groups of Germans
have sought to use historical architecture to represent competing
versions of their nation's history.
Transient Pasts is the first book to examine the role that
the historic preservation movement has played in German cultural
history and memory from the end of the nineteenth century to
the
early 1970s.
Focusing on key public debates over historic preservation, Rudy
Koshar charts a trajectory of cultural politics in which historical
architecture both facilitated and limited Germans' efforts to
identify as a nation. He demonstrates that historical buildings and
monuments have served as enduring symbols of national history in a
country scarred by the traumas of two world wars, Nazism, the
Holocaust, and political division. His findings challenge both the
widely accepted argument that Germans have constantly repressed
their past and the contention that Germany's intense public
engagement with history since reunification is unprecedented.