Architecture and the Memory of Nazism in Postwar Munich
in German Politics and SocietyAll currencies in US Dollar
Few issues have possessed the centrality or sparked as much controversy
in the postwar history of the Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG) as the struggle to come to terms with the nation’s Nazi past.
This struggle, commonly known by the disputed term Vergangenheitsbewältigung,
has cast a long shadow upon nearly all dimensions of
German political, social, economic, and cultural life and has prevented
the nation from attaining a normalized state of existence in
the postwar period. Recent scholarly analyses of German memory
have helped to broaden our understanding of how “successful” the
Germans have been in mastering their Nazi past and have shed light
on the impact of the Nazi legacy on postwar German politics and
culture. Even so, important gaps remain in our understanding of
how the memory of the Third Reich has shaped the postwar life of
the Federal Republic.