The Building Legacies of National Socialism

In May of 1945, despite the widespread destruction caused by the war, there were tens of thousands of usable or easily repairable buildings from the National Socialist period that had survived on the territory of the German Reich – not only representative buildings or concentration camps. Due to the urgent need for space, most of these buildings were converted or continued to be used in different forms – also by the victorious Allied powers, who insisted only that all Nazi symbols and insignia, in particular swastikas, be removed. For many years, the interest of experts and the general public was focused primarily on the representative architecture of National Socialism, as embodied by such buildings as the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich and the Nazi Party Rally Grounds (Reichsparteitagsgelände) in Nuremberg – and, beginning in the 1960s, the main concentration camps. This exhibition, by contrast, focuses in particular on how Germany has dealt with lesser-known examples of the building legacies of National Socialism, which until today have remained largely in the shadow of the monumental buildings. The 1970s saw the adoption of legislation on the protection of historical monuments in the West German federal states (Länder). Based on a complex process of negotiations between the "lower monument protection agencies" of the municipalities and the regional monument protection offices of the Länder, this legislation laid out protection criteria in brief formulations that were open to interpretation. In 1975, East Germany passed a Monument Preservation Act, thereby providing a central organisation for monument protection in in the GDR as well. However, only a few protections were extended to the architectural heritage of the Nazi era. Since the 1990s, authorities have increasingly also begun extending protections to "ordinary buildings" from the years 1933 to 1945.

Compiled by Adelheid von Saldern, using the research findings of Claudia Büttner and Emanuel Hübner

Translated from the German by Peter Rigney