Bibliograph

The Allied air war and urban memory, the legacy of strategic bombing in Germany, Jörg Arnold

Type

Label

The Allied air war and urban memory, the legacy of strategic bombing in Germany, Jörg Arnold

Language

eng

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

The Allied air war and urban memory

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Oclc number

769341775

Responsibility statement

Jörg Arnold

Series statement

Studies in the social and cultural history of modern warfare, 35Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks

Sub title

the legacy of strategic bombing in Germany

Summary

The cultural legacy of the air war on Germany is explored in this comparative study of two bombed cities from different sides of the subsequently divided nation. Contrary to what is often assumed, Allied bombing left a lasting imprint on German society, spawning vibrant memory cultures that can be traced from the 1940s to the present. While the death of half a million civilians and the destruction of much of Germany's urban landscape provided 'usable' rallying points in the great political confrontations of the day, the cataclysms were above all remembered on a local level, in the very spaces that had been hit by the bombs and transformed beyond recognition. The author investigates how lived experience in the shadow of Nazism and war was translated into cultural memory by local communities in Kassel and Magdeburg struggling to find ways of coming to terms with catastrophic events unprecedented in living memory.--, Provided by publisher

Table Of Contents

Introduction: a poem and an image -- 1. From experience to memory: the emergence of Lieux de mémoire, 1943-1947 -- Part I. Commemorating Death: 2. 'Soldiers of the Heimat': commemorating the dead, 1940-1945; 3. 'In quiet memory'?: post-war memory cultures, 1945-1979; 4. The return of the dead: the renaissance of commemoration, 1979-1995 -- Part II. Confronting Destruction: 5. 'What we have lost': framing urban destruction, 1940-1960; 6. From celebration to lamentation: dealing with the legacy of the air war, 1960-1995 -- Part III. Writing Histories: 7. Reconstructing the 'night of horror': local histories of allied bombing, 1940-1970; 8. The 'greatest event in municipal history': local research as antiquarian endeavor, 1970-1995 -- Conclusion

resource.variantTitle

The Allied Air War & Urban Memory

Creator