Altar, Stage and City: Historic Preservation and Urban Meaning in Nazi Germany

Altar, Stage and City: Historic Preservation and Urban Meaning in Nazi Germany
Author(s): Rudy J. Koshar

Source: History and Memory, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 30-59
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25618610
Accessed: 25-09-2015 16:18 UTC
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Rudy J. Koshar
Altar, Stage and City: Historic Preservation
in Nazi Germany1
and Urban Meaning
of the recent
"self-archaeologization"2
society has consisted of historic preservation,
Part
intervention
in
built
environments
to
of Western
the project of
or
maintain
restore
to have
districts and
that are said
townscapes
buildings,
as
as
the
links
well
value.
with
past
present
important
in
and
North
in
the
America
past
Europe
Increasingly strong
so
historic preservation
three decades,
(Denkmalpflege) was
after the late 1960s that critics,

in West Germany
popular
art historian
the
fin-de-siecle language of the Viennese
echoing
that claimed
Alois Riegl, wrote of a "cult of monuments"
in the
value
for one of every twelve buildings
historical
Federal Republic.3 Partly a reaction of younger West Germans
disregard for history, the cult
against the postwar generation's
of
monuments
was
also
release
from
connotations
that
the
"Seldom
Nazi dictatorship gave official heritage preservation.
... seen better times than in Germany
has historic preservation
after
1933,"
wrote
the
conservator
Reinhard
Bentmann
in
and
to add
that the state agencies
hastened
had
in
the
1930s
with
concerned
preservation
voluntary groups
and thus much
and system-conforming"
"coordinated
been
different from their recent counterparts.4 The comment reveals
in
not only how one generation of professionals was engaged
but
creating a public image of the German past in the 1970s,
an earlier generation
remembered
also how that generation
1976,
who
remembering.
not only
the
is understandable,
given
distancing
of
the
1930s
horrific political history in which preservationists
and 1940s were implicated, but also the political changes and
in the last two
of interest in historic places
popularization
that present-day official
Yet we must not overlook
decades.
- as both establishment
enemy and emotional
preservationism
Such
Altar, Stage and City

- bears traces of the
preservationist journal, Deutsche Kunst und
on earlier models,
its
assumed
Denkmalpflege, though based
current name and format in 1934. Major
in
passed
legislation
1936, the Decree on Building Design, facilitated the protection
II.5 During
of historic places and had effects after World War
the preservation
of monuments
and
the Nazi
dictatorship
a social relevance
for city planning
that
landmarks gained
the nostalgic
today seems
self-explanatory.6 And
popular
interest in heritage preservation after 1933 resembles similar
waves that followed 1945. All this suggests the need to rethink
a
of strict difference between
the retrospective assessment
ally of that popular

Nazi era. The main
cult of monuments
and system-conforming" preservationism of 1933

"coordinated
to 1945 and a new preservationism of the 1970s. At the same
time, however, one must avoid overdrawn
interpretations of
discursive
continuity. By focusing on historic preservation's
role
in
the
formation
of
"urban
meaning"
in Nazi
Germany,
this discussion makes a beginning in that project.

on official historic preservation
is very uneven.7
Scholarship
We
have a specialized
literature on heritage
preservation,
much
of it by art historians
and
the
but
conservators,
to
of
efforts
historic
manage
history
sociopolitical
environments has been studied tangentially, if at all, usually by
scholars who mistakenly assume that preservationists spoke the
Utopian language of architects, the functionalist
language of
or
the
of
cultural
reactionary language
planners,
pessimists.8
There
is a growing scholarship on national monuments
(in
the specific sense of the term) and political
in
culture
for
the
this
but
literature
Germany, especially
Imperial period,9
cannot readily be deployed
to talk about historic preservation.
historical
Protecting
buildings required different practices and
words: historic environments were exposed
to a wider range of
threats involving social change, urban planning, and everyday
use. We have neither a synthetic
historic
history of German
a
in
nor
the
twentieth
century
preservation
systematic
of its workings from 1933 to 1945.10 We
have,
exploration
moreover, no fuller study of the changing rhetoric of historic
preservation, a fundamental problem that goes to the heart of
3:
Rudy J. Koshar
current
interests
in
memory,
language
and
cultural
representation.
32
recent
to
of self-archaeologization
referred
process
often included restoration of old urban centers
cides now have their Altstadt" writes Maier11). But
("German
this is not only a characteristic of the 1970s. Although
castle
were
ruins in rural settings and provincial
among
townscapes
the most cherished objects of preservationist desire, German
historical preservation has cared about the city for the whole
twentieth century, or rather about how historic urban centers
The
above
could
I want
urban
has
be
used
to
to discuss
refer
Germans
preservationism's
to
notionally
role
common
in shaping
past.
this kind of
meaning.
as
urban
structural
"the
meaning
as a goal to cities in general
(and to a
assigned
performance
in
the
inter-urban
division
of
labor) by the
city
particular
actors
between
historical
in a given
conflictive
process
Castells
defines
is neither simply
argues Castells,
society.''12 Urban meaning,
the result of intellectual tradition nor a functional response to
In my opinion,
it is the result of a
structural contradictions.
a
of enablement
indeterminate
form
discourse,
relatively
of
ways
talking, writing and
thinking.13
involving possible
Castell's work has concentrated mainly on urban meaning with
it with reference
reference to political economy, but I explore
a key spatial
I
discuss
to political culture. More
specifically,
in
embedded
preservationist
language, what I will
metaphor
of the urban altar, as part of an attempt to
call the metaphor
a cultural (and moral)
role for the city and the urban
project
not
to
what images of the past are
consider
is
past. My goal
another
is
(that
topic), but what figurative language
deployed
of the historic city, and
is used in preservationism's
"imaging"
creates urban meaning
in
that works
that language
how
to
in
Nazism.
relation
(and
partly antagonistic) ways
particular
as a "matter
of
discuss metaphor
Lakoff and Johnson
one
an
of
that
understanding
"permits
imaginative rationality"
"Not just a matter
in terms of another."
kind of experience
of language," metaphorical
permeate everyday
understandings
a political dimension
because
thought and action.'1 They have
our choice of language suggests our view of the world. Their

that are
assumptions are often unstated, resting on perceptions
or
users.
from
hidden
In
their
Western
urbanistic
fully
partly
a shift from
to spatial
there has been
discourse
organic
an
a
more
of
fundamental
metaphors,
expression
arguably
process
whereby
modern
culture
turns
to
"spatialized"
thinking.1'
German
1870 was marked
history since
by contentious
over what figurative discourses
to
debates
should be used
the role of cities. German capitalism had imposed
understand
a sense of the city as commodity that seemed to dominate all
other meanings,
but critics on both the Right and the Left
alternative
ways of reading urban landscapes marked by
sought
the "heartless
and colorless qualities
of money."1" Weimar
on such matters.
featured
intense
debates
Germany
especially
to reduce
to a binary
It would be mistaken
these debates
of urbanism and anti-urbanism.1' In fact, urbanistic
opposition
discourse before and during the Weimar
cut across
Republic
this opposition, pitting advocates of modernist
"new building"
against
progressive
historicists
in
architecture,
traffic-conscious
city planners
against the romantic defenders of picturesque
squares and streets in both small towns and major cities, and
Social Democratic
supporters of public housing on the urban
fringes against conservative champions of historic city centers.
The Nazi dictatorship
tried to halt this conflict, imposing its
own racialist meaning
and thinking of the city not only as a
as
a
mass
but
commodity
political
stage whose
backdrops
consisted partly of historic environments, partly of grandiose
neoclassical
architecture.18
Preservationists were most often found on the side of the

historicists, romantics and Altstadt defenders
groups whose
benefitted
from
Nazi
ceaseless
public
image
propaganda's
of
German
were
and
whose
often
praise
heritage
goals
closely
an
identified with
the regime. Yet
there was
important
difference
between
National
Socialist
and
preservationist
of
the
to a
city. Leading
readings
preservationists, devoted
tradition
of
"culture"
in
burgerlich
approaching
quasi-religious
terms, convinced that the nation was a secular church, saw the
city not as a mass stage but as an altar, whose holy vestments
and vessels were
the historic places
an
that symbolized
33
Rudy J. Koshar
institutionalized
national
This
religion.
paper
is about
that
difference.
The following discussion begins with a brief exploration

of
the development
of historic preservation
into the early years of
the Nazi dictatorship, stressing the active use of a narrative of
to enlist Nazism
for the preservationist
redemptive heritage
cause. The next two parts
the
of urban
explore
metaphors
34
last section outlines

the most
salient
stage and altar. The
discursive differences between the two metaphors,
arguing that
a
the preservationist metaphor
achieved
from Nazi
distancing
to a "privileged
rhetoric that amounted
in the
marginality"
culture.
The
conclusion
the
suggests
political
briefly
the
of
for
argument
preservationism's
implication
relationship
to
ceaseless
Germany's
A Narrative
search
for
of Redemptive
"usable
past."
Heritage
back to sixteenth-century precedents

and inspired
Looking
historic
Romanticism,
nineteenth-century
by
preservation
at the turn of the
public resonance
gained an unprecedented
in Germany. Whereas
inventories of
government
as early as 1870 in
landmarks had been published
it was
after
the
1890s
that
and Hesse-Kassel,
and
the
laws,
tougher
building
publications,
specialized
century
historic
Bremen
appearance
of
new
associations
voluntary
signaled
the
creation
of
of a preservationist public.19 Like so many other movements
this period, historic preservationism was part of a sea change
life that included "a dramatic
increase in
in German
public
population,
environments,
massive
the
movements
growth
of
of
new
men
sorts
and
of
women
into
occupations,
new
the
of old patterns of social interaction, and the slow

of new kinds of relationships and values."20 More
emergence
was
one
of popular
element
specifically, preservationism
was
with
that
allied
the
cultural
commentary
increasingly
a congeries of organizations
the
Heimat movement,
promoting
dissolution
and study of local history, folklore and nature.21

protection
was
of stone," preservationists
Germany
losing its "documents
was
as the national
dissolved
by
being
heritage
argued,
town
one-sided
socioeconomic
planning's
change,
by

on
health problems, by insensitive

and
restorations.
building
policies
by improper
municipal
a new form
was
the
creation
of
official
preservationism
Finally,
or
from
architecture
of professional
activity distinguished
anchored
in
and
technical
universities,
increasingly
planning
state
and
and
voluntary
agencies,
municipal
colleges,
concentration
traffic and
associations.22
this period,
drew
its supporters
that
from
the
Bildungsburgertum,
mainly
increasingly fragmented
stratum of the educated middle and upper classes. The makers
of the preservationist public consisted of state and municipal
In
restorers,
conservators,
historians,
architects,
government
archaeologists,
journalists,
planners,
university
politicians
and
cultural
amateur
and
officials,
city
Semi-annual
mayors.
conferences, often held in conjunction with the key national

Heimat organization, Deutscher Bund Heimatschutz, provided one
and social interaction,
of several public spaces for dialogue
sustained professional
while regional and national publications
awareness.
and heightened
elites
discourse
Provincial
public
a big role, partly because
states
the
federal
and
played
Prussian provinces were responsible for heritage policy, partly
local building bylaws gave city officials much control
because
over aesthetic matters, and partly because
the educated classes,
thinking
of
themselves
as
the
"consciousness"
of
the
nation,
to "beautify"
and
bound
they were morally
argued
a
that
of
German
preserve
townscapes
"spoke"
language
heritage. Although most of the daily work of preservation was
conducted by government agencies, elite voluntary groups such
as the Rhenish Association
for the Protection of Historic Sites
and
Culture
und
(Rheinischer Verein fur Denkmalpflege
also had an advisory and financial
Heimatschutz, or RVDH)
role. Aside from such direct preservation activity, the educated
of
middle
and upper classes were
the most avid "readers"
environments
historic
the
of
tourism,
through
purchase
the Blaue
(for example,
postcards and illustrated publications
in beautification,
Bucher series) and participation
historical,
and preservation societies. In short, the educated middle and
a
classes not only organized
upper
industry," of
"heritage
that
35
Rudy J. Koshar
was a key part, but were also
consumers
of
main
its products.23
the
among
in the professions
and government,
Anchored
permeated
of
the
the moral
with
impulse
Bildungsburgertum, historic
believed
stewards of the historic
they were
preservationists
the
nation.
of
cultural
landmarks
They used a language of
on
based
the assumption
that the
nationalist
"entitivity,"
was
an
and continuous
cultural nation
extant, bounded
entity
which
36
whose
"memory,"
however
contested
or
dependent
on
rather than notionally

characteristics,
"objective"
subjective
could be symbolized in objects such as historic buildings. This
on a metonymy that identified the historic
symbolization relied
as the effect of a national
culture. But nationalist
place
a type of
specifically on synecdoche,
entitivity relied more
metonymy, which figuratively portrayed historic sites as symbols

of a holistic cultural experience
characteristic
of qualities
a
nadonal
bounded
group.24
possessed by
in a broader narrative. Relying
These
tropes were deployed
on a Romantic
form of emplotment
characterizing history as
an
recontextual
conflictive spiral, preservationism
ascending,
ized the Biblical story of the Fall and prophecy of redemption
of historical consciousness
by identifying the (re)development
with a renewal of national heritage after an era of decline.25
it would be inaccurate to think of this as a purely
However,
Romantic narrative of the ultimate triumph of good over evil,
since preservationists also relied on a comic emplotment based
release from the divided state
on the chance of "provisional
in
this world."26 The first issue
men
themselves
find
in which
in 1899, set the
Die
of the journal
Denkmalpflege, appearing
tone for this story of redemptive heritage, noting the serious
of
in the preceding
decades
of historic places
destruction
also
that
but
and
industrialization
urbanization,
people
saying
that it
to heed
the "golden words of Bismarck"
had begun
a
the
it
allows
to
when
nation
harm
was "of greatest
living
to its heritage and history to
of its connection
consciousness
fade."27
Historical
The
narration
is based
on several functional elements.

was grounded
in a
mainly
perspective
preservationist
the development
narrative outlining
genetical
of "alien
forms

- from crass materialism
to a
of life into proper ones"
reverence
This
also
for
for the German
past,
example.
the use of critical narratives that "live on what
necessitated
the darker or
they destroy."28 But this criticism never assumed
apocalyptic
cultural
tones of volkisch anti-Semites,

or
pessimists
radical
modernists.
reactionary
nationalists,
Conservationist
a relatively positive and forward-looking

originated in
cultural nationalism whose particular way of using narrative
elements persisted through World War I, the Weimar Republic
when
the Viennese
and
the Depression,
official
building
for
Wilhelm
the
Ambros,
speaking
lobby in
preservationist
Austria and Germany, argued "there is no reason to speak of
a crisis of historic
preservation."29
This essentially optimistic narrative of redemptive heritage,
notionally rooted in the "natural" balance and good sense of
the cultured classes even when it was aligned with nationalist
chauvinism, was used to incorporate National Socialist rhetoric
into preservationist discourse. No better illustration can be
discourse
book Die Deutsche Kunst und die

found than Paul Clemen's
in Berlin
in mid-1933
Denkmalpflege. Ein Bekenntnis, published
texts of twentieth-century historic
and one of the central
preservation
Bonn
in
art historian,
a member
of monuments
conservator
was
Clemen
Germany.
in
of
the
if autocratic
famous
the Lutheran
Prussian
church,
Rhine
province
first
in
1892, and chair of the national congress of conservators from

1923 to 1932. He won
the Goerres
prize of the Goethe
in 1942 and played a role
Stiftung and the Goethe Medallion
in reviving Rhenish preservationism before his death in 1946.30
Consisting of essays and addresses written from 1911 to 1932,
Clemen's
book featured detailed discussions
of the goals of
preservation
The
author
as
well
as
referred
rudimentary
semiotics
of monuments.
to a
range of thinkers, including Le

Corbusier, Nietzsche, John Ruskin, H. G. Wells, Ernst Junger,
Oscar Wilde, and Stefan George, for whose work Clemen had
a particular
fascination.
Clemen
identified preservationism
new
with
the
direcdy
regime, including a preface, dated July,
in which he spoke admiringly of Hitler's
"deep
empathy for
the mysterious magic
of monuments"
and
"the
quoted
Fuhrer's words" of that spring regarding the importance of
37
Rudy J. Koshar
"the great tradition of our people,
its history and its culture"
as sources of "a possible
renewal in troubled times."31 Here
took the form of liberating the German
nation
redemption
from
38
its self-destructive disregard for the past; if Bismarck's

"golden words" had performed this function more than three
then Hider's
in
of
decades
belief
the magic
before,
now achieved a similar
monuments
goal.
Other writers redeployed
the narrative, giving it their own
identical political aims. One method
inflections, but having
was simply to mark off a rather indefinitely defined past from
the present while retaining that element of continuity that
on. A typical example was
narratives depend
the
genetical
Hanns
in
the
official
Klose
article by
1938
municipal
building
on the adaptive re-use of several buildings
in Wesel,
which
with the remark "immediately
after the seizure of
opened
a
the Wesel
undertook
power
city administration
building
program that included the renewal of several historic buildings
interiors have unfortunately deteriorated
facades and
whose
as historic
in recent decades
much
despite being categorized
and
This
bland
landmarks."3"
innocuous,
description,
identified the new regime with renewal, the old
nonetheless
with decline, and preservationism with a faithful realization of
steward of the
the new spirit through its traditional role as
architectural
Some
heritage.
narratives
more
were
explicit.
For
many
Nazism
brought
long-awaited
political
preservationists,
the Great's
of great landmarks such as Frederick
mobilization
Sanssouci
in
Potsdam.
"Since
the
'Tag
von
Potsdam',"
wrote
in 1934,
Paul Ortwin Rave
the Berlin National
Gallery's
is once again at the center of nationalist festivals.
"Sanssouci
of the colors
this
The Hitler Youth regiment's consecration
Lit
remain
will
winter
by floodlights,
past
unforgettable.
out
hill rose in blinding radiance, as if enchanted,
Sanssouci
the magical quality of place,
of the evening shadows."33 Here
the regime of liberal
under
and commodified
rationalized
could be
type of emplotment
with
counterrevolutionary
directly
instructor F. Hermann
the technical college
thinking. When
on a badly needed
renewal scheme for
Flesche
commented
capitalism,
articulated
was
regained.
even more
This

town center
superficially picturesque medieval
Braunschweig's
readers that "the revoludon of 1918
in 1934, he reminded
this hiding-place."
the Nazis
could
crept out of
Only
this privileging of piety for the past over the social
undermine
Socialist
racial need for better housing: "It was the National
the problem and did something

regime that first understood
about it with real conviction. Renewal of the first block had
served to infuse the task of
synecdoche
begun."34 Here
with
social urgency of National
the
and
political
Sanierung
Socialist ideology.
Not all was unanimity. The preservationist public was the
location of conflicts that reflected the social differentiation of
state and city officials, free professions, and other parts of the
Burgertum. Conservators and other officials worried aloud about
what effect Nazi "coordination"
of cultural policy would have
on their activities.35 Just as they had before Hitler's
rise to
in
power, contributors to newspapers and professional journals
architecture and historic preservation debated methodologies,
goals and functions. Preservation projects set off fierce public
a Berlin-Wilmersdorf
as when
official
building
exchanges,
referred to plans for a reconstructed historic district in Berlin

in 1936 as "romantic
Such debates
appear
gush."
slightly
absurd if it is forgotten that they dealt with salient questions
a
of
secular
religion
based
on
reverence
for
an
imagined
national past. But these differences were never strong enough

as a
to subvert preservationists'
active reutilization of Nazism
fulfillment of a narrative of redemptive heritage.
City
as
Stage
cause
to find direct
of heritage preservation appeared
from
Nazism.
Hitler
made
much
had
of his love of
support
monumental
the
Vienna
buildings, characterizing
Ringstrasse
as an "enchantment,"
and speaking of "the magical
spell of
The
the sites of Mecca
and
Rome."37
The Nazi party addressed

their organizations while
preservationists directly, coordinating
a
a
them
of
role
in
"cultural
that
revolution"
special
assuring
in
the
demanded
Die
Baukunst,
"preservation
style."
grand
architectural supplement of Die Kunst imDeutschen Reich, edited
39
Rudy J. Koshar
Speer, ran lavishly illustrated features of historic
and
conservators.
buildings
praised provincial and municipal
Preservationists benefitted from a 1934 campaign
to control
in
the
1936
that
created
countryside,
advertising
legisladon
stricter guidelines
for new building
in historic districts, and
the adaptive re-use of old buildings by party and Hitler Youth
to legitimize the
and other measures
seemed
groups. These
claim
that
it
had
"unchained"
cities such as Aachen
regime's
by Albert
40
from decline
historic
after "the
downtowns,
maintaining
were
museums
Heimat
on
of 1933 by saving
great purification"
local festivals and creating or
promoting
actions
that,
not
incidentally,
the same moral
placed
plane as the regime's attacks
on "cultural deprivation"
caused in the case of Aachen by the
now departed French occupation
troops "with their substantial
female entourage."38 Despite
the selective destructiveness
of
to endorse a
Nazi urban planning, despite Nazi unwillingness
historicist architecture
completely
of German
consumerism
public
and
the NSDAP
preservationists
dictatorship
as
serious
proponent
and
life
could
of
despite
in the
easily
heritage
the
rampant
1930s, both
think of the
preservation.
have noted
the radical political
Scholars
of
functionalism
Nazi urban
monumental
thinking, stressing Speer's
building
to
less attention has been devoted
projects above all. Much
in such schemes. Yet we need
the already built environment
film Triumph of theWill, which
only look to Leni Riefenstahl's
a
Altstadt as
theatrical
used
the beflagged
Nuremberg
for
Hitler's
into
the
entry
triumphant
city, or Paul
backdrop
"Die
which
reduces
Herrmann's
1942 painting
Fahne,"
mass
a
to
of
Munich's
shadowy
geometric shapes and
cityscape
turrets framing the 1923 Beer Hall
putschists.39 In both
representations,
traditional
was
city
center's
association
with
articulated with Nazism's

of origin"
project of
to their presumed
racial
back
Germans
heritage.40 In
leading
centers
rather
urban
both representations, moreover,
major
to bring about
this association,
than small towns were used
investment in the metropolis.
ideological
suggesting Nazism's
of the city as theater has
This metaphorical
understanding
"vision
influential throughout the twentieth century;41

become more
extreme
of the metaphor
the
distinguishes
politicization
only

era from
sources
later periods.
The
this
of
were truly eclectic and cannot be reduced to any
politicization
or political strand. In urban
planning Nazism
single cultural
out of
of ideas constructed
created a racist conglomerate
the
Nazi
conservative-technocratic
traditions,
garden-city
"volkisch-organic"
Meanwhile,
Frankfurt-am-Main,
of radical
more
technocratic
inflection.
schemes were undertaken
renewal
and
Braunschweig
Kassel,
in
a
and
rebuilding of key urban ensembles was begun in

and elsewhere.
In architecture,
Munich,
Nuremberg
a similarly eclectic mix
drew on
of
influences,
monumental
Berlin,
Nazism
to
limited urban
of
theorizing
thinkers such as
had
shifted from a
thinking
the 1920s and the expressionism

Bruno Taut. By 1936 urbanistic
including
not only
conservative
the classicist
architects,
but
also
and
regionalist
modernist
traditions of
models.42
anti
this chaos of influences, and despite much
Despite
urban rhetoric from many different sources, the most salient
was not to oppose
the metropolis,
but to redefine urban
goal
the
and
urban
retain their
The
city
region would
meaning.
albeit
functions as spatial settings for commodity production,
influences. The
without liberal capitalist, Jewish and Marxist
a
new political
with the spirit of
city would be permeated
aware
of its racial heritage and subjugated
culture,
totally to
to
new
state.
tried
the city
National
Socialism
the
disengage
a
sense
time
of
absolute
from historical contingencies, creating
as
the
of
the
whose
and place, privileging
stage
metaphor
city
actors
City
were
the masses
and
whose
subscribed
to
star was
Hitler
himself.
as Altar
Conservationists
"culturalist"
perspective
in that it clung
the city that "was
retrospective
of
the preindustrial
coherent and exemplary
image
to
the
of
contemporary
opposition
image
incoherence."43
Yet
preservationists
also
welcomed
"the
of
to
the
city in
urban
new,"
Sitte, who
taking their cue from thinkers such as Camillo
as
an
as
as
a
the
value
few public
city
exchange
accepted
long
a
to
be
could
dramatized
squares
preserved
provide
"spatially
of a proud Burger past.44 This goal of preserving a
memory"
41
Rudy J. Koshar
of
sometimes
number
commemoradve
spaces
as
when
rather
the
exaggerated
language,
Strassburg
generated
art historian Georg Dehio,
author of a famous multivolume
that
claimed
of German
cultural
handbook
landmarks,
was by necessity "socialistic"
its
need
because
of
preservation
limited
interest of heritage
property
rights in the
to disengage
desire
Yet
the
certain districts or
protection.45
violence
of capitalist market
landmarks from the quotidian
was
was
to
then
be saved?
forces
present. What
to
42
abridge
to argue that preservationists

in the first
It is commonplace
with
concerned
of the twentieth century were most
"nonurban
fortresses, castles, and cloisters" along with a few
can
that
There
be
litde
doubt
churches.46
urban
were enamored
of "public
symbols,"
objects
preservationists
4
in that they had a
that were very imageable
'high probability
half
of evoking a strong image in any given observer." These could

or
to historic personalities
be formal gardens, monuments
or
cities.
ideal
monumental
architecture, public squares
events,
But since the late nineteenth century preservationists had also
discussed
"fields
of
care."
differ
These
from
symbols
public
in
not immediate attention but affection,

they command
are
on
less
the
part of their inhabitants. They
especially
often
than
and,
inconspicuous,
symbols,
public
imageable
in everyday
unlike public symbols, they are firmly entrenched
street
include parks, homes,
life. They may
taverns,
shops,
that
corners,
structures
neighborhoods,
often
form
commemorative
value
marketplaces,
"unintentional"
those
stems
not
from
or
whole
towns.
These
monuments
an
"original
whose
purpose
and
from subsequent
but
and
perceptions
significance,"
actions. Government
funding and group activity to save such
theory until recently, but current
lagged well behind
objects
interest in conserving historic fields of care was prefigured
at the turn of the
discourse
in preservationist
rhetorically
century.47
a capitalist city dotted

therefore envisioned
Preservationists
ensembles of public symbols and a limited but growing
number of fields of care. In the case of smaller towns and
be much
could
cities, these ensembles
larger, sometimes
towns
and
rural
old
entire
centers,
city
encompassing
with

to argue
be
It would
difficult
that such
landscapes.
and
architectonic
morphological
configurations
suggested
unalloyed anti-urbanism. Indeed, it was not the big city per se
to
that preservationists
criticized, but rather its tendency
distinctions
transgress
between
and
metropolitan
small-town
a quality of spatial and

that possessed
temporal
that made
them a "total work of art"
closure, a coherence
(Gesamtkunstwerk),48Even then preservationists never thought of
as an undifferentiated whole since, as we have
the metropolis
habitats
or parts
seen, some big cities (Munich, Nuremberg, Dresden)
of big cities (the Frankfurt-am-Main Altstadt) were worthy of
substantial
preservation.
If much of the urban landscape could be surrendered

to
market forces, then highly valued public symbols and fields of
care
would
serve
as
necessary
moral
stabilizers
in
constantly
changing social reality.49 Nationalist

symbolism played a major
role in this project of finding in the physical
a
landscape
representation
of
collective
interest,
meaning
"magical"
the marketplace.50
If cosmology had performed
this
beyond
function in ancient civilizations, then in the modern
period
uneven
nationalism
offered new ways of believing.
The
breakdown of older forms of social integration in the modern
period had given way to nationalist
imaginings that required
many different referents to dissolve social tensions that were
to find more
indissolvable. This
need
ways of
ultimately
a
national
in
time of disintegration
symbolizing
integration
a
exerted
a
constant
social
thought
pressure
widening
integration
intervened
on
discourse
that resulted
in
preservationist
the
of
monument.
of
the
As
concept
ever
more
became
nationalist
unrealistic,
in
preservationist
discourse
to
create
an
to the physical
ever-increasing need for the return of "aura"
a
to
connection
the
landscape,
unique,
solidarity-giving fabric
of time and place that capitalist development
and class tension
as
the
audiences
for
whom
historic
Moreover,
destroyed.
environments
could
in fact be "historic"
or symbolic of a
interest became more
national
so the array of
fragmented,
more
artifacts became
and
varied.
larger
From this perspective
it is not surprising that preservationist
the
of
often
had an integrative, religious tone.
city
readings
43
Rudy J. Koshar
work again provides a key example.
Balanced
and
was
Die
Deutsche
Kunst
und
die
practical,
Denkmalpflege
a "confession"
nonetheless
of the author's
love of historic
as
Ein
the
subtitle,
Bekenntnis,
places,
suggested. This religiosity
was made
as
when
Clemen
explicit,
singled out historic
churches and city halls as vehicles through which a "living
a
and
communal
could
be
Christianity"
"living
spirit"
Influenced
the
later
work
of
Stefan
by
preserved.
George,
Clemen's
thought took on a mystical tone in his poem cycle
im Naumburger
in which
the
Dom,"
"Mitternachtsgesprach
life-size statues of cathedral donors
in the early Gothic west
to speak as "protectors of cathedral and city,
choir were made
Clemen's
44
the Holy Land."

Clemen
in seeing
persisted
in this manner until the end of his life, relying
of
worshipers
historic places
a
synecdoche
"embodiment
on
that
of
characterized
sacred
monuments
cultural
as
the
sentiments."51
religious
and conservative
Related
partly to long-standing Romantic
intellectuals for
influences and partly to the quest of German
a new religiosity adapted
to twentieth-century needs,52 this
an
texts.
in other
echo
found
preservationist
language
"Reverence"
words
of
and
for
"piety"
preservationist
the
past
discourse.
were
Professional
the
among
key
conservators
spoke of their "pastoral" mission of advice and good counsel

1936
to city mayors, cultural officials and the public. The
like many previous events,
preservationist congress in Dresden,
to represent
its
used religious imagery of the Holy Mother
to Heimat. More popular publications
used a similar
devotion
language,
such
as
Richarda
Huch's
introduction
to
an
illustrated volume of German architecture, in which she wrote

of the "religiosity" of early Germanic peoples.53
of the political
All this suggests that if the spatial metaphor
to
Socialist
urban
it was the
National
practice,
stage applied
that
in
altar
the
of
preservationist
operated
metaphor
were at work
Several "entailment
discourse.
relationships"54
as a
of the nation
here. The metaphorical
understanding
a
source
as
of
had
nationalism
that
church,
replaced religion
a
was
that
national
culture
entailed
religious
meaning,
that cities and towns, as expressions of
practice. This entailed
a bounded,
individuated national entity, were forums for the

of sacred utensils and
vestments, of which
manipulation
historic places were the most visible, durable and imageable in
the creadon of public memory. The city was a secular altar surrounded by a volatile and destructive capitalism to be sure,
assaulted on all sides by nonbelievers - but still present in its
role as a public space from which the rituals of a national
religion could be conducted.
45
Privileged Marginality
National
similar
Socialism
language
never
preservationists
a
historic preservationism
used
race
and
Yet
nation,
heritage.
and
of
strove
for
full
articulation
of
and
altar
instead to situate themselves securely in the

stage, wishing
dominant political culture while creating distance from it. I
want to suggest that this distancing
resulted in a privileged
for
the
preservationist
marginality
metaphor:
privileged
was
the
because
the metaphor
imbricated with
already
state
and
of
cultural
and
elite
social
networks,
policy
language
because National
Socialist
repression of urbanistic
marginal
discourse in the wider society was unquestioned.
Nazi metaphors
of the urban stage presupposed
large public
or leading Nazi performers "played"
to
in
which
Hitler
spaces
this
The
difference
enthusiastic
audiences.
between
huge,
and
the spatial referents of the preservationist
approach
was
to by Hitler himself in a 1939 speech
alluded
metaphor
that made
historic
of
These
status
spadal
of
recognized
performer
charisma
as
an
unfavorable
and
churches
the
contrasts
performers.
alone.
The
or
large
of an
the
the small
of mass
with
priest
differences
or
spaces
spectacles.53
pastor
in the
was
institutionalized
religion, the
stage gained his following through
professional
art
spaces
articulated
Whereas
representative
of the urban
architect
between
comparisons
conservator,
usually
trained
this difference
historian, expressed
of
mission
succinctly by likening his task to a "pastoral"
a collective
national
teaching
piety for
memory.56 Nazi
advocates of heritage and preservation, by contrast, used the
language of struggle, mastery and unending crisis, creating an
imagery of the urban warrior defending historic environments
Rudy J. Koshar
masses
to wage battle
against destruction and calling on the
for the collective heritage.
was
each
The
"reader"
of
implied
metaphor
in
The
urban
situated
different.
stage,
correspondingly
of
fired by
the performances
and
monumental
spaces
an audience
that was made
charismatic
leaders, presupposed
a cross-class
a
of
of
social
array
groups,
up
disparate
46
was
In addition,
this heterogeneous
audience
conglomerate.
was
not
it
because
imprisoned
only by the
doubly passive
a deep, continuous
racial
of
heritage, but also by
knowledge
an inescapable propaganda
total commitment
that demanded
to the preservation of fascist community.57
was also passive,
The
implied reader of the urban altar
a
the
created
kind of cultural
for
because
past
piety
partly
an
had
that
Nietzsche
"iron
quietism
cage,"
antiquarian
in the 1870s.58 Yet inscribed in this passivity were
attacked
audience
remnants of the notion of a culturally homogeneous
as
a
text
the
and
of
city
arriving at some
"reading"
capable
In a range of areas of its content.
critical appreciation
of this
literature - the degradation
architecture,
painting,
attacked
reader
had
of
cultural
been
the
tradition
bourgeois
the world of
and proclaimed dead, but in historic preservation
likes to call the
that "wider, but now dying circle that one
still informedi#a
in Clemen's
cultured
words,
(Gebildeten),"
substantial
part
of
preservationist
discourse.59
Indeed,
a virtue of being at the historical end

preservationists
in
it could be continued
that
of
tradition, assuming
point
some marginal way in the future.
invoked different
The foregoing suggests that each metaphor
made
strategies
of
consumption.
Monumental
spaces,
charismatic
passive readers were conjoined

a volkisch mass consumer whose
with
doubly
performers
chief
Nazi goals of producing
in Berlin.
was
the gargantuan
project
building
symbol
to
so often as a project whose main
goal was
Regarded
the
Berlin
a
national
renewed
power,
political
represent
to the needs
of
substantial attention
scheme, which paid
mass
an
to
was
invitation
also
conspicuous
private business,
and
consumption.*10

Official heritage preservation could likewise be thought of as
"the product of social differentiation"
through conspicuous
consumption.61 Yet this was not Nazism's
luxury." It
"populist
was an elitist market strategy
which
the
through
preservationist
"consumed"
historic artifacts by studying, touring,
public
and
them.
It was
photographing,
restoring
discussing
conspicuous
superiority
Bourdieu's
because
these activities demonstrated
the notional
of
the
in Pierre
consumers,
them,
giving
words,
"social
power
over
time"
not
because
they
possessed historic places individually (although some did), but

because
showing concern for them, visiting them and reading
about
their history and architectural
them, knowing about
was
taste for old things" and was
"like
the
styles,
something
available only for those "who can take their time."62 In short,
whether they acted as government stewards or
passive admirers
town halls or historic districts, the educated
of medieval
middle
and upper classes, through government agencies and
voluntary
superiority
That
groups,
vis-a-vis
some Nazi
used
other
this
"cultural
domestic
party members
industry was
clearly
capital"
to assert
social
groups.63
understood
this aspect of the
demonstrated
in Goebbels'
heritage
minister said that German
culture
thinking. The propaganda
was imprisoned by "tradition and reverence." He cheered the
World War II destruction of German
cultural monuments,
the
remnants of an "old and used up
past" and "last obstacles to
the fulfillment of
More
[Nazism's]
revolutionary' goals."
significant than such ranting, however, were disagreements
that stemmed directly from within the preservationist
public.
a technical
When
instructor sympathetic to the Nazi
college
cause
in a
1934 article
in Deutsche Kunst und
suggested
that
of
the
members
Committee
for Monuments
Denkmalpflege
and Historic Sites in Braunschweig would never condescend
to
live in the substandard housing of that city's protected
town
the problems of
center, and that only the Nazis understood
German
to a serious
Altstddte, he pointed
incompatibility
between a cultured piety for the past and a National
Socialist
discourse on social biology. A similar incompatibility, a harsh
difference between elite and mass consumption
associated with
47
Rudy J. Koshar
was discussed
two opposed
the
urbanistic metaphors,
during
urban renewal project for Frankfurt-am-Main in 1936.^
a discussion
seem
to
of nationalism
would
By contrast,
indeed
Here
between
the
suggest compatibility
metaphors.
twentieth-century
48
historic
seemed
preservation
to
have
its best
the national
chance of joining
"revolution,"
by stating that
to use Dehio's
the subject of its narrative, its "real hero,"
Volk. Much
of this nationalism was
words, was the German
influenced by civil service traditions, clearly stated in the claim
that state conservators had a "particular ethos" of anonymity
not unlike that of the medieval
artist, whose personality was
in
interests were
subsumed
was
important
the work
subjugated
a
that individual
of art. This meant
to "God and community." No
less
broader
cultural
nationalism,
rooted
of
in Herder's
"contextualistic"
understanding
ultimately
human nature by which the individual finds identity through
an inherited
in a broader
"inclusion
linguistic community,
stream of words and images which he must accept on trust."
readings of this cultural nationalism
aggressive
Subsequent
the essential tolerance of Herder's
obscured
ideas, which were
a
theory of freedom for each national group. Post

their Heimatschutz allies
and
II preservationists
was
freedom
misused
of
after 1933,
that
this
theory
argued
their
enthusiastic
for
themselves
support
seemingly excusing
for Nazism. Yet there is something to the claim. Not only in
based
World
Clemen's
on
War
work,
which
stressed
conservative-Christian
texts also,
tolerance in public life, but in other preservationist
to
this earlier, less aggressive
we find continued
adherence
contradictions
of this perspective
The
cultural nationalism.
cultural
the
French
were
obvious:
praised
preservationists
save
to
of
in
the
wartime
program
they helped
heritage
treasures
the
German
while
artistic
(Kunstschutz)
protection of
France. The victimizer admired the victim. Yet
army occupied
an untimely
inheritance
the theme of tolerance
persisted,
a place
in a
of
privileged marginality
occupying
perhaps,
mass
and
and
fanaticism
that preached
practiced
dictatorship
murder.*5
could make a similar point about regionalism. Like

One
the metaphor
Heimatschutz ally, historic preservation used
its
of

the altar to stress the imageability of local settings, invoking
differences in architectural style,materials,
levels of destruction
of historic built environments, and an array of other factors.
For preservationists,
the persistence or restoration of unique
local
of
townscapes made
imageability not just a matter
a
but
fact
the
reinforced
federal
imagination
physical
by
structure and
of official heritage
legislative mechanisms
Nazi
preservation.
propagandists
made
use
of
also,
regionalism
but they relied on local traditions to demonstrate

the regime's
ability to regiment difference. For the preservationist, however,
regional peculiarities functioned as local detail did in Theodor
Fontane's
novel
Irrungen,
Wirrungen,
namely
as
way
of
a relative
in the midst of
establishing
"stability of place"
social and political
transformation.66 The
local
threatening
facticity and detail of preservationist discourse, examples of its
to serve this defensive function
Romantic heritage, continued
in the Nazi
no meaningful
They
dictatorship.
suggested
resistance to the regime, but they did point to one discursive
limit or blockage, marginal but palpable.
Conclusion
has suggested that there was a substantial inter
of
Socialist discourse.
penetration
preservationist and National
I
have
also
that
However,
argued
preservationists' metaphorical
understanding of the city projected certain discursive limits on
this interpenetration.
a case of that
This
is not quite
subversion without resistance that Michel
de Certeau
has so
Yet
it
does
discussed.67
that
the
idea
of a
skillfully
suggest
This
totally
paper
"coordinated
and
system-conforming"
preservationism
requires considerable
rethinking.
has argued
that the only useful way of
Jiirgen Habermas
a critical
the
German
is
of
past
regarding
appropriation
tradition that does not simply emphasize what is
about
"right"
German history, but accepts that what is
"right" is inextricably
interwoven with the darkest and most barbaric chapters of the
in the introduction that the popular
cult of
past.68 I noted
monuments
relied partly on an ahistorical
of
uncoupling
nostalgia from its associations with the era of the National
49
Rudy J. Koshar
50
Socialist dictatorship and partly on a more critical dismissal of

official heritage preservation of that era as utterly implicated
in the regime's actions. I want to suggest that a more fruitful
how earlier generations
of Germans
way of remembering
in
is to examine
the discursive
differences
remembered
and
Nazi
and
discourse,
refining
preservationist
appropriating
in the present,
elements
that seem
those
but
useful
crimes
of
their
association
the
with
simultaneously recognizing
the
past.
It is no doubt true that German historic preservation of the

1930s and early 1940s contained remnants of earlier traditions
historicism and the bourgeois
cult of high
of Romanticism,
culture - and allowed these traditions to be engaged by Nazi
No one would
suggest that the preservationist
propagandists.
as
altar
the
should be revived. Yet the
of
city
metaphor
as
now
of
the
stage,
city
stripped of its authoritarian
metaphor
of
but
in the marketing
fully deployed
implications,
political
historic city centers and other environments,69 has drastically
of historic places.
the educative potential
reduced
Perhaps
something
of
the
earlier
preservationists'
passionate
interest
in,
if
be recovered
if not their reverence
for, history could
were
has
As
alternative metaphors
Terry Eagleton
engaged.
are
all
radical
the best
remarked,
thoroughly
positions
a
of such
critical
and
traditionalist ones,70
appropriation
traditions may contribute to those parts of current postmodern
than a theatrical nostalgia. To
that aim for more
discourse
learn from the urban past, to "see" how both past crimes and
are inscribed in urban environments - this
accomplishments
in the history of preservationism's
potential is worth preserving
it is worth preserving with a
But
urban
of
meaning.
making
of the
substantial dose of reflexivity: since any understanding
no full
our
since
and
of
consists
past
linguistic projections,
in
reconstruction of the past is possible, we can only engage
to
an
with
earlier
hoping
generations,
imaginary dialogue
for
that can be used
those dispersed
fragments
recycle
case. If
true
in
the
German
This
is
life.
doubly
contemporary
is to be
the recycling of historic urban fragments in Germany
more
than a self-indulgent and forgetful play with "stranded
itmust be done under the sign of mourning.71
objects,"
Notes
for this project was made possible by a fellowship
1 Research
Foundation.
from the John Simon Guggenheim
The Unmasterable Past: History,
Charles
S. Maier,
2 See
and German National
Holocaust,
Identity (Cambridge, Mass.,
1988), 123.
terms Denkmalpflege (literally the encouragement
and
3 The
in
of
the
broadest
monuments,
sense),
guardianship
Denkmalschutz (which stresses the element of protection) and
are
Baudenkmalpflege (which specifically stresses architecture)
no
more
than
precise
Each
"conservation."
the
terms
term
is
"historic
preservation"
shorthand
expression
or
for
from
the complete
different practices
many
ranging
to
restoration of single buildings
(or even single objects)
minimal
protection of entire districts. In the following, I
the
is arguably
refer to architectural preservation, which
of the term. See David Lowenthal,
connotation
dominant
The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge,
1985), for some of
a
to
and
references
the complexities
technical
large
literature in the Anglo-American
world. For the German
case,
see
the many
sources
cited
below.
For
Alois
Riegl,
see
moderne
Sein Wesen
und seine
Denkmalkultus:
in
Gesammelte
and
Vienna,
Aufsdtze (Augsburg
Entstehung,"
1928), 144-93.
4 See Reinhard Bentmann,
"Der Kampf um die Erinnerung.
und
methodische
des modernen
Ideologische
Konzepte
Hessische
Blatter fur Volks- und Kultur
Denkmalkultus,"
his
"Der
forschung
2/3:
Ina-Maria
Greverus,
ed.,
Denkmalraume-Lebens
raume (Giessen, 1976), 213, 215.

5 Max Buge, Der Rechtschutz gegen Verunstaltung. Ein Wegweiser
durch
das
Recht
der Baugestaltung
und
Aussenwerbung
(Dusseldorf-Lohausen,
1952).
51
Rudy J. Koshar
6 Otto Borst, "Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Denkmalpflege
1 (1988):
10-11
Die Alte Stadt 15, no.
fur das Leben,"
(hereafter DAS).
the
for recent writing on
7 In general,
the best sources
are
und
Kunst
in
Deutsche
the
Germany
journals
subject
and DAS
(formerly Zeitschrift
Denkmalpflege (hereafter DKD)
fur Stadtgeschichte, Stadtsoziologie, und Denkmalpflege). Much
52
writing
on
preservation
takes
an
"internalist/'
art-historical
individual objects virtually isolated

viewpoint that considers
for Germany
from larger social processes. Some exceptions
are: Klaus
von Beyme, Der Wiederaufbau. Architektur und
and
(Munich
Stddtebaupolitik in beiden deutschen Staaten
Brix, ed., Lubeck. Die Altstadt
Zurich, 1987), chap. 9; Michael
Durth
and Niels
als Denkmal
1975); Werner
(Munich,
eds., Architektur und Stddtebau der Funfziger Jahre

eds.,
(Bonn, 1990); Ekkehard Mai and Stephan Watzoldt,
im
Kaiserreich
und
BauDenkmal-Politik
Kunstverwaltung,
and Harald
(Berlin, 1981); Cord Meckseper
Siebenmorgen,
oder Lebensraum?
eds., Die alte Stadt: Denkmal
(Gdttingen,
Gutschow,
1985).
is Joachim
in this regard
8 Typical
Petsch, Baukunst und
Evidence for an
im
Dritten
Reich
1976).
(Vienna,
Stadtplanung
in Gerhard Kratzsch, Kunstwart
alternative view is provided
und Durerbund. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Gebildeten im
Zeitalter des Imperialismus
1969), which,
by
(Gottingen,
an
of
attacks
inevitably
arguments
only,
implication
reactionary
core
to
preservationist
discourse.
More
recently,
see Mai and Watzoldt, Kunstverwaltung.

see
cited
literature
the substantial
9 For
by
example,
und
Hard
Staatssymbolik
"Burgertum,
twig,
Wolfgang
Kaiserreich
im Deutschen
Staatsbewusstein
1871-1914,"
no.
3
Geschichte und Gesellschaft 16,
(1990): 269-95. Still one
is Thomas
of national monuments
of the best discussions
in
und
Nationaldenkmal
"Nationalidee
Nipperdey,
in
im 19. Jahrhundert,"
Deutschland
idem, Gesellschaft,
Kultur, Theorie. Gesammelte Aufsatze zur neueren Geschichte
(Gottingen, 1976), 133-73.

und Heimatschutz
10 See Winfried Speitkamp, "Denkmalpflege
National
und
Kulturkritik
zwischen
in Deutschland

Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte 70, no.
1 (1988):
sozialismus,',
a similar point about the need for
149-93, which makes
study of historic preservation in the Nazi period. Speitkamp
in
of historic preservation
also stresses the ambivalence
relation to Nazism, but says little about urbanisdc discourse
or the formal attributes of preservationist discourse.
11 Maier, Unmasterable Past, 122.
12 Manuel
Castells, The City and the Grassroots. A Cross-Cultural
Theory of Urban Social Movements (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
1983), 303.
see H. D. Harootunian,
13 For this definition of discourse,
and
Seen
Unseen:
Discourse
and
Things
Ideology in Tokugawa
Nativism (Chicago, 1988), 3.
Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By
14 George
(Chicago, 1980), 235, 6.
on spadalization,
see David Gross, "Space,
15 Ibid., 236-37;
59-78. On
Time, and Modern Culture,', Telos 50 (1981-82):
and the city, see William
and Leonard
Sharpe
metaphor
"From
Wallock,
*
Great
Town'
to
'Nonplace
Urban
Realm':
in idem, eds., Visions of the

the Modern
City,"
Reading
Modern City: Essays in History, Art, and Literature (Baltimore,
1987).
16 The quote
is from David Harvey, Consciousness and theUrban

in the History and Theory of Capitalist
Studies
Experience:
on
Urbanization (Baltimore,
1985), 16-17. For background
urban debates, see Andrew Lees, Cities Perceived: Urban Society
in European and American Thought, 1820-1940
(New York,
For good
269-88.
142-48,
239-47,
1985),
esp. 82-90,
of
urban
in
in this
individual
cities
planning
examples
see
Brian
Urban
in
and
Civic
Order
Ladd,
Planning
period,
1860-1914
Mass.,
1990).
Germany,
(Cambridge,
17 See Lees, Cities Perceived, which is detailed
and useful, but
which relies on this binary opposition.
18 See Barbara Miller Lane, Architecture and Politics in Germany,
1918-1945
for
essential
Mass.,
1985),
(Cambridge,
recent
to
over
A
contribution
debates
very
background.
in the Weimar
architectural modernism
is Richard
period
Pommer
and Chrisdan
F. Otto, Weissenhof 1927 and the
Modern Movement in Architecture (Chicago, 1991).
53
Rudy J. Koshar
19 Regine Dolling,
ed., The Conservation ofHistorical Monuments
in the Federal Republic of Germany, trans. Timothy Nevill
(Munich, 1974), 9-10, 12; Hans Peter Hilger, "Paul Clemen
in
und die Denkmaler-Inventarisation
in den Rheinlanden,"
and
Mai
Stefan
Watzoldt,
383-98;
Kunstverwaltung,
"The
of the German
Conservation
Origins
in Roger Kain, ed., Planning for Conservation
Movement,"
(New York, 1980), 37-48.
German Liberalism in theNineteenth Century
20 James J. Sheehan,
(Chicago, 1983), 219.
see Celia Applegate,
A Nation of
21 For the Heimat movement,
The
Provincials:
German Idea of Heimat
(Berkeley and Los
Muthesius,
54
22
1990).
Angeles,
"Rheinischer Verein fur Denkmalpflege
announcement
of founding,
printed
und Heimatschutz,"
in
20 Oct.
1906,
Nordrhein-Westfalisches
Dusseldorf
Hauptstaatsarchiv
Prasident
Dusseldorf,
(hereafter NWHSAD),
Regierung
the
German
of
Muthesius,
534;
(RDP),
"Origins
Otto
Oskar
Sarrazin
and
Conservation Movement,"
39, 46;
1
"Zur
Die
Hossfeld,
(4 Jan.
Denkmalpflege
Einfuhrung,"
"Was wir wollen.
1-2 (hereafter DP); Paul Clemen,
1899):
Ziele und Aufgabe," Mitteilungen des Rheinischen Vereins fur
Brix.
Denkmalpflege und Heimatschutz 1 (1907): 7-16; Michael
"Fassadenwettbewerbe.
um
Ein
Programm
der
Stadtbildpflege
and Siebenmorgen,
1900," in Meckseper
eds., Die alte
Stadt, 67.
see
und
23 On
Kocka,
"Burgertum
Burgertum,
Jurgen
vom
als
Probleme
der
deutschen
Geschichte
Burgerlichkeit
in idem, ed.,
18. zum fruhen 20. Jahrhundert,"
spaten
im
19.
und
Burgerlichkeit
Jahrhundert (Gottingen, 1987),
Burger
34. See also idem, Burgertum im 19. Jahrhundert. Deutschland
im europdischen Vergleich, 3 vols.

(Munich,
1988).
My
discussion of the social makeup of the preservationist public
in
is based on a still incomplete analysis of participants
lists. For
preservationist congresses and RVDH membership
one such congress, see Tag fur Denkmalpflege und Heimatschutz
Dresden 1936. Tagungsbericht (Berlin, 1938). For an overview
des
see Josef Ruland,
Chronik
"Kleine
of the RVDH,
Rheinischen
Vereins
fur Denkmalpflege
und
Landschafts

in Erhalten und gestalten. 75 Jahre Rheinischer Verein
fur Denkmalp/lege und Landschaftsschutz (Neuss, 1981), 28. The
to "Landschaftsschutz"
in
"Heimatschutz"
RVDH
changed
of heritage, see Robert Hewison,
1970. On the consumpdon
The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate ofDecline (London,
schutz,"
1987).
24 For the problem of entitivity, I rely on Richard Handler,
and the Politics of Culture in Quebec (Madison,
Nationalism
1. For metonymy
and
Wisconsin,
1988),
esp.
chap.
see
The
Historical
Hayden White, Metahistory:
synecdoche,
in Nineteenth-Century Europe
Imagination
(Baldmore,
1973),
31-38.
25 See M. H. Abrams, Natural Supematuralism: Tradition and

Revolution in Romantic Literature (New York, 1971), 179-84.
26 White, Metahistory, 9.
27
and
Sarrazin
Hossfeld,
"Zur
1.
Einfuhrung,"
Foundation,
Jorn Rusen, "Historical Narration:
Types,
Reason," History and Theory, Beiheft 26: The Representation of
Historical Events (Middletown, Conn.,
1987), 87-97, esp. 92
28 See
93.
in Krisenzeiten," DP 34 (1932): 3.
29 "Denkmalpflege
"Paul
30 See
Clemen
und
die
Denkmaler
Hilger,
and Albert Verbeek,
"Paul Clemen
Inventarisation,"
(1866
in Bernhard Poll, ed., Rheinische Lebensbilder, vol. 7
1947),"
(Cologne, 1977), 181-201.
31 Paul Clemen, Die Deutsche Kunst
Bekenntnis (Berlin, 1933), viii.
32
Hanns
Klose,
"Umbau
der
Kommandatur
Wesel," DKD 5 (1938): 49.

33 Paul Ortwin Rave, "Sanssouci,"
34
F.
Hermann
schweig,"
Flesche,
ibid.,
und die Denkmalpflege. Ein
DKD
"Sanierung
und
1 (1934):
der
Komturei
in
49.
Altstadt-Braun
78.
35 See
"Rheinischer
Verein
fur Denkmalpflege
und Heimat
Nachrichten-Blatt
rheinische
schutz,"
fur
Heimatpflege 4, no.
11/12 (1932/33): 417.
36 Landesbaurat Wohler,
"Kunstliche Altstadt in Berlin?" DKD 3
73.
(1936):
trans. Ralph Manheim
37 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
(Boston,
Manfred
Architektur fur das Dritte
19;
Bultemann,
1943),
55
Rudy J. Koshar
56
Reich. Die Akademie fur Deutsche Jugendfuhrung in Braunschweig

(Berlin, 1986), 36.
"Kleine Chronik des Rheinischen
38 Ruland,
Vereins,"
28-34;
4'Der Denkmalpflegetag
in Kassel, 5. bis 8.
Burkhard Meier,
und
Oktober
1933," DP 35 (1933):
197; "Denkmalpflege
in der Rheinprovinz,"
Denkmalschutz
National Zeitung, 20
der
"Neue
1937; Alexander
June
Wege
Heilmeyer,
Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich 3, Folge
10,
Denkmalpflege,"
Ausg. A (Oct. 1939): iii-iv (hereafter KDR); Karl Friedrich
ed.,
Kolbow,
(Stuttgart,
Peter
Die
1937);
Schmidt,
Kulturpflege der preussischen Provinzen

Buge, Der Rechtschutz gegen Verunstaltung,
4'Aachen:
eine
entfesselte
Stadt,"
Westdeutscher Beobachter, 19 May 1941.

see Werner Rittich, "Malerei
im Haus der
39 On "Die Fahne,"
KDR
B
Deutschen
5, Folge 11, Ausg.
Kunst,"
(Nov. 1942):
267.
the city and notions of primeval origin, see John G.
40 On
Political Philosophy and Time (Middletown, Conn.,
Gunnell,
1968), 30-32; Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of
1977), 126.
Experience (Minneapolis,
41 See Werner Durth, Die Inszenierung der Alltagswelt. Zur Kritik
der Stadtgestaltung (Braunschweig,
1977), 33-41.
das
Dritte
Architektur
42 Bultemann,
Lane,
Reich, 30-45;
fur
und
Baukunst
Architecture and Politics,
147-216;
Petsch,
Stadtplanung, 187-92.
in the 19th
The Modern
43 Francoise
City: Planning
Choay,
102.
York,
1969),
Century (New
in the form
44 Preservationists accepted modernist architecture
of progressive historicism, which simplified and abstracted
of
Gothic and baroque
styles, but criticized "new building"
But vituperative
by the Bauhaus.
represented
4
4new building"
such as that used by Konrad
in 1921-27 and 1934, was rare for
co-editor
see Lane, Architecture and Politics,
On
Nonn,
preservationists.
to
an
For
128.
81-85,
example of preservationist openness
the
kind
criticism of
Nonn, DKD
see Richard Klapheck, Neue Baukunst

modern
architecture,
in den Rheinlanden (vol. 21, no. 2 of Zeitschrift des Rheinischen
Vereins fur Denkmalpflege und Heimatschutz)
(Neuss, 1928). On
Politics and
see
Vienna:
Fin-de-Siecle
Carl
Schorske,
Sitte,

Culture (New York, 1980), 72.
"Denkmalwerte:
45 Norbert
Alois
und Georg
Huse,
Riegl
aus drei
in
Deutsche
Texte
idem, ed., Denkmalpflege.
Dehio,"
Jahrhunderten (Munich, 1984), 128.
46 Franziska
Kristiana
and
Hartmann,
Bollerey,
Margret
und
Trankle, Denkmalpflege
Umweltgestaltung (Munich, 1975),
19.
symbols and fields of care, see Yi-Fu Tuan,

public
and
Place:
Humanistic
"Space
Perspective,"
Progress in
on
6
(London,
1974): 236-45;
Geography
imageability, Kevin
The
the
Lynch,
Image of
City (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), 9; on
unintentional monuments,
Alois Riegl, "The Modern
Cult
of Monuments:
Its Character
and Origin,"
Oppositions 25
on
see
in
the
23;
1982):
(Fall
1930s,
funding
und
in
der
Denkmalschutz
"Denkmalpflege
Rheinprovinz,"
47 On
National Zeitung, 20 June 1937.

48 On
the
of
"confusion
the
see
the
report of
countryside,"
conference
in
Durener
Zeitung,
concepts
the 1911
4
Dec.
of
city and
RVDH
annual
1911.
Numerous
thinkers thought of the built environment as a total work of

art, as noted by Lane, Architecture and Politics, 6-8; for the
in preservationist
concept
applied
thinking, see Rudolf
von
historischer
Pfister, "Die
Erneuerung
Ziegeldachern
DKD 1 (1934): 143.
Gebaude,"
49 See, for example,
the letter from a Cologne
technical
instructor
to
(signature
college
illegible)
Regierung
Dusseldorf, April
1933, NWHSAD
56235,
(Kalkum), RDP,
which pleads for preserving Lower Rhine peasant houses.
50 The following discussion relies on: Walter Benjamin,
"The
Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
in
Reproduction,"
idem,
Illuminations,
ed.
Hannah
Arendt,
trans.
Harry
Zohn
(New York, 1969), 217-51; Joseph Rykwert, The Idea of a

Town. The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy, and the
Ancient
World
Manfredo
(Princeton,
Tafuri,
1976);
Architecture and Utopia: Design
and Capitalist Development
1988), esp. 104-24; Patrick Wright, On

(Cambridge, Mass.,
an
in
Old
Living
Country: The National Past in Contemporary
Britain (London,
1985), esp. 1-32.
51 Clemen, Die Deutsche Kunst, 27, 129; on
influence
George's
57
Rudy J. Koshar
58
on Clemen,
see Verbeek,
"Paul Clemen,"
97, 200; for the
last quote, ibid., 197.
52 See Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the
Rise of theGermanic Ideology (New York, 1965), 120-21.
zum
Robert Hiecke
53 Dagobert
Frey, "Der Denkmalpfleger.
on
DKD
3 (1936):
Heimat
296;
sechzigsten Geburtstage,"
by
imagery, see the text of the song "Heimatschutz,"
and Kurt Richter, for the 1936 Tag fur
Arnold Findeisen
und
in
des
Heimatschutz
Archiv
Denkmalpflege
54
55
56
57
58
Landschaftsverbandes
Rheinland-Koln-Deutz,
11041; Richarda
Huch,
in Martin
ed.,
"Einleitung,"
Hurlimann,
Deutschland.
Landschaft und Baukunst (Berlin, 1934), 6.

Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 9.
"Rede des Fuhrers zur Eroffnung der 'Zweiten Deutschen
KDR
und
Architektur3,
Kunsthandwerk-Ausstellung',"
Folge 1, Ausg. A (Jan. 1939), 7.
296.
Frey, "Der Denkmalpfleger,"
of Hans
discussion
I rely here on Russell A. Berman's
Grimm and Ernst Junger in The Rise of theModem German
Novel: Crisis and Charisma
1986), 206.
(Cambridge, Mass.,
of the present
This excellent book has influenced much
discussion on implied readership.
of
and Disadvantages
"On
the Uses
Friedrich Nietzsche,
trans.
R.
in
for
Life,"
J.
Untimely Meditations,
History
1988), 72-75.
(Cambridge,
Hollingdale
an Georg Dehio,"
59 Clemen, "Zum Gedachtnis
DP
34
(1932):
77.
I extrapolate here from Stephen D. Helmer, Hitlers Berlin:

the Central City (Ann Arbor,
The Speer Plans for Reshaping
Mich., 1985), 17.
of
the Aesthetics
and
Definition
61 Michael
Jager, "Class
in Neil Smith and
in Melbourne,"
Gentrification: Victoriana
Peter Williams,
eds., Gentrification of the City (Boston, 1986),
60
79.
62 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of theJudgement

1984), 71-72.
of Taste (Cambridge, Mass.,
"Cultural Reproduction
63 On cultural capital, see Bourdieu,
in R. Brown,
and Social Reproduction,"
ed., Knowledge,
Education and Cultural Change (London,
1973), 71-112.

64 The Goebbels
quotes are taken from Hans Dieter Schafer,
Das gespaltene Bewusstein. Uber Deutsche Kultur und Lebenswirk
lichkeit 1933-1945
132; and Bultemann,
1981),
(Munich,
see
Architektur fur das Dritte Reich, 38. On
Braunschweig,
der Altstadt-Braunschweig,"
78; on
Flesche,
"Sanierung
Abbau
Frankfurt, Alfons Paquet, "Die Frankfurter Altstadt
oder Sicherung? Das Fur und Wider des Sanierungsplanes,"

Beilage zum 'Baumeister' 10 (Oct. 1936): 205-12.
the conservator's ethos of state service, see Frey, "Der
65 On
on Herder,
Brian
296;
J. Whitton,
Denkmalpfleger,"
of
the
Cultural
"Herder's
Critique
Enlightenment:
Versus
Rationalism,"
History and
Cosmopolitan
Community
no.
II
On
156.
2 (1988):
151,
post-World War
Theory 27,
in
Heimat
und
Karl
Arnold, "Volkstum,
disclaimers,
Staat,"
50 fahre Deutscher Heimatbund
(Neuss, 1954), 8-9, and Karl
und Deutsche
"50 Jahre Deutscher Heimatschutz
Zuhorn,
in
Heimatpflege,"
ibid.,
46-50.
On
Clemen's
stress
on
tolerance, see his Die Deutsche Kunst, 62. On preservationist

review of Franz
praise of French heritage, see Clemen's
unter
Kathedralen
in
Frankreich
Albrecht
Medicus,
ed.,
99-100.
deutschem Schutz (Paris, 1942), in DKD 8 (1942/43):
On
the
wartime
Gunther-Hornig,
heritage
preservation
Kunstschutz
in den
Gebieten 1939-1945
66
Modern
Berman,
(Tubingen,
German
Novel,
program,
von Deutschland
see
Margot
besetzten
1958).
143.
67 See Michel de Certeau, The Practice ofEveryday Life (Berkeley

and Los Angeles, 1984).
the Public Use of History,"
68 Jurgen Habermas,
"Concerning
New German Critique 44 (Spring/Summer
1988): 45.
69 See Durth, Inszenierung der Alltagswelt, 80-87.
70 Terry Eagle ton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis,
1983), 206.
71 I draw here on the terminology of Eric L. Santner, Stranded
in Postwar Germany
Objects: Mourning, Memory, and Film
(Ithaca,
1990).
59

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Altar, Stage and City: Historic Preservation and Urban Meaning in Nazi Germany

Author(s): Rudy J. Koshar

after the late 1960s that critics,

Altar, Stage and City

ally of that popular

and system-conforming" preservationism of 1933

this discussion makes a beginning in that project.

Altar, Stage and City

Preservationists were most often found on the side of the

The following discussion begins with a brief exploration

last section outlines

back to sixteenth-century precedents

of old patterns of social interaction, and the slow

and study of local history, folklore and nature.21

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health problems, by insensitive

conferences, often held in conjunction with the key national

rather than notionally

metonymy, which figuratively portrayed historic sites as symbols

on several functional elements.

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tones of volkisch anti-Semites,

a relatively positive and forward-looking

book Die Deutsche Kunst und die

1892, and chair of the national congress of conservators from

range of thinkers, including Le

its self-destructive disregard for the past; if Bismarck's

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the problem and did something

referred to plans for a reconstructed historic district in Berlin

national past. But these differences were never strong enough

the sites of Mecca

The Nazi party addressed

the same moral

articulated with Nazism's

influential throughout the twentieth century;41

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schemes were undertaken

rebuilding of key urban ensembles was begun in

the 1920s and the expressionism

to argue that preservationists

of evoking a strong image in any given observer." These could

not immediate attention but affection,

a capitalist city dotted

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a quality of spatial and

If much of the urban landscape could be surrendered

changing social reality.49 Nationalist

the Holy Land."

spoke of their "pastoral" mission of advice and good counsel

illustrated volume of German architecture, in which she wrote

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instead to situate themselves securely in the

a virtue of being at the historical end

passive readers were conjoined

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possessed historic places individually (although some did), but

theory of freedom for each national group. Post

could make a similar point about regionalism. Like

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but they relied on local traditions to demonstrate

Socialist dictatorship and partly on a more critical dismissal of

It is no doubt true that German historic preservation of the