Ch. 8: Restoration and Redemption: Defending Kultur and Heimat in Eisenach’s Cityscape
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Description
The chapter appears in the book, Bloom and Bust: Urban Landscapes in the East since German Reunification. Edited by Gwyneth Cliver and Carrie Smith-Prei.
Chapter abstract: One evening in early 1997, following a dinner filled with discussion of battles over historic preservation and renewal in the small East Ger- man city of Eisenach, Ronald Dieckmann brought out a large illustrated volume with the title The Fates of German Architectural Monuments in World War II: A Documentation of Damage and Total Losses in the Territory of the German Democratic Republic (Eckhardt 1978). 1 The second volume of a series published in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), it covered the administrative districts that were reconstituted after unification as the federal states Saxony and Thuringia. As we paged through scores of “before” and “after” images depicting former grandeur and “senseless” devastation— including Eisenach’s Luther House and old city hall—Dieckmann’s voice became increasingly somber. It was as though we were speaking of deceased family members. After we finished with the book, he went to the window and looked out over the rooftops of the old city toward the autobahn. “Just now we are beginning to repair the damage that Hitler brought upon this country,” he remarked wearily, “and it will take many years to finish it.”
ISBN
978-1-78238-490-8
Publication Date
2014
Publisher
Bergham Book
City
New York
Keywords
Germany, Architecture, Reunification, Preservation, Culture
Disciplines
European History | Place and Environment | Social and Cultural Anthropology | Sociology of Culture
Recommended Citation
James, Jason, "Ch. 8: Restoration and Redemption: Defending Kultur and Heimat in Eisenach’s Cityscape" (2014). Cultural and Philosophical Inquiry Books. 9.
https://scholar.umw.edu/cpr_books/9