Architecture and the Memory of Nazism in Postwar Munich

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.