altar, stage and city: historic preservation and urban meaning in nazi germany

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Altar, Stage and City: Historic Preservation and Urban Meaning in Nazi GermanyAuthor(s): Rudy J. KosharSource: History and Memory, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 30-59Published by: Indiana University Press

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Rudy J.

Koshar

Altar,

Stage

and

City:

Historic

Preservation

and Urban

Meaning

in

Nazi

Germany1

Part of

the

recent

self-archaeologization 2

of Western

society

has consisted

of historic

preservation,

the

project

of

intervention

in built

environments

to

maintain

or restore

buildings,

districts

and

townscapes

that

are

said

to

have

important

links

with

the

past

as

well

as

present

value.

Increasingly

strong

in

Europe

and North America in the

past

three

decades,

historic

preservation (Denkmalpflege)

was

so

popular

in

West

Germany

after

the

late

1960s that

critics,

echoing

the

fin-de-siecle

language

of the Viennese

art

historian

Alois

Riegl,

wrote

of

a

cult of monuments

that

claimed

historical

value

for

one

of

every

twelve

buildings

in the

Federal

Republic.3

Partly

a

reaction of

younger

West Germans

against

the

postwar

generation's disregard

for

history,

the

cult

of

monuments

was

also

a

release

from connotations

that the

Nazi

dictatorship

gave

official

heritage

preservation.

Seldom

has

historic

preservation

...

seen

better

times

than

in

Germany

after

1933,

wrote

the

conservator

Reinhard

Bentmann in

1976,

who hastened

to

add

that the

state

agencies

and

voluntary

groups

concerned

with

preservation

in

the 1930s

had

been

coordinated

and

system-conforming

and thus

much

different

from

their

recent

counterparts.4

The

comment reveals

not

only

how

one

generation

of

professionals

was

engaged

in

creating

a

public image

of the German

past

in the

1970s,

but

also

how

that

generation

remembered

an earlier

generation

remembering.

Such

distancing

is

understandable,

given

not

only

the

horrific

political

history

in

which

preservationists

of the 1930s

and

1940s

were

implicated,

but also

the

political

changes

and

popularization

of

interest

in historic

places

in

the last

two

decades.

Yet

we must not

overlook

that

present-day

official

preservationism

-

as

both establishment

enemy

and

emotional






Altar,

Stage

and

City

ally

of that

popular

cult of

monuments

-

bears

traces

of

the

Nazi

era.

The main

preservationist journal,

Deutsche Kunst und

Denkmalpflege, though based on earlier models, assumed its

current

name

and

format in 1934.

Major legislation

passed

in

1936,

the

Decree

on

Building Design,

facilitated the

protection

of

historic

places

and

had effects after

World War II.5

During

the

Nazi

dictatorship

the

preservation

of

monuments

and

landmarks

gained

a

social

relevance for

city planning

that

today

seems

self-explanatory.6

And

the

nostalgic

popular

interest

in

heritage preservation

after

1933 resembles similar

waves

that followed

1945. All this

suggests

the

need

to

rethink

the

retrospective

assessment of strict difference between a

coordinated

and

system-conforming

preservationism

of 1933

to

1945

and

a new

preservationism

of the

1970s.

At the

same

time,

however,

one

must

avoid overdrawn

interpretations

of

continuity. By

focusing

on

historic

preservation's

discursive

role

in

the formation

of

urban

meaning

in

Nazi

Germany,

this discussion makes

a

beginning

in

that

project.

Scholarship

on

official

historic

preservation

is

very

uneven.7

We have

a

specialized

literature

on

heritage

preservation,

much of it

by

art historians and conservators, but the

sociopolitical

history

of efforts

to

manage

historic

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

planners,

or

the

reactionary

language

of cultural

pessimists.8

There is

a

growing

scholarship

on

national

monuments

(in

the

specific

sense

of the

term)

and

political

culture

in

Germany,

especially

for the

Imperial

period,9

but

this

literature

cannot

readily

be

deployed

to talk about historic

preservation.

Protecting

historical

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

history

of German

historic

preservation

in

the

twentieth

century

nor

a

systematic

exploration

of its

workings

from

1933

to

1945.10 We

have,

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.

The

recent

process

of

self-archaeologization

referred

to

above has often included restoration of old urban centers

( German

cides

now

have

their

Altstadt writes

Maier11).

But

this is

not

only

a

characteristic

of the

1970s.

Although

castle

ruins

in

rural

settings

and

provincial

townscapes

were

among

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

could be used

to

refer

Germans

to

a

notionally

common

past.

I

want

to

discuss

preservationism's

role

in

shaping

this

kind of

urban

meaning.

Castells

defines urban

meaning

as

the

structural

performance

assigned

as a

goal

to

cities

in

general

(and

to

a

particular

city

in the inter-urban

division of

labor)

by

the

conflictive

process

between historical

actors

in

a

given

society.''12

Urban

meaning,

argues

Castells,

is neither

simply

the

result

of

intellectual tradition

nor a

functional

response

to

structural

contradictions.

In

my

opinion,

it is

the

result of

a

relatively

indeterminate

discourse,

a

form

of enablement

involving

possible

ways

of

talking,

writing

and

thinking.13

Castell's

work

has concentrated

mainly

on

urban

meaning

with

reference

to

political

economy,

but

I

explore

it with

reference

to

political

culture.

More

specifically,

I

discuss

a

key

spatial

metaphor

embedded

in

preservationist

language,

what

I will

call

the

metaphor

of the urban

altar,

as

part

of

an

attempt

to

project

a

cultural

(and

moral)

role for

the

city

and the urban

past. My

goal

is

not to

consider

what

images

of the

past

are

deployed (that

is

another

topic),

but

what

figurative language

is used

in

preservationism's

imaging

of

the

historic

city,

and

how

that

language

creates

urban

meaning

that

works

in

particular

(and

partly

antagonistic)

ways

in

relation

to

Nazism.

Lakoff

and

Johnson

discuss

metaphor

as a

matter

of

imaginative

rationality

that

permits

an

understanding

of

one

kind

of

experience

in

terms

of another.

Not

just

a

matter

of

language,

metaphorical

understandings

permeate

everyday

thought

and

action.'1

They

have

a

political

dimension

because

our choice of language suggests

our

view of the

world.

Their

32






Altar,

Stage

and

City

assumptions

are

often

unstated,

resting

on

perceptions

that

are

partly

or

fully

hidden

from

their

users.

In

Western

urbanistic

discourse

there has been

a

shift from

organic

to

spatial

metaphors,

arguably

an

expression

of

a

more

fundamental

process

whereby

modern

culture

turns to

spatialized

thinking.1'

German

history

since

1870

was

marked

by

contentious

debates

over

what

figurative

discourses should be

used

to

understand

the role

of

cities. German

capitalism

had

imposed

a

sense

of the

city

as

commodity

that

seemed

to

dominate all

other

meanings,

but critics

on

both the

Right

and

the

Left

sought

alternative

ways

of

reading

urban

landscapes

marked

by

the

heartless and

colorless

qualities

of

money. 1

Weimar

Germany

featured

especially

intense

debates

on

such

matters.

It

would

be

mistaken

to

reduce

these

debates

to

a

binary

opposition

of

urbanism

and

anti-urbanism.1'

In

fact,

urbanistic

discourse

before

and

during

the

Weimar

Republic

cut

across

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

commodity

but

as a

mass

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

public

image

benefitted from

Nazi

propaganda's

ceaseless

praise

of

German

heritage

and

whose

goals

were

often

closely

identified

with the

regime.

Yet

there

was an

important

difference

between

National

Socialist and

preservationist

readings

of

the

city.

Leading

preservationists,

devoted

to

a

burgerlich

tradition of

approaching

culture

in

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 that symbolized an

33






Rudy

J.

Koshar

institutionalized national

religion.

This

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

redemptive

heritage

to

enlist Nazism for

the

preservationist

cause.

The

next

two

parts

explore

the

metaphors

of

urban

stage

and altar.

The last

section

outlines

the

most

salient

discursive differences

between the

two

metaphors, arguing

that

the

preservationist

metaphor

achieved

a

distancing

from

Nazi

rhetoric

that

amounted

to

a

privileged

marginality

in

the

political culture. The conclusion briefly suggests the

implication

of

the

argument

for

preservationism's

relationship

to

Germany's

ceaseless search for

a

usable

past.

A

Narrative

of

Redemptive

Heritage

Looking

back

to

sixteenth-century

precedents

and

inspired

by

nineteenth-century

Romanticism,

historic

preservation

gained

an

unprecedented

public

resonance

at

the

turn

of the

century in Germany. Whereas government inventories of

historic

landmarks

had been

published

as

early

as

1870

in

Bremen

and

Hesse-Kassel,

it

was

after the 1890s that

specialized

publications,

tougher building

laws,

and

the

appearance

of

new

voluntary

associations

signaled

the

creation

of

a

preservationist

public.19

Like

so

many

other

movements

of

this

period,

historic

preservationism

was

part

of

a

sea

change

in

German

public

life that included

a

dramatic

increase

in

population,

massive

movements

of

men

and

women

into

new

environments, the growth of new sorts of occupations, the

dissolution

of

old

patterns

of social

interaction,

and the

slow

emergence

of

new

kinds of

relationships

and

values. 20

More

specifically,

preservationism

was one

element

of

popular

cultural

commentary

that

was

increasingly

allied

with

the

Heimat

movement,

a

congeries

of

organizations

promoting

the

protection

and

study

of

local

history,

folklore

and

nature.21

Germany

was

losing

its

documents

of

stone,

preservationists

argued,

as

the

national

heritage

was

being

dissolved

by

socioeconomic change, by town planning's one-sided

34






Altar,

Stage

and

City

concentration

on

traffic and health

problems,

by

insensitive

municipal

building

policies

and

by

improper

restorations.

Finally,

official

preservationism

was the creation of a new form

of

professional

activity distinguished

from

architecture

or

planning

and

increasingly

anchored in

universities,

technical

colleges,

municipal

and

state

agencies,

and

voluntary

associations.22

In this

period,

historic

preservation

drew its

supporters

mainly

from

the

Bildungsburgertum,

that

increasingly

fragmented

stratum

of

the

educated middle

and

upper

classes.

The makers

of

the

preservationist

public

consisted

of

state

and

municipal

conservators,

restorers,

architects,

university

and

amateur

historians,

archaeologists,

government

cultural

officials,

city

planners,

journalists,

politicians

and

mayors.

Semi-annual

conferences,

often

held

in

conjunction

with the

key

national

Heimat

organization,

Deutscher Bund

Heimatschutz,

provided

one

of

several

public

spaces

for

dialogue

and

social

interaction,

while

regional

and

national

publications

sustained

professional

discourse

and

heightened

public

awareness.

Provincial

elites

played

a

big

role,

partly

because the

federal

states

and

Prussian

provinces

were

responsible

for

heritage

policy, partly

because

local

building

bylaws

gave

city

officials much

control

over

aesthetic

matters,

and

partly

because

the

educated

classes,

thinking

of

themselves

as

the consciousness

of

the

nation,

argued

that

they

were

morally

bound

to

beautify

and

preserve townscapes

that

spoke

a

language

of German

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

(Rheinischer

Verein

fur Denkmalpflege

und

Heimatschutz,

or

RVDH)

also had

an

advisory

and financial

role.

Aside

from

such direct

preservation

activity,

the educated

middle and

upper

classes

were

the

most

avid readers

of

historic

environments

through

tourism,

the

purchase

of

postcards

and

illustrated

publications

(for

example,

the

Blaue

Bucher

series)

and

participation

in

beautification,

historical,

and

preservation

societies.

In

short,

the

educated

middle

and

upper

classes

not

only organized

a

heritage industry,

of

35






Rudy J.

Koshar

which

historic

preservation

was

a

key

part,

but

were

also

among

the

main

consumers

of

its

products.23

Anchored

in

the

professions

and

government, permeated

with

the

moral

impulse

of the

Bildungsburgertum,

historic

preservationists

believed

they

were

stewards of the

historic

landmarks

of

the

cultural

nation.

They

used

a

language

of

nationalist

entitivity,

based

on

the

assumption

that

the

cultural

nation

was an

extant,

bounded and

continuous

entity

whose

memory,

however

contested

or

dependent

on

subjective

rather

than

notionally

objective

characteristics,

could

be

symbolized

in

objects

such

as

historic

buildings.

This

symbolization relied on a metonymy that identified the historic

place

as

the effect

of

a

national

culture. But

nationalist

entitivity

relied

more

specifically

on

synecdoche,

a

type

of

metonymy,

which

figuratively

portrayed

historic

sites

as

symbols

of

qualities

characteristic

of

a

holistic cultural

experience

possessed

by

a

bounded

nadonal

group.24

These

tropes

were

deployed

in

a

broader

narrative.

Relying

on

a

Romantic

form

of

emplotment characterizing

history

as

an

ascending,

conflictive

spiral,

preservationism

recontextual

ized the Biblical story of the Fall and prophecy of redemption

by

identifying

the

(re)development

of

historical

consciousness

with

a

renewal

of

national

heritage

after

an

era

of

decline.25

However,

it would

be

inaccurate

to

think

of this

as

a

purely

Romantic

narrative

of

the

ultimate

triumph

of

good

over

evil,

since

preservationists

also

relied

on

a

comic

emplotment

based

on

the

chance

of

provisional

release

from the

divided

state

in which

men

find

themselves

in this

world. 26

The

first

issue

of

the

journal

Die

Denkmalpflege,

appearing

in

1899,

set

the

tone for this story of redemptive heritage, noting the serious

destruction

of historic

places

in

the

preceding

decades

of

industrialization

and

urbanization,

but

also

saying

that

people

had

begun

to

heed

the

golden

words

of Bismarck

that

it

was

of

greatest

harm

to

a

nation

when

it allows

the

living

consciousness

of

its

connection

to

its

heritage

and

history

to

fade. 27

Historical

narration

is

based

on

several

functional

elements.

The

preservationist

perspective

was

grounded

mainly

in

a

genetical

narrative

outlining

the

development

of alien forms

36






Altar,

Stage

and

City

of

life into

proper

ones

-

from

crass

materialism

to

a

reverence

for

the

German

past,

for

example.

This also

necessitated

the

use

of critical narratives that live

on

what

they destroy. 28

But this

criticism

never

assumed

the

darker

or

apocalyptic

tones

of

volkisch

anti-Semites,

radical

nationalists,

cultural

pessimists

or

reactionary

modernists.

Conservationist

discourse

originated

in

a

relatively

positive

and

forward-looking

cultural

nationalism

whose

particular

way

of

using

narrative

elements

persisted

through

World

War

I,

the Weimar

Republic

and the

Depression,

when the

Viennese

building

official

Wilhelm

Ambros,

speaking

for

the

preservationist

lobby

in

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

found

than Paul

Clemen's

book Die

Deutsche Kunst und

die

Denkmalpflege.

Ein

Bekenntnis,

published

in Berlin in

mid-1933

and one of the central texts of twentieth-century historic

preservation

in

Germany.

Clemen

was

a

famous

if autocratic

Bonn

art

historian,

a

member of the

Lutheran

church,

first

conservator

of

monuments

in the

Prussian

Rhine

province

in

1892,

and chair of the

national

congress

of

conservators

from

1923

to

1932.

He

won

the Goerres

prize

of

the

Goethe

Stiftung

and

the Goethe Medallion in

1942

and

played

a

role

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

as

well

as a

rudimentary

semiotics

of

monuments.

The

author referred

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

direcdy

with the

new

regime,

including

a

preface,

dated

July,

in

which he

spoke

admiringly

of

Hitler's

deep empathy

for

the

mysterious

magic

of

monuments

and

quoted

the

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

redemption

took the form of

liberating

the German nation

from its self-destructive

disregard

for the

past;

if

Bismarck's

golden

words

had

performed

this

function

more

than three

decades

before,

then

Hider's

belief

in

the

magic

of

monuments

now

achieved

a

similar

goal.

Other writers

redeployed

the

narrative,

giving

it their

own

inflections,

but

having

identical

political

aims. One

method

was

simply

to

mark off

a

rather

indefinitely

defined

past

from

the

present

while

retaining

that

element of

continuity

that

genetical narratives depend on. A typical example was the

article

by

the

municipal building

official

Hanns

Klose

in

1938

on

the

adaptive

re-use

of

several

buildings

in

Wesel,

which

opened

with

the

remark

immediately

after the

seizure

of

power

the

Wesel

city

administration

undertook

a

building

program

that

included the

renewal

of

several

historic

buildings

whose

facades and

interiors have

unfortunately

deteriorated

much

in

recent

decades

despite being

categorized

as

historic

landmarks. 3

This

description,

bland

and

innocuous,

nonetheless identified the new regime with renewal, the old

with

decline,

and

preservationism

with

a

faithful realization of

the

new

spirit through

its traditional role

as

steward

of

the

architectural

heritage.

Some

narratives

were

more

explicit.

For

many

preservationists,

Nazism

brought

a

long-awaited political

mobilization

of

great

landmarks

such

as

Frederick the Great's

Sanssouci

in

Potsdam.

Since

the

'Tag

von

Potsdam',

wrote

the

Berlin

National

Gallery's

Paul Ortwin Rave

in

1934,

Sanssouci is once again at the center of nationalist festivals.

The

Hitler

Youth

regiment's

consecration

of

the colors

this

past

winter

will

remain

unforgettable.

Lit

by

floodlights,

Sanssouci

hill

rose

in

blinding

radiance,

as

if

enchanted,

out

of

the

evening

shadows. 33

Here the

magical

quality

of

place,

rationalized

and

commodified

under

the

regime

of

liberal

capitalism,

was

regained.

This

type

of

emplotment

could be

articulated

even

more

directly

with

counterrevolutionary

thinking.

When the

technical

college

instructor

F. Hermann

Flesche commented on a

badly

needed renewal scheme for

38






Altar,

Stage

and

City

Braunschweig's

superficially

picturesque

medieval

town center

in

1934,

he

reminded readers that the revoludon

of

1918

crept

out

of

this

hiding-place. Only

the

Nazis

could

undermine

this

privileging

of

piety

for

the

past

over

the social

racial

need

for better

housing:

It

was

the National

Socialist

regime

that

first

understood

the

problem

and did

something

about

it

with real

conviction.

Renewal

of

the first block

had

begun. 34

Here

synecdoche

served

to

infuse

the

task

of

Sanierung

with

the

political

and

social

urgency

of

National

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

power,

contributors

to

newspapers

and

professional

journals

in

architecture and

historic

preservation

debated

methodologies,

goals

and functions.

Preservation

projects

set

off fierce

public

exchanges,

as

when

a

Berlin-Wilmersdorf

building

official

referred to plans for a reconstructed historic district in Berlin

in

1936

as

romantic

gush.

Such

debates

appear

slightly

absurd

if

it

is

forgotten

that

they

dealt with salient

questions

of

a

secular

religion

based

on

reverence

for

an

imagined

national

past.

But these

differences

were

never

strong

enough

to

subvert

preservationists'

active

reutilization of

Nazism

as a

fulfillment

of

a

narrative

of

redemptive heritage.

City

as

Stage

The

cause

of

heritage

preservation

appeared

to

find

direct

support

from Nazism. Hitler

had

made much

of

his love

of

monumental

buildings,

characterizing

the Vienna

Ringstrasse

as an

enchantment,

and

speaking

of

the

magical spell

of

the

sites

of Mecca

and Rome. 37 The Nazi

party

addressed

preservationists directly,

coordinating

their

organizations

while

assuring

them of

a

special

role in

a

cultural

revolution

that

demanded

preservation

in

the

grand

style.

Die

Baukunst,

architectural supplement of Die Kunst imDeutschen Reich, edited

39






Rudy

J.

Koshar

by

Albert

Speer,

ran

lavishly

illustrated features

of

historic

buildings

and

praised

provincial

and

municipal

conservators.

Preservationists

benefitted from

a

1934

campaign

to

control

advertising

in

the

countryside,

1936

legisladon

that

created

stricter

guidelines

for

new

building

in

historic

districts,

and

the

adaptive

re-use

of old

buildings

by

party

and Hitler Youth

groups.

These

and

other

measures

seemed

to

legitimize

the

regime's

claim

that it had

unchained cities such

as

Aachen

from

decline after

the

great

purification

of

1933

by

saving

historic

downtowns,

promoting

local

festivals and

creating

or

maintaining

Heimat

museums

-

actions

that,

not

incidentally,

were placed on the same moral 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

Nazi

urban

planning, despite

Nazi

unwillingness

to

endorse

a

completely

historicist

architecture

and

despite

the

rampant

consumerism

of German

public

life in

the

1930s,

both

preservationists

and the NSDAP

could

easily

think

of the

dictatorship

as a

serious

proponent

of

heritage

preservation.

Scholars have noted the radical political functionalism of

Nazi urban

thinking,

stressing

Speer's

monumental

building

projects

above all. Much less attention

has been devoted

to

the

already

built environment

in

such schemes. Yet

we

need

only

look

to

Leni

Riefenstahl's film

Triumph of

the

Will,

which

used the

beflagged

Nuremberg

Altstadt

as a

theatrical

backdrop

for Hitler's

triumphant

entry

into the

city,

or

Paul

Herrmann's

1942

painting

Die

Fahne,

which

reduces

Munich's

cityscape

to

a

shadowy

mass

of

geometric

shapes

and

turrets

framing

the 1923 Beer Hall

putschists.39

In both

representations,

a

traditional

city

center's association with

a

vision

of

origin

was

articulated with Nazism's

project

of

leading

Germans

back

to

their

presumed

racial

heritage.40

In

both

representations,

moreover,

major

urban

centers

rather

than

small

towns

were

used

to

bring

about this

association,

suggesting

Nazism's

ideological

investment

in

the

metropolis.

This

metaphorical

understanding

of the

city

as

theater

has

become

more

influential

throughout

the twentieth

century;41

only

the extreme

politicization

of the

metaphor

distinguishes

40






Altar,

Stage

and

City

the

Nazi

era

from

later

periods.

The

sources

of

this

politicization

were

truly

eclectic and

cannot

be

reduced

to

any

single

cultural

or

political

strand. In

urban

planning

Nazism

created

a

racist

conglomerate

of

ideas constructed

out

of

garden-city

traditions,

conservative-technocratic

theorizing

of

the

1920s

and

the

expressionism

of radical

thinkers such

as

Bruno

Taut.

By

1936 urbanistic

thinking

had shifted

from

a

volkisch-organic

to

a

more

technocratic inflection.

Meanwhile,

limited

urban renewal schemes

were

undertaken

in

Frankfurt-am-Main,

Braunschweig

and

Kassel,

and

a

monumental

rebuilding

of

key

urban

ensembles

was

begun

in

Berlin, Munich, Nuremberg

and elsewhere. In

architecture,

Nazism

drew

on

a

similarly

eclectic

mix

of

influences,

including

not

only

the classicist and

regionalist

traditions

of

conservative

architects,

but

also

modernist

models.42

Despite

this

chaos of

influences,

and

despite

much

anti

urban

rhetoric

from

many

different

sources,

the

most

salient

goal

was

not

to

oppose

the

metropolis,

but

to

redefine

urban

meaning.

The

city

and

the

urban

region

would retain

their

functions

as

spatial

settings

for

commodity

production,

albeit

without liberal capitalist, Jewish and Marxist influences. The

city

would

be

permeated

with the

spirit

of

a

new

political

culture,

aware

of its racial

heritage

and

subjugated

totally

to

the

new

state.

National Socialism

tried

to

disengage

the

city

from historical

contingencies, creating

a

sense

of absolute

time

and

place,

privileging

the

metaphor

of the

city

as

stage

whose

actors

were

the

masses

and whose

star

was

Hitler himself.

City

as

Altar

Conservationists

subscribed

to

a

culturalist

perspective

of

the

city

that

was

retrospective

in

that it

clung

to

the

coherent

and

exemplary image

of

the

preindustrial

city

in

opposition

to

the

contemporary

image

of urban

incoherence. 43

Yet

preservationists

also welcomed the

new,

taking

their

cue

from thinkers

such

as

Camillo

Sitte,

who

accepted

the

city

as

an

exchange

value

as

long

as a

few

public

squares

could

be

preserved

to

provide

a

spatially

dramatized

memory of a proud Burger past.44 This goal of preserving a

41






Rudy J.

Koshar

limited

number

of

commemoradve

spaces

sometimes

generated

rather

exaggerated language,

as

when

the

Strassburg

art

historian

Georg Dehio,

author

of

a

famous

multivolume

handbook

of

German cultural

landmarks,

claimed

that

preservation

was

by

necessity

socialistic because

of

its need

to

abridge

property

rights

in the interest

of

heritage

protection.45

Yet the

desire

to

disengage

certain

districts

or

landmarks

from

the

quotidian

violence of

capitalist

market

forces

was

present.

What then

was

to

be

saved?

It

is

commonplace

to

argue

that

preservationists

in

the

first

half

of the twentieth

century

were

most

concerned

with

nonurban fortresses, castles, and cloisters along with a few

urban

churches.46

There

can

be litde doubt

that

preservationists

were

enamored

of

public

symbols,

objects

that

were

very

imageable

in

that

they

had

a

4

'high

probability

of

evoking

a

strong

image

in

any

given

observer.

These

could

be

formal

gardens,

monuments

to

historic

personalities

or

events,

monumental

architecture,

public

squares

or

ideal

cities.

But

since the

late

nineteenth

century

preservationists

had also

discussed

fields

of

care.

These

differ from

public

symbols

in

that they command not immediate attention but affection,

especially

on

the

part

of

their

inhabitants.

They

are

less

imageable

than

public

symbols,

often

inconspicuous,

and,

unlike

public

symbols,

they

are

firmly

entrenched

in

everyday

life.

They

may

include

parks,

homes,

shops,

taverns,

street

corners,

neighborhoods,

marketplaces,

or

whole

towns.

These

structures

often form

those

unintentional

monuments

whose

commemorative

value

stems not

from

an

original

purpose

and

significance,

but

from

subsequent

perceptions

and

actions. Government funding and group activity to save such

objects

lagged

well

behind

theory

until

recently,

but

current

interest

in

conserving

historic

fields

of

care

was

prefigured

rhetorically

in

preservationist

discourse

at

the

turn

of

the

century.47

Preservationists

therefore

envisioned

a

capitalist

city

dotted

with

ensembles

of

public

symbols

and

a

limited

but

growing

number

of

fields

of

care.

In

the

case

of

smaller

towns

and

cities,

these ensembles

could

be

much

larger,

sometimes

encompassing

entire old

city

centers, towns and rural

42






Altar,

Stage

and

City

landscapes.

It

would be

difficult

to

argue

that such

morphological

and architectonic

configurations suggested

unalloyed

anti-urbanism.

Indeed,

it

was

not

the

big city per

se

that

preservationists

criticized,

but

rather its

tendency

to

transgress

distinctions between

metropolitan

and small-town

habitats that

possessed

a

quality

of

spatial

and

temporal

closure,

a

coherence

that

made

them

a

total

work of

art

(Gesamtkunstwerk),48

ven

then

preservationists

never

thought

of

the

metropolis

as

an

undifferentiated

whole

since,

as we

have

seen,

some

big

cities

(Munich,

Nuremberg,

Dresden)

or

parts

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

a

constantly

changing

social

reality.49

Nationalist

symbolism

played

a

major

role

in

this

project

of

finding

in

the

physical landscape

a

representation

of

a

collective

interest,

a

magical

meaning

beyond

the

marketplace.50

If

cosmology

had

performed

this

function

in

ancient

civilizations,

then

in

the

modern

period

nationalism offered

new

ways

of

believing.

The

uneven

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

ultimately

indissolvable. This

need

to

find

more

ways

of

symbolizing

national

integration

in

a

time of

disintegration

exerted

a

pressure

on

preservationist

discourse

that

resulted in

a

constant

widening

of

the

concept

of

the

monument.

As

social

integration

became

ever

more

unrealistic,

nationalist

thought

intervened in

preservationist

discourse

to

create

an

ever-increasing

need

for the

return

of

aura

to

the

physical

landscape,

a

connection

to

the

unique,

solidarity-giving

fabric

of

time

and

place

that

capitalist

development

and

class

tension

destroyed.

Moreover,

as

the

audiences

for

whom historic

environments could in

fact

be

historic

or

symbolic

of

a

national

interest

became

more

fragmented,

so

the

array

of

artifacts

became

larger

and

more

varied.

From

this

perspective

it is

not

surprising

that

preservationist

readings

of

the

city

often had

an

integrative, religious tone.

43






Rudy J.

Koshar

Clemen's

work

again provides

a

key

example.

Balanced and

practical,

Die Deutsche

Kunst und die

Denkmalpflege

was

nonetheless a confession of the author's love of historic

places,

as

the

subtitle,

Ein

Bekenntnis,

suggested.

This

religiosity

was

made

explicit,

as

when

Clemen

singled

out

historic

churches

and

city

halls

as

vehicles

through

which

a

living

Christianity

and

a

living

communal

spirit

could be

preserved.

Influenced

by

the

later work of Stefan

George,

Clemen's

thought

took

on a

mystical

tone

in

his

poem

cycle

Mitternachtsgesprach

im

Naumburger

Dom,

in

which the

life-size

statues

of

cathedral

donors

in

the

early

Gothic

west

choir were made to speak as protectors of cathedral and city,

worshipers

of

the

Holy

Land.

Clemen

persisted

in

seeing

historic

places

in

this

manner

until the

end of his

life,

relying

on

a

synecdoche

that

characterized cultural

monuments

as

the

embodiment

of sacred

religious

sentiments. 51

Related

partly

to

long-standing

Romantic

and conservative

influences

and

partly

to

the

quest

of German

intellectuals for

a

new

religiosity

adapted

to

twentieth-century

needs,52

this

language

found

an

echo

in

other

preservationist

texts.

Reverence and piety for the past were among the key

words

of

preservationist

discourse. Professional

conservators

spoke

of

their

pastoral

mission of advice and

good

counsel

to

city

mayors,

cultural

officials and the

public.

The 1936

preservationist

congress

in

Dresden,

like

many

previous

events,

used

religious

imagery

of the

Holy

Mother

to

represent

its

devotion

to

Heimat.

More

popular publications

used

a

similar

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

All

this

suggests

that

if the

spatial metaphor

of the

political

stage

applied

to

National

Socialist urban

practice,

it

was

the

metaphor

of

the

altar

that

operated

in

preservationist

discourse.

Several

entailment

relationships 54

were

at

work

here.

The

metaphorical

understanding

of the

nation

as a

church,

that

nationalism

had

replaced

religion

as

a source

of

meaning,

entailed

that national culture

was

a

religious

practice.

This entailed

that

cities and

towns,

as

expressions

of

a bounded, individuated national entity, were forums for the

44






Altar,

Stage

and

City

manipulation

of sacred

utensils and

vestments,

of

which

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.

Privileged Marginality

National Socialism and

historic

preservationism

used

a

similar language of nation, race and heritage. Yet

preservationists

never

strove

for

a

full

articulation of altar

and

stage,

wishing

instead

to

situate themselves

securely

in the

dominant

political

culture while

creating

distance

from it.

I

want to

suggest

that this

distancing

resulted

in

a

privileged

marginality

for the

preservationist

metaphor: privileged

because the

metaphor

was

already

imbricated

with

the

language

of

state

cultural

policy

and elite social

networks,

and

marginal

because

National

Socialist

repression

of

urbanistic

discourse in the wider society was

unquestioned.

Nazi

metaphors

of

the

urban

stage

presupposed

large

public

spaces

in which Hitler

or

leading

Nazi

performers

played

to

huge,

enthusiastic audiences.

The difference

between

this

approach

and the

spatial

referents of the

preservationist

metaphor

was

alluded

to

by

Hitler himself

in

a

1939

speech

that made unfavorable

comparisons

between the small

spaces

of

historic

churches

and

the

large

spaces

of

mass

spectacles.53

These

spadal

contrasts

articulated with

differences

in

the

status of

performers.

Whereas the

priest

or

pastor

was a

recognized

representative

of

an

institutionalized

religion,

the

performer

of the urban

stage

gained

his

following

through

charisma alone. The

professional

conservator,

usually

trained

as an

architect

or

art

historian,

expressed

this difference

succinctly by

likening

his task

to

a

pastoral

mission

of

teaching

piety

for

a

collective national

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

45






Rudy J.

Koshar

against

destruction

and

calling

on

the

masses

to

wage

battle

for

the collective

heritage.

The implied reader of each metaphor was

correspondingly

different.

The

urban

stage,

situated

in

monumental

spaces

and

fired

by

the

performances

of

charismatic

leaders,

presupposed

an

audience

that

was

made

up

of

a

disparate

array

of

social

groups,

a

cross-class

conglomerate.

In

addition,

this

heterogeneous

audience

was

doubly

passive

because

it

was

imprisoned

not

only

by

the

knowledge

of

a

deep,

continuous

racial

heritage,

but

also

by

an

inescapable

propaganda

that demanded

total commitment

to the preservation of fascist community.57

The

implied

reader

of

the

urban

altar

was

also

passive,

partly

because

piety

for

the

past

created

a

kind of cultural

iron

cage,

an

antiquarian

quietism

that Nietzsche

had

attacked

in

the

1870s.58

Yet

inscribed

in

this

passivity

were

remnants of

the

notion

of

a

culturally homogeneous

audience

capable

of

reading

the

city

as

a text

and

arriving

at some

critical

appreciation

of

its

content. In

a

range

of

areas

-

architecture,

painting,

literature

-

the

degradation

of this

bourgeois tradition of the cultural reader had been attacked

and

proclaimed

dead,

but

in

historic

preservation

the world

of

that

wider,

but

now

dying

circle

that

one

likes

to

call

the

cultured

(Gebildeten),

in Clemen's

words,

still informedi#a

substantial

part

of

preservationist

discourse.59

Indeed,

preservationists

made

a

virtue

of

being

at

the historical

end

point

of

that

tradition,

assuming

it

could

be continued

in

some

marginal

way

in

the

future.

The

foregoing

suggests

that each

metaphor

invoked

different

strategies

of consumption. Monumental spaces, charismatic

performers

and

doubly passive

readers

were

conjoined

with

Nazi

goals

of

producing

a

volkisch

mass

consumer

whose

chief

symbol

was

the

gargantuan

building

project

in

Berlin.

Regarded

so

often

as

a

project

whose

main

goal

was to

represent

a

renewed

national

political

power,

the Berlin

scheme,

which

paid

substantial

attention

to

the

needs of

private

business,

was

also

an

invitation

to

mass

conspicuous

consumption.*10

46






Altar,

Stage

and

City

Official


could

likewise

be

thought

of

as

the

product

of

social

differentiation

through conspicuous

consumption.61

Yet this was not Nazism's

populist

luxury.

It

was

an

elitist market

strategy

through

which

the

preservationist

public

consumed

historic

artifacts

by

studying,

touring,

photographing,

restoring

and

discussing

them. It

was

conspicuous

because

these

activities

demonstrated

the notional

superiority

of the

consumers,

giving

them,

in

Pierre

Bourdieu's

words,

a

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

them,

knowing

about their

history

and architectural

styles,

was

something

like the

taste

for

old

things

and

was

available

only

for

those

who

can

take

their

time. 62

In

short,

whether

they

acted

as

government

stewards

or

passive

admirers

of

medieval

town

halls

or

historic

districts,

the educated

middle and

upper

classes,

through

government

agencies

and

voluntary

groups,

used this

cultural

capital

to assert

a

social

superiority

vis-a-vis

other

domestic

groups.63

That

some

Nazi

party

members

understood

this

aspect

of the

heritage industry

was

clearly

demonstrated in Goebbels'

thinking.

The

propaganda

minister

said

that

German

culture

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

[Nazism's]

revolutionary'

goals.

More

significant

than

such

ranting,

however,

were

disagreements

that

stemmed

directly

from

within

the

preservationist

public.

When

a

technical

college

instructor

sympathetic

to

the Nazi

cause

suggested

in a 1934 article in

Deutsche

Kunst

und

Denkmalpflege

that

members

of the

Committee

for Monuments

and Historic

Sites

in

Braunschweig

would

never

condescend

to

live

in

the

substandard

housing

of

that

city's

protected

town

center,

and that

only

the

Nazis

understood

the

problems

of

German

Altstddte,

he

pointed

to

a

serious

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

two

opposed

urbanistic

metaphors,

was

discussed

during

the

urban

renewal

project

for

Frankfurt-am-Main

in

1936.^

By contrast, a discussion of nationalism would seem to

suggest

compatibility

between the

metaphors.

Here

indeed

twentieth-century

historic

preservation

seemed

to

have

its

best

chance

of

joining

the

national

revolution,

by stating

that

the

subject

of

its

narrative,

its real

hero,

to

use

Dehio's

words,

was

the German

Volk.

Much of this nationalism

was

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

subsumed in the work of art. This meant that individual

interests

were

subjugated

to

God

and

community.

No less

important

was

a

broader cultural

nationalism,

rooted

ultimately

in

Herder's

contextualistic

understanding

of

human

nature

by

which the individual finds

identity

through

inclusion

in

a

broader

linguistic

community,

an

inherited

stream

of

words

and

images

which

he

must

accept

on

trust.

Subsequent

aggressive

readings

of

this

cultural

nationalism

obscured

the essential

tolerance

of

Herder's

ideas,

which

were

based on a theory of freedom for each national group. Post

World

War

II

preservationists

and

their Heimatschutz

allies

argued

that

this

theory

of

freedom

was

misused

after

1933,

seemingly

excusing

themselves

for

their enthusiastic

support

for

Nazism.

Yet

there

is

something

to

the

claim.

Not

only

in

Clemen's

work,

which

stressed

a

conservative-Christian

tolerance

in

public

life,

but

in

other

preservationist

texts

also,

we

find

continued

adherence

to

this

earlier,

less

aggressive

cultural

nationalism.

The

contradictions of

this

perspective

were obvious: preservationists praised the French cultural

heritage

they helped

to

save

in

the

wartime

program

of

protection

of

artistic

treasures

(Kunstschutz)

while

the German

army

occupied

France.

The

victimizer admired

the

victim.

Yet

the theme

of

tolerance

persisted,

an

untimely

inheritance

perhaps,

occupying

a

place

of

privileged

marginality

in

a

dictatorship

that

preached

and

practiced

fanaticism

and

mass

murder.*5

One

could

make

a

similar

point

about

regionalism.

Like

its

Heimatschutz

ally,

historic

preservation

used the

metaphor

of

48






Altar,

Stage

and

City

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

townscapes

made

local

imageability

not

just

a

matter

of

imagination

but

a

physical

fact

reinforced

by

the

federal

structure

and

legislative

mechanisms

of official

heritage

preservation.

Nazi

propagandists

made

use

of

regionalism

also,

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

a

way

of

establishing

a

relative

stability

of

place

in

the midst of

threatening

social and

political

transformation.66 The

local

facticity

and detail

of

preservationist

discourse,

examples

of

its

Romantic

heritage,

continued

to serve

this

defensive function

in

the Nazi

dictatorship.

They

suggested

no

meaningful

resistance

to

the

regime,

but

they

did

point

to

one

discursive

limit

or

blockage, marginal

but

palpable.

Conclusion

This

paper

has

suggested

that

there

was

a

substantial

inter

penetration

of

preservationist

and

National

Socialist

discourse.

However,

I

have

also

argued

that

preservationists'

metaphorical

understanding

of the

city

projected

certain

discursive

limits

on

this

interpenetration.

This

is

not

quite

a

case

of that

subversion

without resistance

that

Michel

de

Certeau

has

so

skillfully

discussed.67

Yet it

does

suggest

that

the

idea of

a

totally

coordinated

and

system-conforming preservationism

requires

considerable

rethinking.

Jiirgen

Habermas has

argued

that

the

only

useful

way

of

regarding

the

German

past

is

a

critical

appropriation

of

tradition that

does

not

simply

emphasize

what

is

right

about

German

history,

but

accepts

that

what

is

right

is

inextricably

interwoven

with

the

darkest

and

most

barbaric

chapters

of

the

past.68

I

noted in the

introduction

that

the

popular

cult of

monuments

relied

partly

on

an

ahistorical

uncoupling

of

nostalgia

from

its

associations with the

era

of

the

National

49






Rudy J.

Koshar

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

way

of

remembering

how

earlier

generations

of

Germans

remembered

is

to

examine the discursive differences

in

preservationist

and

Nazi

discourse,

appropriating

and

refining

those

elements that

seem

useful

in

the

present,

but

simultaneously

recognizing

their association

with

the

crimes of

the

past.

It

is

no

doubt

true

that

German

historic

preservation

of

the

1930s

and

early

1940s contained

remnants

of

earlier

traditions

of Romanticism, historicism and the bourgeois cult of high

culture

-

and allowed these

traditions

to

be

engaged

by

Nazi

propagandists.

No

one

would

suggest

that the

preservationist

metaphor

of

the

city

as

altar

should

be

revived.

Yet the

metaphor

of

the

city

as

stage,

now

stripped

of its authoritarian

political

implications,

but

fully deployed

in the

marketing

of

historic

city

centers

and

other

environments,69

has

drastically

reduced

the

educative

potential

of historic

places. Perhaps

something

of

the earlier

preservationists'

passionate

interest

in,

if not their reverence for, history could be recovered if

alternative

metaphors

were

engaged.

As

Terry

Eagleton

has

remarked,

all

the

best

radical

positions

are

thoroughly

traditionalist

ones,70

and

a

critical

appropriation

of such

traditions

may

contribute

to

those

parts

of

current

postmodern

discourse

that aim

for

more

than

a

theatrical

nostalgia.

To

learn

from

the

urban

past,

to

see

how

both

past

crimes

and

accomplishments

are

inscribed

in urban environments

-

this

potential

is worth

preserving

in

the

history

of

preservationism's

making of urban meaning. But it is worth preserving with a

substantial

dose

of

reflexivity:

since

any

understanding

of the

past

consists

of

our

linguistic

projections,

and

since

no

full

reconstruction

of

the

past

is

possible,

we

can

only

engage

in

an

imaginary

dialogue

with

earlier

generations,

hoping

to

recycle

those

dispersed

fragments

that

can

be

used

for

contemporary

life.

This is

doubly

true

in the German

case.

If

the

recycling

of historic

urban

fragments

in

Germany

is

to

be

more

than

a

self-indulgent

and

forgetful

play

with

stranded

objects,

itmust be done under the sign of mourning.71

50






Altar,

Stage

and

City

Notes

1 Research

for

this

project

was

made

possible

by

a

fellowship

from

the

John

Simon

Guggenheim

Foundation.

2

See

Charles S.

Maier,

The Unmasterable

Past:

History,

Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge, Mass.,

1988),

123.

3

The

terms

Denkmalpflege

(literally

the

encouragement

and

guardianship

of

monuments,

in

the broadest

sense),

Denkmalschutz

(which

stresses

the element of

protection)

and

Baudenkmalpflege

(which

specifically

stresses

architecture)

are

no

more

precise

than the

terms

historic

preservation

or

conservation.

Each

term

is

a

shorthand

expression

for

many

different

practices

ranging

from the

complete

restoration of single buildings (or even single objects) to

minimal

protection

of entire districts.

In

the

following,

I

refer

to

architectural

preservation,

which is

arguably

the

dominant

connotation

of the

term.

See David

Lowenthal,

The

Past

is

a

Foreign

Country

(Cambridge,

1985),

for

some

of

the

complexities

and

references

to

a

large

technical

literature

in the

Anglo-American

world.

For

the German

case,

see

the

many

sources

cited below.

For

Alois

Riegl,

see

his Der

moderne

Denkmalkultus:

Sein Wesen und

seine

Entstehung, in Gesammelte Aufsdtze (Augsburg and Vienna,

1928),

144-93.

4

See Reinhard

Bentmann,

Der

Kampf

um

die

Erinnerung.

Ideologische

und

methodische

Konzepte

des modernen

Denkmalkultus,

Hessische

Blatter

fur

Volks- und Kultur

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

52

6

Otto

Borst,

Vom

Nutzen

und

Nachteil

der

Denkmalpflege

fur das

Leben,

Die

Alte

Stadt

15,

no.

1

(1988):

10-11

(hereafter DAS).

7

In

general,

the

best

sources

for

recent

writing

on

the

subject

in

Germany

are

the

journals

Deutsche

Kunst

und

Denkmalpflege

(hereafter DKD)

and DAS

(formerly

Zeitschrift

fur

Stadtgeschichte, Stadtsoziologie,

und

Denkmalpflege).

Much

writing

on

preservation

takes

an

internalist/'

art-historical

viewpoint

that considers individual

objects

virtually

isolated

from

larger

social

processes.

Some

exceptions

for

Germany

are:

Klaus

von

Beyme,

Der

Wiederaufbau.

Architektur

und

Stddtebaupolitik

in beiden

deutschen

Staaten

(Munich

and

Zurich,

1987),

chap.

9;

Michael

Brix, ed.,

Lubeck.

Die Altstadt

als

Denkmal

(Munich,

1975);

Werner

Durth and

Niels

Gutschow,

eds.,

Architektur

und

Stddtebau

der

Funfziger

Jahre

(Bonn,

1990);

Ekkehard

Mai and

Stephan

Watzoldt,

eds.,

Kunstverwaltung,

Bau-

und

Denkmal-Politik

im

Kaiserreich

(Berlin,

1981);

Cord

Meckseper

and

Harald

Siebenmorgen,

eds.,

Die

alte

Stadt:

Denkmal

oder Lebensraum?

(Gdttingen,

1985).

8 Typical in this regard is Joachim Petsch, Baukunst und

Stadtplanung

imDritten

Reich

(Vienna,

1976).

Evidence for

an

alternative

view

is

provided

in Gerhard

Kratzsch,

Kunstwart

und

Durerbund.

Ein

Beitrag

zur

Geschichte

der Gebildeten

im

Zeitalter

des

Imperialismus

(Gottingen,

1969),

which,

by

implication

only,

attacks

arguments

of

an

inevitably

reactionary

core

to

preservationist

discourse.

More

recently,

see

Mai

and

Watzoldt,

Kunstverwaltung.

9

For

example,

see

the substantial

literature

cited

by

Wolfgang Hard twig, Burgertum, Staatssymbolik und

Staatsbewusstein

im Deutschen

Kaiserreich

1871-1914,

Geschichte

und

Gesellschaft

16,

no.

3

(1990):

269-95.

Still

one

of

the

best

discussions

of

national

monuments

is Thomas

Nipperdey,

Nationalidee

und Nationaldenkmal

in

Deutschland

im

19.

Jahrhundert,

in

idem,

Gesellschaft,

Kultur,

Theorie.

Gesammelte

Aufsatze

zur

neueren

Geschichte

(Gottingen,

1976),

133-73.

10

See Winfried

Speitkamp,

Denkmalpflege

und

Heimatschutz

in Deutschland zwischen Kulturkritik und National






Altar,

Stage

and

City

sozialismus,',

Archiv

fur

Kulturgeschichte

70,

no.

1

(1988):

149-93,

which

makes

a

similar

point

about the need

for

study

of

historic

preservation

in

the Nazi

period. Speitkamp

also

stresses

the

ambivalence of

historic

preservation

in

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.

13 For

this

definition of

discourse,

see

H.

D.

Harootunian,

Things

Seen

and

Unseen: Discourse and

Ideology

in

Tokugawa

Nativism

(Chicago,

1988),

3.

14

George

Lakoff

and Mark

Johnson,

Metaphors

We

Live

By

(Chicago,

1980),

235,

6.

15

Ibid., 236-37;

on

spadalization,

see

David

Gross,

Space,

Time,

and

Modern

Culture,',

Telos 50

(1981-82):

59-78.

On

metaphor

and

the

city,

see

William

Sharpe

and Leonard

Wallock,

From

*

Great

Town'

to

'Nonplace

Urban Realm':

Reading

the Modern

City,

in

idem,

eds.,

Visions

of

the

Modern

City: Essays

in

History, Art,

and Literature

(Baltimore,

1987).

16 The

quote

is from David

Harvey,

Consciousness and

the

Urban

Experience:

Studies

in

the

History

and

Theory of Capitalist

Urbanization

(Baltimore,

1985),

16-17. For

background

on

urban

debates,

see

Andrew

Lees,

Cities Perceived:

Urban

Society

in

European

and American

Thought,

1820-1940

(New

York,

1985),

esp.

82-90,

142-48, 239-47,

269-88.

For

good

examples

of urban

planning

in

individual cities

in

this

period,

see

Brian

Ladd,

Urban

Planning

and Civic Order

in

Germany,

1860-1914

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

1990).

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

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

1985),

for

essential

background.

A

very

recent

contribution

to

debates

over

architectural modernism

in

the

Weimar

period

is

Richard

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

of

Historical Monuments

in the

Federal

Republic

of

Germany,

trans.

Timothy

Nevill

(Munich, 1974), 9-10, 12; Hans Peter Hilger, Paul Clemen

und

die

Denkmaler-Inventarisation

in

den

Rheinlanden,

in

Mai

and

Watzoldt,

Kunstverwaltung,

383-98;

Stefan

Muthesius,

The

Origins

of

the

German

Conservation

Movement,

in

Roger

Kain,

ed.,

Planning

for

Conservation

(New

York,

1980),

37-48.

20

James

J.

Sheehan,

German

Liberalism

in

theNineteenth

Century

(Chicago,

1983),

219.

21 For

the Heimat

movement,

see

Celia

Applegate,

A

Nation

of

Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley and Los

Angeles,

1990).

22

Rheinischer

Verein fur

Denkmalpflege

und

Heimatschutz,

printed

announcement

of

founding,

20

Oct.

1906,

in

Nordrhein-Westfalisches

Hauptstaatsarchiv

Dusseldorf

(hereafter

NWHSAD),

Regierung

Dusseldorf,

Prasident

(RDP),

534;

Muthesius,

Origins

of

the German

Conservation

Movement, 39,

46;

Otto

Sarrazin and

Oskar

Hossfeld,

Zur

Einfuhrung,

Die

Denkmalpflege

1

(4

Jan.

1899): 1-2 (hereafter DP); Paul Clemen, Was wir wollen.

Ziele

und

Aufgabe,

Mitteilungen

des

Rheinischen

Vereins

fur

Denkmalpflege

und Heimatschutz

1

(1907):

7-16;

Michael Brix.

Fassadenwettbewerbe.

Ein

Programm

der

Stadtbildpflege

um

1900,

in

Meckseper

and

Siebenmorgen,

eds.,

Die

alte

Stadt,

67.

23

On

Burgertum,

see

Jurgen

Kocka,

Burgertum

und

Burgerlichkeit

als Probleme der deutschen Geschichte

vom

spaten

18.

zum

fruhen 20.

Jahrhundert,

in

idem,

ed.,

Burger und Burgerlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert (Gottingen, 1987),

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

is

based

on

a

still

incomplete

analysis

of

participants

in

preservationist

congresses

and

RVDH

membership

lists.

For

one

such

congress,

see

Tag

fur

Denkmalpflege

und

Heimatschutz

Dresden 1936.

Tagungsbericht

(Berlin, 1938).

For

an

overview

of

the

RVDH,

see

Josef

Ruland,

Kleine

Chronik

des

Rheinischen Vereins fur Denkmalpflege und Landschafts

54






Altar,

Stage

and

City

schutz,

in Erhalten

und

gestalten.

75

Jahre

Rheinischer Verein

fur

Denkmalp/lege

und

Landschaftsschutz

(Neuss,

1981),

28.

The

RVDH

changed

Heimatschutz

to

Landschaftsschutz

in

1970.

On the

consumpdon

of

heritage,

see

Robert

Hewison,

The

Heritage

Industry:

Britain in

a

Climate

of

Decline

(London,

1987).

24

For the

problem

of

entitivity,

I

rely

on

Richard

Handler,

Nationalism

and

the Politics

of

Culture

in

Quebec

(Madison,

Wisconsin,

1988),

esp.

chap.

1. For

metonymy

and

synecdoche,

see

Hayden

White,

Metahistory:

The Historical

Imagination

in

Nineteenth-Century Europe

(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

Sarrazin

and

Hossfeld,

Zur

Einfuhrung,

1.

28

See

Jorn

Rusen,

Historical

Narration:

Foundation,

Types,

Reason,

History

and

Theory,

Beiheft

26:

The

Representation

of

Historical

Events

(Middletown,

Conn.,

1987),

87-97,

esp.

92

93.

29 Denkmalpflege

in

Krisenzeiten, DP 34 (1932): 3.

30 See

Hilger,

Paul

Clemen und die

Denkmaler

Inventarisation,

and Albert

Verbeek,

Paul

Clemen

(1866

1947),

in Bernhard

Poll,

ed.,

Rheinische

Lebensbilder,

vol.

7

(Cologne,

1977),

181-201.

31 Paul

Clemen,

Die Deutsche

Kunst und die

Denkmalpflege.

Ein

Bekenntnis

(Berlin,

1933),

viii.

32

Hanns

Klose,

Umbau der Kommandatur

und Komturei in

Wesel,

DKD 5

(1938):

49.

33 Paul Ortwin Rave, Sanssouci, DKD 1 (1934): 49.

34

F.

Hermann

Flesche,

Sanierung

der

Altstadt-Braun

schweig,

ibid.,

78.

35

See

Rheinischer Verein fur

Denkmalpflege

und Heimat

schutz,

Nachrichten-Blatt

fur

rheinische

Heimatpflege

4,

no.

11/12

(1932/33):

417.

36

Landesbaurat

Wohler,

Kunstliche

Altstadt

in

Berlin?

DKD 3

(1936):

73.

37 Adolf

Hitler,

Mein

Kampf

trans.

Ralph

Manheim

(Boston,

1943), 19; Manfred Bultemann, Architektur fur das Dritte

55






Rudy J.

Koshar

Reich.

Die Akademie

fur

Deutsche

Jugendfuhrung

in

Braunschweig

(Berlin,

1986),

36.

38 Ruland, Kleine Chronik des Rheinischen Vereins, 28-34;

Burkhard

Meier,

4'Der

Denkmalpflegetag

in

Kassel,

5. bis

8.

Oktober

1933,

DP

35

(1933):

197;

Denkmalpflege

und

Denkmalschutz

in

der

Rheinprovinz,

National

Zeitung,

20

June

1937;

Alexander

Heilmeyer,

Neue

Wege

der

Denkmalpflege,

Die Kunst im Deutschen

Reich

3,

Folge

10,

Ausg.

A

(Oct. 1939):

iii-iv

(hereafter

KDR);

Karl

Friedrich

Kolbow,

ed.,

Die

Kulturpflege

der

preussischen

Provinzen

(Stuttgart,

1937);

Buge,

Der

Rechtschutz

gegen

Verunstaltung,

Peter Schmidt, 4'Aachen: eine entfesselte Stadt,

Westdeutscher

Beobachter,

19

May

1941.

39

On Die

Fahne,

see

Werner

Rittich,

Malerei

im

Haus

der

Deutschen

Kunst,

KDR

5,

Folge

11,

Ausg.

B

(Nov. 1942):

267.

40

On

the

city

and notions

of

primeval

origin,

see

John

G.

Gunnell,

Political

Philosophy

and

Time

(Middletown,

Conn.,

1968),

30-32;

Yi-Fu

Tuan,

Space

and Place: The

Perspective

of

Experience

(Minneapolis,

1977),

126.

41 See Werner Durth, Die Inszenierung der Alltagswelt. Zur Kritik

der

Stadtgestaltung

(Braunschweig,

1977),

33-41.

42

Bultemann,

Architektur

fur

das Dritte

Reich,

30-45;

Lane,

Architecture

and

Politics,

147-216; Petsch,

Baukunst

und

Stadtplanung,

187-92.

43 Francoise

Choay,

The Modern

City:

Planning

in

the

19th

Century

(New

York,

1969),

102.

44

Preservationists

accepted

modernist

architecture

in the form

of

progressive

historicism,

which

simplified

and

abstracted

Gothic and baroque styles, but criticized new building of

the

kind

represented

by

the

Bauhaus.

But

vituperative

criticism

of

4

4new

building

such

as

that

used

by

Konrad

Nonn,

DKD

co-editor

in

1921-27

and

1934,

was rare

for

preservationists.

On

Nonn,

see

Lane,

Architecture

and

Politics,

81-85,

128.

For

an

example

of

preservationist

openness

to

modern

architecture,

see

Richard

Klapheck,

Neue Baukunst

in den

Rheinlanden

(vol.

21,

no.

2

of

Zeitschrift

des

Rheinischen

Vereins

fur

Denkmalpflege

und

Heimatschutz) (Neuss,

1928).

On

Sitte, see Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and

56






Altar,

Stage

and

City

Culture

(New

York,

1980),

72.

45

Norbert

Huse,

Denkmalwerte:

Alois

Riegl

und

Georg

Dehio,

in

idem, ed., Denkmalpflege.

Deutsche

Texte

aus

drei

Jahrhunderten

(Munich, 1984),

128.

46 Franziska

Bollerey,

Kristiana

Hartmann,

and

Margret

Trankle,

Denkmalpflege

und

Umweltgestaltung

(Munich,

1975),

19.

47

On

public

symbols

and

fields

of

care,

see

Yi-Fu

Tuan,

Space

and Place:

Humanistic

Perspective,

Progress

in

Geography

6

(London, 1974):

236-45;

on

imageability,

Kevin

Lynch,

The

Image of

the

City

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

1985),

9;

on

unintentional

monuments,

Alois

Riegl, The Modern Cult

of Monuments: Its

Character and

Origin,

Oppositions

25

(Fall

1982):

23;

on

funding

in

the

1930s,

see

Denkmalpflege

und

Denkmalschutz

in

der

Rheinprovinz,

National

Zeitung,

20

June

1937.

48 On the

confusion

of

the

concepts

of

city

and

countryside,

see

the

report

of

the 1911

RVDH annual

conference

in

Durener

Zeitung,

4

Dec.

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

concept

applied

in

preservationist

thinking,

see

Rudolf

Pfister,

Die

Erneuerung

von

Ziegeldachern

historischer

Gebaude,

DKD

1

(1934):

143.

49

See,

for

example,

the

letter

from

a

Cologne

technical

college

instructor

(signature

illegible)

to

Regierung

Dusseldorf,

April

1933,

NWHSAD

(Kalkum),

RDP, 56235,

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 Reproduction, in

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

(Princeton,

1976);

Manfredo

Tafuri,

Architecture

and

Utopia:

Design

and

Capitalist

Development

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

1988),

esp.

104-24;

Patrick

Wright,

On

Living

in

an

Old

Country:

The

National Past in

Contemporary

Britain

(London,

1985),

esp.

1-32.

51 Clemen, Die Deutsche Kunst, 27, 129; on George's influence

57






Rudy J.

Koshar

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.

53

Dagobert

Frey,

Der

Denkmalpfleger.

Robert Hiecke

zum

sechzigsten

Geburtstage,

DKD 3

(1936):

296;

on

Heimat

imagery,

see

the

text

of the

song

Heimatschutz,

by

Arnold

Findeisen

and Kurt

Richter,

for the

1936

Tag fur

Denkmalpflege

und

Heimatschutz

in

Archiv

des

Landschaftsverbandes

Rheinland-Koln-Deutz, 11041;

Richarda

Huch,

Einleitung,

in Martin

Hurlimann,

ed.,

Deutschland.

Landschaft und Baukunst (Berlin, 1934), 6.

54 Lakoff and

Johnson,

Metaphors

We Live

By,

9.

55

Rede

des Fuhrers

zur

Eroffnung

der

'Zweiten

Deutschen

Architektur-

und

Kunsthandwerk-Ausstellung',

KDR

3,

Folge

1,

Ausg.

A

(Jan.

1939),

7.

56

Frey,

Der

Denkmalpfleger,

296.

57

I

rely

here

on

Russell

A.

Berman's discussion

of

Hans

Grimm and

Ernst

Junger

in The

Rise

of

the

Modem

German

Novel: Crisis

and

Charisma

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

1986),

206.

This excellent book has influenced much of the present

discussion

on

implied

readership.

58

Friedrich

Nietzsche,

On the

Uses and

Disadvantages

of

History

for

Life,

in

Untimely

Meditations,

trans.

R.

J.

Hollingdale

(Cambridge,

1988),

72-75.

59

Clemen,

Zum

Gedachtnis

an

Georg

Dehio,

DP

34

(1932):

77.

60

I

extrapolate

here

from

Stephen

D.

Helmer,

Hitlers

Berlin:

The

Speer

Plans

for

Reshaping

the

Central

City

(Ann

Arbor,

Mich., 1985), 17.

61

Michael

Jager,

Class

Definition

and

the Aesthetics

of

Gentrification:

Victoriana

in

Melbourne,

in Neil Smith

and

Peter

Williams,

eds.,

Gentrification of

the

City

(Boston,

1986),

79.

62

Pierre

Bourdieu,

Distinction:

A Social

Critique

of

the

Judgement

of

Taste

(Cambridge,

Mass.,

1984),

71-72.

63 On

cultural

capital,

see

Bourdieu,

Cultural

Reproduction

and

Social

Reproduction,

in

R.

Brown,

ed.,

Knowledge,

Education and Cultural Change (London, 1973), 71-112.

58






Altar,

Stage

and

City

64

The

Goebbels

quotes

are taken from Hans Dieter

Schafer,

Das

gespaltene

Bewusstein. Uber

Deutsche Kultur und Lebenswirk

lichkeit

1933-1945

(Munich,

1981),

132;

and

Bultemann,

Architektur

fur

das

Dritte

Reich,

38. On

Braunschweig,

see

Flesche,

Sanierung

der

Altstadt-Braunschweig,

78;

on

Frankfurt,

Alfons

Paquet,

Die

Frankfurter Altstadt

-

Abbau

oder

Sicherung?

Das

Fur und Wider des

Sanierungsplanes,

Beilage

zum

'Baumeister'

10

(Oct. 1936):

205-12.

65 On

the

conservator's

ethos of

state

service,

see

Frey,

Der

Denkmalpfleger,

296;

on

Herder,

Brian

J.

Whitton,

Herder's

Critique

of the

Enlightenment:

Cultural

Community

Versus

Cosmopolitan

Rationalism,

History

and

Theory

27,

no.

2

(1988):

151,

156.

On

post-World

War

II

disclaimers,

Karl

Arnold,

Volkstum,

Heimat und

Staat,

in

50

fahre

Deutscher

Heimatbund

(Neuss, 1954),

8-9,

and

Karl

Zuhorn,

50

Jahre

Deutscher Heimatschutz und Deutsche

Heimatpflege,

in

ibid.,

46-50.

On Clemen's

stress

on

tolerance,

see

his

Die Deutsche

Kunst,

62.

On

preservationist

praise

of

French

heritage,

see

Clemen's

review of

Franz

Albrecht

Medicus, ed.,

Kathedralen in Frankreich

unter

deutschem

Schutz

(Paris,

1942),

in DKD

8

(1942/43):

99-100.

On

the wartime


program,

see

Margot

Gunther-Hornig,

Kunstschutz in

den

von

Deutschland besetzten

Gebieten 1939-1945

(Tubingen,

1958).

66

Berman,

Modern German

Novel,

143.

67

See Michel

de

Certeau,

The

Practice

ofEveryday Life

(Berkeley

and

Los

Angeles, 1984).

68

Jurgen

Habermas,

Concerning

the Public

Use of

History,

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

Objects:

Mourning,

Memory,

and Film

in Postwar

Germany

(Ithaca, 1990).

59

altar, stage and city: historic preservation and urban meaning in nazi germany

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