Title Three cities after Hitler : redemptive reconstruction across Cold War borders / Andrew Demshuk

Published Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2021]

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Description 1 online resource (xv, 566 pages) : illustrations, maps Series Russian and East European studies Series in Russian and East European studies. Contents Introduction: redemptive reconstruction -- Cities of the Reich -- Cities of dreams -- Miracle cities -- Cities of the future -- Cities without past -- Synthetic cities -- Conclusion: selective cities Summary "Three Cities after Hitler compares how three prewar German cities shared decades of postwar development under three competing post-Nazi regimes: Frankfurt in capitalist West Germany, Leipzig in communist East Germany, and Wrocław (formerly Breslau) in communist Poland. Each city was rebuilt according to two intertwined modern trends. First, certain local edifices were chosen to be resurrected as "sacred sites" to redeem the national story after Nazism. Second, these tokens of a reimagined past were staged against the hegemony of modernist architecture and planning, which wiped out much of whatever was left of the urban landscape that had survived the war. All three cities thus emerged with simplified architectural narratives, whose historically layered complexities only survived in fragments where this twofold "redemptive reconstruction" after Nazism had proven less vigorous, sometimes because local citizens took action to save and appropriate them. Transcending both the Iron Curtain and freshly homogenized nation-states, three cities under three rival regimes shared a surprisingly common history before, during, and after Hitler-in terms of both top-down planning policies and residents' spontaneous efforts to make home out of their city as its shape shifted around them"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (ProQuest Ebook Central platform, viewed June 27, 2022) Subject Collective memory. Architecture and state. Nationalism and architecture. Architecture and society. Architecture -- Political aspects Urban renewal -- Citizen participation. Urban renewal -- Political aspects HISTORY / General Urban renewal -- Political aspects Urban renewal -- Citizen participation Nationalism and architecture Collective memory Buildings Architecture -- Political aspects Architecture and state Architecture and society SUBJECT Wrocław (Poland) -- Buildings, structures, etc. -- History Leipzig (Germany) -- Buildings, structures, etc. -- History Frankfurt am Main (Germany) -- Buildings, structures, etc. -- History Subject Poland -- Wrocław Germany -- Leipzig Germany -- Frankfurt am Main Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780822988571 0822988577

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