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"In quiet remembrance"? : the Allied air war and urban memory cultures in Kassel and Magdeburg, 1940-1995

"In quiet remembrance"? : the Allied air war and urban memory cultures in Kassel and Magdeburg, 1940-1995
"In quiet remembrance"? : the Allied air war and urban memory cultures in Kassel and Magdeburg, 1940-1995

The study examines the long-term impact of World War II bombing on city memory in Kassel and Magdeburg in the period of 1940 to 1995.  It investigates contemporary responses to the experience of area bombing, traces the emergence of public memory cultures and assesses their trajectory against the backdrop of political, cultural, and generational change.  Drawing on a wide range of source material, the study makes use of Pierre Nora’s notion of a lieu de mémoire or ‘memory place’ in order to sketch the narrative contexts and to map the discursive fields in which stories about World War II bombing circulated; to identify their carriers and to assess their social uses.  To this end, the study distinguishes between different ‘vectors’ of memory that revolved around different legacies of aerial warfare: mass death; material destruction; and the confrontation with events outside the range of usual human experience.

Going beyond the dichotomy of ‘too little’ vs. ‘too much’ memory that characterises the present debate about the place of the strategic air offensive in the mnemonic landscape of Germany, this study makes contemporary experiences an integral part of the study of memory.  It argues that the resident populations of Kassel and Magdeburg experienced the air war as members of a brutalised society whose hegemonic voice was Nazism.  They responded to events that were without precedent in living memory by drawing on the repertoire of tropes, significations and practices that were available to them.  In short, they used traditional languages in order to integrate catastrophic rupture into a continuum.

The post-war enunciation of memory was not solely determined by considerations of present ‘usability’ but was situated within longer-standing narrative traditions as well as dense memory milieus.  As a consequence, the protagonists of public discourse were not free to construct any narrative they saw fit but had to address, throughout the period, a set of recurring themes such as loss, causation, and meaning.

University of Southampton
Arnold, Jörg
7e2845b8-2385-42c5-9ea2-7fafbe296421
Arnold, Jörg
7e2845b8-2385-42c5-9ea2-7fafbe296421

Arnold, Jörg (2006) "In quiet remembrance"? : the Allied air war and urban memory cultures in Kassel and Magdeburg, 1940-1995. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

The study examines the long-term impact of World War II bombing on city memory in Kassel and Magdeburg in the period of 1940 to 1995.  It investigates contemporary responses to the experience of area bombing, traces the emergence of public memory cultures and assesses their trajectory against the backdrop of political, cultural, and generational change.  Drawing on a wide range of source material, the study makes use of Pierre Nora’s notion of a lieu de mémoire or ‘memory place’ in order to sketch the narrative contexts and to map the discursive fields in which stories about World War II bombing circulated; to identify their carriers and to assess their social uses.  To this end, the study distinguishes between different ‘vectors’ of memory that revolved around different legacies of aerial warfare: mass death; material destruction; and the confrontation with events outside the range of usual human experience.

Going beyond the dichotomy of ‘too little’ vs. ‘too much’ memory that characterises the present debate about the place of the strategic air offensive in the mnemonic landscape of Germany, this study makes contemporary experiences an integral part of the study of memory.  It argues that the resident populations of Kassel and Magdeburg experienced the air war as members of a brutalised society whose hegemonic voice was Nazism.  They responded to events that were without precedent in living memory by drawing on the repertoire of tropes, significations and practices that were available to them.  In short, they used traditional languages in order to integrate catastrophic rupture into a continuum.

The post-war enunciation of memory was not solely determined by considerations of present ‘usability’ but was situated within longer-standing narrative traditions as well as dense memory milieus.  As a consequence, the protagonists of public discourse were not free to construct any narrative they saw fit but had to address, throughout the period, a set of recurring themes such as loss, causation, and meaning.

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Published date: 2006

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Local EPrints ID: 466142
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/466142
PURE UUID: d73c687b-c22b-4ffe-bebf-a74e055c15d2

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Date deposited: 05 Jul 2022 04:29
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 20:32

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Author: Jörg Arnold

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