Heimat as a Geography of Postwar Renewal: Life after Death and Local Democratic Identities in Cologne, 1945–1965
DeWaal, J
Date: 21 March 2018
Article
Journal
German History
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Through a case study on Cologne, this article examines an early postwar turn to local Heimat as a geography
of renewal that offered visions of new postwar lives and new identities. A series of factors informed
the local turn, including the decimation of home towns, loss of former local lives, elimination of the nation
as a sovereign ...
Through a case study on Cologne, this article examines an early postwar turn to local Heimat as a geography
of renewal that offered visions of new postwar lives and new identities. A series of factors informed
the local turn, including the decimation of home towns, loss of former local lives, elimination of the nation
as a sovereign political actor and a need for local community in the face of social divisions and reconstruction.
Heimat also came to the fore as a modifying force in ideas of nationhood. Rather than shedding
national loyalties, the turn to Heimat involved a turn away from national struggle and towards local reconstruction
to secure new civilian lives.
By reformulating local historical memory and traditions, many Heimat enthusiasts argued for values
of ‘Cologne democracy’, ‘openness to the world’ and ‘tolerance’ as important to democratization,
European unification and outsider integration. These identifications remained proscriptive, existing alongside
ongoing undemocratic and exclusionary practices, while aggravating failures to come to grips with
the Nazi past. At the same time, they helped disband the notion that democracy and European unification
were foreign entities.
In showing how Heimat was crucial to early postwar culture, this study challenges notions of the
concept as either taboo after 1945 or primarily about anti-Westernism, ruralism, repression of the past,
regressive forms of environmental protection or self-victimization. It also contributes to research on West
German democratization by pointing to often-overlooked popular attempts to forge identification with
democracy in the early postwar years.
History
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