dc.contributor.author | DeWaal, J | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2019-03-22T08:40:21Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2018-03-21 | |
dc.description.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 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. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 36, pp. 229 - 251 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1093/gerhis/ghy014 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/36593 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) | en_GB |
dc.rights.embargoreason | Under embargo until 21 March 2020 in compliance with publisher policy. | |
dc.rights | © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the German History Society. All rights reserved. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/about_us/legal/notices) | en_GB |
dc.subject | Heimat | en_GB |
dc.subject | West German democratization | en_GB |
dc.subject | European identities | en_GB |
dc.subject | historical memory | en_GB |
dc.subject | localism | en_GB |
dc.subject | life after death | en_GB |
dc.title | Heimat as a Geography of Postwar Renewal: Life after Death and Local Democratic Identities in Cologne, 1945–1965 | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2019-03-22T08:40:21Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 0266-3554 | |
dc.description | This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press (OUP) via the DOI in this record. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | German History | en_GB |
dc.rights.uri | http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved | en_GB |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2018-03-21 | |
rioxxterms.version | AM | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2018-03-21 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2019-03-22T08:35:08Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | AM | |
refterms.panel | D | en_GB |