Reshaping identity
An architectural thesis about co-option of ‘tainted’ buildings by their successor regimes
B. Claver (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
J.C. Edens (TU Delft - Teachers of Practice / A)
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Abstract
The co-opting of buildings constructed by the Nazi regime is dependent on three different factors: the first is need for a resource that is scarce, the second is circumstance both political as well as economical, and the last is ideology. It is in ideology were the approach between east and west concerning their Nazi legacy greatly differs. For the east, socialism had been victorious over Nazism in a war of extermination, leading to the creation of a socialist nation. Co-opting the building that had represented Nazism represented the ideological victory over its constructors. In the west, it had been a war between the Allied powers against the Axis powers. They war consequently was portrayed to have been perpetrated by a small group of criminals. By the time that questions arose over the Nazi legacy of Western Germany, the identity of the buildings had already transformed.