Abstract
This article examines the reconfiguration of memory at the former Buchenwald concentration camp following the reunification of Germany. Buchenwald’s complex history and its function as a national memorial of communist East Germany made the reorientation process a highly controversial issue. At the centre of the controversy was the distinction between heroes, victims and perpetrators. The reorientation of Buchenwald cast the successive chapters of Buchenwald’s history - as a Nazi concentration camp, as a Soviet detention camp and as an East German memorial shrine - in the mould of three geographically separated spheres of memory.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.