Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction: a poem and an image
- 1 From experience to memory: the emergence of lieux de mémoire, 1943–1947
- Part I Commemorating death
- Part II Confronting destruction
- Part III Writing histories
- 7 Reconstructing the ‘night of horror’: local histories of allied bombing, 1940–1970
- 8 The ‘greatest event in municipal history’: local research as antiquarian endeavour, 1970–1995
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
Conclusion
from Part III - Writing histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction: a poem and an image
- 1 From experience to memory: the emergence of lieux de mémoire, 1943–1947
- Part I Commemorating death
- Part II Confronting destruction
- Part III Writing histories
- 7 Reconstructing the ‘night of horror’: local histories of allied bombing, 1940–1970
- 8 The ‘greatest event in municipal history’: local research as antiquarian endeavour, 1970–1995
- Conclusion
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This study has distinguished between three discursive fields or ‘vectors’ of air war memory. While such a model is useful for situating different responses to the human and material impact of indiscriminate bombing within their respective traditions and contexts, it is important to remember that, in practice, the various discourses could frequently overlap. For example, the bishop of Kurhesse-Waldeck, in an address on 22 October 1951, commemorated the ‘Kassel victims of the bombing’ but emphasised that mourning extended to the ‘end [of] our city’ as well. In the same speech, he also referred to the people who had first-hand experiences of the ‘dreadful night’ and were compelled ‘over and over to tell about the most dreadful [experiences] of all the horrors’ that they had gone through.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Allied Air War and Urban MemoryThe Legacy of Strategic Bombing in Germany, pp. 310 - 322Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011