Die Moderne Stadtgeschichte (MSG) erscheint seit dem Jahr 1970 zweimal jährlich und richtet sich an alle, die auf dem Gebiet der deutschen und internationalen Stadtgeschichte arbeiten. Seit 2024 erscheint die MSG Open Access bei Berlin Universities Publishing. Die zurückliegenden Jahrgänge werden ebenfalls sukzessive Open Access zur Verfügung gestellt. Die MSG wird herausgegeben in Kooperation mit dem Deutschen Institut für Urbanistik (Difu) und der Gesellschaft für Stadtgeschichte und Urbanisierungsforschung (GSU).
Citizen Science. Zwischen akademischer und bürgerschaftlicher Stadtgeschichtsforschung
Mit dieser Einleitung eröffnen wir die Debatte darüber, inwiefern das wissenschaftspolitische Konzept der Citizen Science neue Impulse für die Stadtgeschichtsforschung liefern kann. Zum einen berührt das Konzept das Rollenverständnis von akademischen und bürgerschaftlichen Historiker*innen in der Stadtgesellschaft gleichermaßen. Schließlich ist die Stadtgeschichte ein Feld, auf dem interessierte Lai*innen und Wissenschaftler*innen schon lange neben- und zum Teil auch miteinander forschen. Zum anderen kann die Stadtgeschichte an etablierte Ansätze etwa aus dem Bereich der Public History oder der Alltagsgeschichte ebenso anknüpfen wie an bestehende Institutionen, wie Archive, Museen und Geschichtsvereine, die vor Ort eine wichtige Plattform für den Austausch bieten. Das vorliegende Themenheft nimmt gegenwärtige Debatten um Citizen Science zum Anlass, neu über das Verhältnis von akademischer und bürgerschaftlicher Stadtgeschichtsforschung nachzudenken.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sebastian Haumann, Christoph Lorke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Die Inflation in Deutschland 1914-1923 in stadtgeschichtlicher Perspektive
This issue aims to discuss the impact and experience of the inflation of 1914-1923 in Germany from an urban history perspective. Motivated by the current problematic of excessive public spending in order to offset the depressive effects of Covid-19 on the economy and the increasing interest in historical research in hyperinflation, the introduction aims to contextualise inflationary effects within long-term processes of urbanisation and of city-state relationships, starting with a short sketch of the municipal finance system before World War One. A core of three contributions discuss the urban experiences of hyperinflation from different vantage points (income, administrative challenges, spending) with a close focus on the role of urban administrations. Another contribution highlights the significance of municipal ‘Notgeld’ (substitute money) for the cultural identity of Germen towns in the 1920s. The contemporary perspective is developed in a further contribution explaining the current financial status and problems of German municipalities today. A short report directs readers’ attention to an upcoming exhibition highlighting German Inflation with a special focus on the city of Frankfurt am Main. The concluding book review looks for similarities and contrasts in inflation experiences of other European countries during the interwar period, such as Austria, Hungary and Italy.
Copyright (c) 2023 Christoph Bernhardt, Dieter Schott https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Stadt – Land – Reich. Die Wirkung der Inflation auf die Finanzbeziehungen und die kommunalen Einnahmen in der Weimarer Republik
The German inflation of 1914 to 1923 was a serious blow to German cities. This also applied to municipal finances. On the one hand, these were thrown into disarray by the devaluation of money. On the other hand, they were put on a completely new footing by the financial reforms of 1919 and 1920. In the standard works on the inflationary period, municipal finances have little significance. Yet a look at cities and their finances promises historical insights that go beyond an understanding of the municipal room for maneuver during the inflationary period. The article argues that the policy decisions of financial officials and politicians tell us much about how the expectations of economic actors developed. In particular, their fiscal behaviour shows that the path to the monetary catastrophe was by no means preordained from the perspective of the municipalities. Such a catastrophe did not become apparent until well into 1922.
Copyright (c) 2023 Sebastian Teupe https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Zur Erfahrungsgeschichte der Hyperinflation 1922/23 in süddeutschen Städten
This paper analyses the experience of hyperinflation on three different levels: first on the level of the individual consumer, particularly of foreigners, for whom shopping in Germany came close to paradise since their purchasing power was greatly enhanced. Second, the article focuses on relations between consumers and retailers, particularly in frontier regions, where the purchasing power of foreign consumers just beyond the border drove inflation rates up and engendered massive local conflicts in which the city administrations tried to mediate. Third administrative processes and procedures provoked by hyperinflation are discussed. It will be asked how far hyperinflation led to administrative and structural changes of longer duration. Particular attention is directed towards investments in energy utilities. The regional focus will be on cities in South Germany, particularly border cities.
Copyright (c) 2023 Dieter Schott https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tanz auf dem Vulkan? Die Stadt und die Herausforderungen der "Großen Inflation"
Cities are considered to be winners of the “Great Inflation”. Especially in the course of hyperinflation, pre-war and immediate post-war they could repay their debts with devalued money. Despite criticism from the President of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht, cities placed bonds again immediately after the currency reform. As a result, some cities were to experience liquidity crises during the Great Depression. However, municipal debt was not the result of urban megalomania. On the contrary, the article shows that the scope of municipal services increased dramatically under post-war conditions. Simultaneously, the inflation and its interaction with the financial reform led to a drastic decline in municipal revenues. Therefore, important investments had to be postponed. The sources do not give the impression of a careless waste of money, but rather of cities unable to fulfil their responsibilities during the inflationary period without substantial borrowing.
Copyright (c) 2023 Heike Knortz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Value Judgments. Notgeld and Exchange with an ‘Inflation Saint’ in Thuringia
Notgeld, or emergency money, was a phenomenon of Germany’s decade of inflation (1914-1924). Created in tens of thousands of unique issues, this provisional currency produced by municipalities, businesses, and local banks was initially intended as a temporary substitute for the often unavailable Reichsmark. As the inflation wore on, however, Notgeld became more than a replacement for the Reichsmark. It became a fixture of local economies, a desirable collectible, and a visual space to promote identity, express anxieties, and assert independence from the political and economic turmoil of the nation. This essay explores how Notgeld produced by the town of Kahla in Thuringia, a prolific centre for the production of emergency money, interrogated concepts of community, labour, and value during the inflation. It also examines the exchange between Kahla and a different kind of community influenced by inflation: followers of the so-called “Inflationsheiliger” Friedrich Muck-Lamberty. Muck-Lamberty promoted values very different from those of the communities he encountered on his tour through Thuringia in 1920, offering an explicit alternative to the social and economic status quo. The story of Muck-Lamberty’s visit to Kahla and the scandal that ensued was the basis for a set of notes that became the town’s first financially successful Notgeld series. Der Aufsatz wurde zuerst veröffentlicht unter dem Titel „Currency and Community. Labor, Identity, and Notgeld in Inflation-era Thuringia” in: German Historical Institute Washington Bulletin, Supplement 14, 2019, S. 39-56: https://www.ghi-dc.org/fileadmin/publications/Bulletin_Supplement/Supplement_14/Sup14_39.pdf
Copyright (c) 2023 Erin Sullivan Maynes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Von Krise zu Krise. Die gegenwärtige Finanzsituation der deutschen Kommunen im Kontext mittelfristiger Konjunkturentwicklungen
This article provides an overview of the financial situation of German municipalities and takes a long-term perspective on the developments that have led to the current situation. One important finding is that, although overall figures have pointed to relative fiscal stability for more than a decade, there is considerable heterogeneity across municipalities. There is a long list of financially weak municipalities that suffer from high debt, tight budgets, and decaying infrastructure. In addition to summarizing official budget data, particular attention is paid to survey results that point to a significant investment backlog in municipalities. Finally, the article focuses on the exceptional inflation situation in 2022 and lists several potential transmission channels through which rising prices can weigh on, but also support, municipal budgets. Since the link between fiscal and price developments at the local level has so far hardly been discussed in a German context, this last section offers a new contribution to the academic debate.
Copyright (c) 2023 Christian Raffer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Inflation 1923. Krieg – Geld – Trauma: Vorschau auf eine Ausstellung im Historischen Museum Frankfurt
Frankfurt has been a center of trade and finance since the Middle Ages. The exhibitions in the municipal museum in Frankfurt, the “Historisches Museum Frankfurt”, regularly take this into account. The exhibition “Inflation 1923. Krieg – Geld – Trauma" (= Inflation 1923: War –Money – Trauma) is being held to mark the 100th anniversary of the great German hyperinflation of 1923. The term "inflation", in contrast to its circumstances, context and framework, is difficult to present. The exhibition illustrates the causes, origin and course of currency devaluation, people's thinking and their actions. Objects of the exhibition are banknotes, photos, documents, graphics, pictures, films and much more. As one would expect in a local museum, the focus is on the local effects of inflation, especially in the city of Frankfurt. People experienced the inflationary period as a time of unrest, riots, strikes, money devaluation, black market and hunger. The financial policy in the German Reich provides the framework for this presentation. It begins with war financing from 1914, before presenting the mass printing of paper money and, finally, the monetary reforms of 1923 and 1948.
Copyright (c) 2023 Frank Berger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Leitrezension: Bonoldi/Leonardi/Lorandini (Hrsg.), Wartime and Peacetime Inflation in Austria-Hungary and Italy (1914-1925)
Rezension zu Andrea Bonoldi/Andrea Leonardi/Cinzia Lorandini (Hrsg.), Wartime and Peacetime Inflation in Austria-Hungary and Italy (1914-1925) (=Beiträge zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte Bd. 134), Stuttgart 2019, 163 S., ISBN: 978-3-515-12454-6.
Copyright (c) 2023 Christoph Bernhardt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tagungsbericht: „Citizen Science in der Stadtgeschichte“
Am 10. und 11. November 2022 fand die Tagung „Citizen Science in der Stadtgeschichte“, veranstaltet von der Gesellschaft für Stadtgeschichte und Urbanisierungsforschung (GSU) und der Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg (FZH), in Hamburg statt.
Copyright (c) 2023 Lisa Hellriegel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ankommen und Unterkommen in West-Berlin. Wechselwirkungen von Migrations-, Unterbringungs- und Wohnungspolitik
Many historical studies on migration to Germany are still based on individualistic theories of action, often accompanied by a deterministic concept of culture. After briefly recapitulating the state of research, the article proposes a change of perspective by examining migration policy categorisations and their consequences on the basis of West Berlin's housing and accommodation policy in the 1970s and early 1980s. This enables a joint analysis of the way society deals with migration and overarching processes of social change. By regulating access to housing for certain groups, the West Berlin Senate attempted to control the length of stay of migrants and consequently the composition of the population. During the first half of the 1980s, the previously hardly questioned hierarchisation of immigrants solely on the basis of their origin and the associated attributions increasingly began to falter, and their categorisation as either mobile or sedentary gained in importance.
Copyright (c) 2023 Malte Borgmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Planen und Bauen im Nationalsozialismus – Hinweis auf eine Ausstellung und Publikation
Bericht zur Eröffnung der Ausstellung „MACHT RAUM GEWALT. Planen und Bauen im Nationalsozialismus“ in der Akademie der Künste in Berlin am 19. April 2023.
“Who has not heard of Wiesbaden?” Die Entwicklung deutscher Kurstädte in Destinationen des modernen Tourismus, ca. 1850-1914
Im modernen Tourismus des 19. Jahrhunderts nahmen die beiden meistbesuchten deutschen Kurstädte Wiesbaden und Baden-Baden eine Vorreiterrolle ein. Aufgrund ihrer Vorgeschichte sowie des Alleinstellungsmerkmals des Glückspiels verwandelten sie sich besonders früh in Städte, deren Infrastrukturen wie „Image“ nahezu komplett auf den touristischen Konsum ausgerichtet waren. In Anlehnung an das in der Tourismusforschung einschlägige Konzept des „Destinationszyklus“ (Richard Butler) analysiert dieser Artikel anhand der Beispiele Wiesbadens und Badens-Badens die Entstehung der „touristischen Stadt“ im Zeitraum von ca. 1850 bis 1914 auf Basis origineller archivalischer Forschungen. Hierbei beleuchtet er nicht nur die Schaffung touristischer Angebote und infrastrukturelle Entwicklungen vor Ort, sondern auch und insbesondere die wechselnden Werbe- und Vermarktungsstrategien beider Städte: Denn konstitutiv für die „touristische“ Stadt war auch und vor allem deren mediale Inszenierung als touristische Erlebnis- und Traumwelt. Besonderer Fokus wird auf die Rolle handelnder Akteur:innen vor Ort gelegt, welche vom Tourismus teils überproportional profitierten und dessen Entwicklung dementsprechend aktiv antrieben. Zusammengefasst bietet der Artikel nicht nur eine fundierte Studie der Entwicklung früher touristischer „Destinationen“ im 19. Jahrhundert; er bietet auch generellere Einblicke in die Geschichte des modernen Tourismus, in die Ursprünge des Stadtmarketings sowie in die Stadt- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte des Kaiserreichs.
Copyright (c) 2023 Mathias Häußler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
„Zeitvergehen“ als Form von Devianz im urbanen Raum – „Polizei“ als Instrument und Projektionsfläche sozialer Disziplinierung in Sachsen (1700–1850)
The attempts of the authorities to curb the urban population's tendency for idleness were accompanied by increased controls by the “police' and the forces of order. These included the monitoring curfews, controlling festivals and celebrations (baptisms, weddings, funerals), and apprehending beggars and vagabonds. Time and again, individual decisions had to be made as to whether or not the permissible level of idleness was exceeded. It was necessary to establish new competences and, at the same time, new standards of value, which the “police” had to anchor in society. This almost inevitably resulted in conflicts, which are reflected to varying degrees in the Saxon criminal records. Such conflicts can give an impression of the extent to which the police were instrumentalised for social disciplining. They also reveal how, at the same time, the police repeatedly faced criticism and resistance because they were held responsible for official interventions into individual control over time. The article focuses on the interplay between the instrumentalisation for social discipline and a screen onto which negative attitudes towards official interventions were projected.
Copyright (c) 2023 Anne Purschwitz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Erfassen, überwachen, inszenieren. Eine Untersuchung des polizeilichen Stadtraumes am Fallbeispiel der Münchner Polizeidirektion (1796–1808)
This article explores how the Munich police related to urban space. Historians have emphasised the surge in debates and reforms around the police during the second half of the 18th century. They have also shown that urban police forces went through a process of territorialisation, rethinking the spatial organisation of the area assigned to them. This article discusses how this territorialisation movement also affected the police of Munich. It states that the newly created institution elaborated a complex relation to the Bavarian city that comprised three main aspects. First, the police gathered an enormous amount of information through various channels. Second, they tried to watch over the entire city at all times and, in order to do so, progressively elaborated a system that was structured by the dichotomy between centre and periphery and based on uncertainty. Third, they depicted the city, especially through engravings published by the police director in 1805. The article argues that this multifaceted relation between police and urban space was linked to key problems of the new institution: its legitimacy, the ambiguity of its scope of action and the aspiration to cover urban space comprehensively.
Copyright (c) 2023 Olivier Coelho https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Die Polizei als Sicherheitsakteurin und ihre öffentliche Wahrnehmung in Barcelona vom Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Spanischen Bürgerkrieg
This article investigates the extent of the police’s ability to provide security for the citizens of Barcelona from the late 19th century to the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. The first section argues that, due to the high frequency of bombings, assassinations, and armed robberies, insecurity was a permanent factor of public life. The second section examines the official police force Guardia Civil, whose main problem was the small number of police officers in relation to the fast-growing urban population. The final section analyses how police operations to secure law and order were perceived by the public. It argues that in the upper and middle classes the police were disrespected for their alleged lethargy, whereas people from working-class circles criticised police actions for their inappropriate use of force. The article concludes that the police in Barcelona caused insecurity and contributed to the high intensity of violence rather than securing law and order.
Copyright (c) 2023 Florian Grafl https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
„Auch diese üble Erscheinung hat im Laufe der letzten Jahre eine Wandlung erfahren“. Der Zuhälter als (Sicherheits-)Problem im Wien der 1960er Jahre
Viennese police officers ascertain that a new, juvenile “type of pimp” emerged on Vienna’s seedy underworld from 1960 onwards. The presumed increase of these men deemed pimps and their turf wars were scandalized as “pimp wars” by the Austrian media and monitored closely by the police. This and the pimp’s violent, commercial, extortive and motorized modus operandi, led officers to conclude that police work had to be adapted. On the basis of police sources and press reports, this article investigates the discourse on pimping as a “security problem” in Vienna in the 1960s. How did police officers conceptualize this new “type of pimp” and which police measures were applied to improve the surveillance of pimping? Ultimately, policing of pimps was mostly implemented by adapting the regulations for women selling sex. By asking how these presumed shifts in the Viennese underworld related to processes of urban, social, and economic transformation, this paper finally asks what researching police practices regarding pimping can tell us about the broader context of 1960ies Vienna. By focusing on pimps, who remain understudied in historical studies on commercial sex, this paper will contribute to the understanding of the figure of the pimp in the late 20th century.
Copyright (c) 2023 Nora Lehner https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Unsicherheit als Resultat polizeilichen Handelns. Das Ost-Berliner Grenzregime an der Berliner Mauer als Beispiel
Modern states assume that they can produce security by regulating human behavior, ensuring compliance through police surveillance, and threatening deviation with punishment. For this, a high degree of congruence regarding social norms between the state and the population is a prerequisite. The German Democratic Republic’s border regime in East Berlin is a good example of how this process can lead to the opposite of what had been intended. After the Wall had been built, the ruling Communist Party (SED) had defined a border area at the Wall in which the inhabitants were subjected to considerable restrictions and a tight control regime. The longer these existed, however, the more acceptance of them declined. Through their restrained renitence and considerable divergences between the authorities involved in the border regime, part of the population was able to reclaim some of its freedom of movement in conflict with state power. However, the security concept for the border area produced a large number of violations of norms and thus a permanent conflict between the police and the population. In this way, the SED had unwittingly created a new phenomenon of urban disorder itself at the Wall in East Berlin.
Copyright (c) 2023 Gerhard Sälter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Leitrezension: Kriminalitätsanalyse als Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Moralische Paniken, Krisen und der autoritäre britische Staat der 1970er Jahre
Rezension zu Stuart Hall, Charles Critcher, Tony Jefferson, John Clarke, Brian Roberts: Policing the Crisis. Mugging, the State, and Law and Order, London und Basingstoke 1978, ISBN 0-333-22060-9.
Copyright (c) 2023 Klaus Weinhauer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Handelsräume der vormodernen Stadt. Raumzeitliche Aspekte des Messehandels am Beispiel der Nördlinger Pfingstmesse
Even though medieval and early modern fairs were held for only a very short time each year, such periodic markets nevertheless left lasting traces in the town, e.g. due to the infrastructure required for their repeated implementation. In this exploratory study, by taking the case of the Pentecost Fair of Nördlingen in the 15th and 16th centuries, the special nature of such temporary but in a way also permanent urban commercial area is discussed. The focus is on two spatiotemporal aspects: the topography of the trading area in the town during the fair, and the extent and structure of the interregional trade area related to this fair, that can be reconstructed based on the commercial relationships Nördlingen had with other towns. For this purpose, information on where the merchants trading at the Pentecost Fair were from, recorded the so-called Messestandregister (a register of fair booths), is used to derive in a Multidimensional Scaling a spatial configuration of merchants visiting the fair in the 1440s. Also, both potential and limits of this serial source for such a spatiotemporal analysis are discussed.
Copyright (c) 2023 Ulf Christian Ewert https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Stadtrevier. Neue Perspektiven auf Polizei und Sicherheit in urbanen Räumen
Long before the 20th century big cities were regarded as spaces of insecurity, in stark contrast with the European tradition of the city as a place of peace, whose “urban air” made people free and guaranteed, at least in general, an absence of violence. The prominent image of the “city as a Moloch” is, however, overdrawn. As early as the 18th century, police reforms began in numerous European cities, in conjunction with a discourse that viewed urban space through the prism of security policy. Since there can be no “objective” or timeless definition of security, this theme issue is based on the assumption that it results from political negotiation processes. In these processes, police forces play an important role as a security actor. The police professionalised their work and became the central expert in safeguarding and indeed defining what counted as security or insecurity urban spaces. In doing so, traditional or newly learned security heuristics served as a framework for interpretation and evaluation. To cope with perceived security problems, the police resorted to security repertoires. These action-related options included patrolling, the use of force, and the application of de-escalation strategies. The foray through more than three centuries demonstrates that both the definition of situations as security-relevant and the use of specific security repertoires are inextricably linked to the police’s authority and power.
Copyright (c) 2023 Martin Göllnitz, Sabine Mecking https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tagungsbericht: Das Ende der Stadt. Phänomene der Deurbanisierung in historischer Perspektive, Bericht von internationaler Tagung in Halle (Saale), 9.-11. November 2023
Der Tagungsbericht resümiert eine transepochale und interdisziplinäre Tagung zu „Phänomenen der Deurbanisierung in historischer Perspektive“, die im November 2023 in Halle am Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte stattfand. Sektion I „Was ist Deurbanisierung“ illustrierte das breite Spektrum von Deurbanisierungsprozessen. Sektion I „Naturgemacht oder von Menschenhand“ fokussierte auf die Wirkung von Naturkatastrophen und Kriegen für das Erlöschen von Städten. Sektion III „Politik und Wirtschaft“ reflektierte herrschaftliche Strategien und wirtschaftlichen Standortfaktoren als Determinanten für Deurbanisierung. Sektion IV „Europa und die Welt“ setzte die im Zentrum der Tagung stehende europäische Erfahrung der Deurbanisierung in Beziehung zu Beispielen aus Vorderasien, Ägypten, Mittelamerika und modernen Beispielen aus Nordamerika. Die Tagung bestätigte die bemerkenswerte Beharrungskraft vieler städtischer Siedlungen und gleichzeitig die Bedeutung eines Ensembles von politischen, wirtschaftlichen, aber auch ökologischen Rahmenbedingungen für die Persistenz von Städten.
Copyright (c) 2024 Dieter Schott https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tagungsbericht: "The State of Urban History. Past, Present, Future"
Aus Anlass des 50. Jahrestags der Gründung der Zeitschrift ‚Urban History‘ veranstaltete das Centre for Urban History der University of Leicester vom 11.-13. Juli 2023 eine große internationale Konferenz, auf der über die bisherige Entwicklung, den aktuellen Stand und zukünftige Forschungsschwerpunkte der Stadtgeschichte nachgedacht wurde.
Urban Planners Assessing Professional Autonomy during (and after) State Socialism
The Soviet state aimed to turn urban planning into a primary venue where Communist ideas about both the past and the future could be manifested. Architects and planners had to translate these visions into materiality, and they sought to carve out a space for professional autonomy. After the collapse of the USSR, they had to adjust to the new configuration of stakeholders to maintain their standing. Based on interviews with experts who entered the profession in the 1970s and 1980s and remained there after the collapse of the USSR, the author demonstrates that architects and planners perceived their positions under socialism as more stable than under market conditions. They learned how the state bureaucracy worked and got “entrenched” in the networks of decision-makers. They did not need to navigate between different interests—just those represented by the party. They knew what technology and practices they could rely on, and the boundaries of their professional field were clearly defined. With this case study, the author relates to a broader conversation about the autonomy and dependence of professionals during social transformations.
Copyright (c) 2024 Natalia Otrishchenko https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Destruction, Preservation, and Rethinking of Ukraine’s Urban Cultural Heritage during the Russo-Ukrainian War. The Case of the Building of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration
This article examines the processes of destruction, preservation, and rethinking of urban cultural heritage in Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War, using the case of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration building. The building was partially destroyed in the missile strike on Kharkiv’s city center on March 1, 2022. It had already held an important place in urban space, but its significance had undergone a complex transformation: from a symbol of Soviet power to a representation of the struggle for democracy and Ukraine’s independence. Today, the building is one of the symbols of resistance to Russian military aggression and a recognizable symbol of the war. Special attention is devoted to the lively discussion surrounding its future, considering various aspects such as its significance as an object of urban heritage. Overall, participants in this discussion represent several conceptual orientations, which can be preliminarily identified as decolonial, renovative, and revalorizing. It remains an important task to develop new approaches to dealing with dissonant heritage and possible strategies for the post-war reconstruction of the urban historical environment in Ukraine. The building may become an example of social dialogue and the search for a domestic political consensus or, conversely, attest to the intensification of the “memory wars”.
Copyright (c) 2024 Yevhen Rachkov https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Hamburg als Handelsmetropole und sein Gedenken an die NS-Verbrechen
Dieser Artikel behandelt die Entwicklung des zuerst stark von den Überlebenden, später von der Zivilgesellschaft getragenen öffentlichen Gedenkens an die NS-Verbrechen in Hamburg bis hin zur großstädtisch geprägten, staatlich unterstützten, vielfältigen Erinnerungskultur und Gedenkstättenlandschaft der Gegenwart. Im Vordergrund stehen zentrale Akteursgruppen der Gedenkkultur und die mit ihnen verbundenen Themen und Anliegen. Die lokale Gedenkstättenarbeit bestand und besteht insbesondere darin, allgemeine Charakteristika der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft mit ihren lokalen Ausprägungen und jeweiligen Täter- Widerstands- und Verfolgtengruppen zu vermitteln. Gleichzeitig verändern aktuelle geschichtspolitische Entwicklungen und gesellschaftliche Umbrüche den Umgang mit der NS-Zeit und wirken auf die Gedenkstättenarbeit zurück. Der Artikel weist auch auf einige eher vernachlässigte Aspekte hin, insbesondere das Zusammenwirken von staatlichen und privatwirtschaftlichen Unternehmen bei der Umsetzung der Ziele des NS-Regimes, Prozesse von Inklusion und Exklusion sowie Hamburgs Umgang mit seinem kolonialen Erbe.
Copyright (c) 2024 Oliver von Wrochem https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Das EL-DE-Haus in Köln. Städtische Erinnerungsarbeit am Ort des Gestapo-Terrors
Der Beitrag untersucht Entwicklungslinien kommunaler Erinnerungsgeschichte am Beispiel des Kölner EL-DE-Hauses. Dazu skizziert er die historische Bedeutung des Ortes, an dem die hiesige Gestapo zwischen 1935 und 1945 ihren Sitz hatte. Das Zellengefängnis im Untergeschoss, das bis in die Gegenwart weitgehend im originalen Zustand erhalten ist, wurde Anfang der 1980er Jahre zu einer öffentlich zugänglichen Gedenkstätte. Im Weiteren richtete die Stadt Köln im historischen Gebäude einen der ersten Forschungsorte zur regionalen NS-Geschichte in Deutschland ein – das NS-Dokumentationszentrum. Beidem war ein zäher Kampf zivilgesellschaftlicher Akteure mit der Stadtverwaltung vorausgegangen. Der Beitrag beleuchtet die Dynamiken dieses Prozesses und ordnet die anfängliche wie gegenwärtige Forschungs- und Vermittlungsarbeit des NS-Dokumentationszentrums in den weiteren Kontext deutscher Erinnerungspolitik ein.
Copyright (c) 2024 Annemone Christians-Bernsee https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Urbanität und Religion. Neue Perspektiven auf Religion in europäischen, süd- und westasiatischen Städten
While urban sociology and other systematic disciplines for a long time considered it dispensable to relate religion and the city to each other due to the modernisation and secularisation narratives that underlie them, the topic of ‘religions in the city’ was actually always present in historical scholarship, especially in studies in European urban history. However, the focus was rather on the consideration of religious groups in the city. And in the discussions that formed criteria, religion as a formative factor of cities was usually not taken into account. It is only in the last two decades that insights from spatial theory have found their way into urban research, paving the way for examining the space-forming effect of religion (or its actors, practices and ideas). By way of introduction, using the example of the “Sun City” by the Dominican monk Tommaso Campanella, this article discusses how former political utopias and ideal city models certainly assigned an important role to the factor of religion for (here: urban) society, but that these were far from opting for religious plurality or diversity; and thus influenced the European discussion – up to and including the ‘banishment’ of the religious – for a long time. Briefly recapitulating the state of research in urban and ecclesiastical history as well as in history of religion, the present issue also wants to go beyond this. It therefore focuses more on the creation and effect of spatial configurations and directs the consideration to the relationship between religion and urbanity (instead of city). Following the so-called spatial turn, it takes more consistent account of the fact that spaces and social groups, or their practices and ideas, are reciprocally constituted. And with the expansion of the consideration to cities in West Asia and South Asia, the view is broadened from an urban history strongly related to Christianity to completely different religious movements. This not only allows assumptions about identity and diversity to be questioned, but also does more justice to the urban present, which is determined by globalisation and pluralisation. The contributions in this issue then present new research on mixed-denominational German cities in the early modern period, Jeddah, Mes Aynak, Ahmedabad, Amritsar and movements of “spiritual urbanism” in modern India.
Copyright (c) 2022 Susanne Rau, Jörg Rüpke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Der Friedhof für Nichtmuslime in Dschidda, Saudi-Arabien
The non-Muslim cemetery of Jeddah, also known as the Christian or European cemetery, forms a kind of enclave in a region which for a long time explicitly excluded non-Muslims due to the geographical proximity to the holy city of Mecca. For this reason, the residence of Christians in Jeddah, which only became permissible in the 19th century, was a highly sensitive issue. Moreover, it became closely associated with the establishment of Western consulates, which were opened to further trade, protect Western shipping and keep Muslim pilgrims from colonized territories under observation. Whenever the consulates started to take an interest in the cemetery, politics and religion became closely entangled and potentially problematic. The article traces the history and symbolic importance of the cemetery. Originating as a burial ground for itinerant sailors and merchants, it developed into a formally delineated cemetery in the course of the 19th century. Due to the burial of consular officers, Western consulates and trading establishments began to organize its care. Since the second half of the 20th century, the cemetery has catered mostly to the needs of immigrant labour from Asia and Africa.
Copyright (c) 2022 Ulrike Freitag https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Friedhöfe in gemischtkonfessionellen deutschen Städten der Frühen Neuzeit
This article considers how urban magistrates in Early Modern German cities dealt with the dead from multiple confessions or religions. It introduces three different strategies for dealing with burial spaces in early modern pluriconfessional towns. Firstly, an exclusion of people from burial in a region or the town centre. Secondly, the demarcation of the dead of a different confession or religion within the town, for example through the establishment of multiple cemeteries or different sections within the same cemetery. Thirdly, a more integrative approach that made it possible for multiple religions or confession to be buried in the same space. In many cases, these different strategies were combined and changed over time, and they could also be adapted depending on circumstances and specific needs. The complexity of the treatment of the urban dead of different confessions and religions mirrored and reinforced how urban magistrates had to constantly engage with the question how to govern a diverse and complex civic community.
Copyright (c) 2022 Martin Christ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0