Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933-2001

Description

Auschwitz, Belsen, Dachau. Three generations later, these names still evoke the horrors of Nazi Germany around the world. This book takes one of these sites, Dachau, and traces its history from the beginning of the twentieth century, through its twelve years as Nazi Germany's premier concentration camp, to the camp's postwar uses as prison, residential neighborhood, and, finally, museum and memorial site. With superbly chosen examples and an eye for telling detail, Legacies of Dachau documents how Nazi perpetrators were quietly rehabilitated to become powerful elites, while survivors of the concentration camps were once again marginalized, criminalized, and silenced. Combining meticulous archival research with an encyclopedic knowledge of the extensive literatures on Germany, the Holocaust, and historical memory, Marcuse unravels the intriguing relationship between historical events, individual memory, and political culture, to offer the first unified interpretation of their interaction from the Nazi era to the twenty-first century.

Harold Marcuse received an MA from Hamburg University and a PhD from the University of Michigan, and lived and studied in Germany from the 1970s to the 1990s. He has been teaching German and Public History at the University of California since 1992. His research focuses on the reception of historical events, in particular events in twentieth-century German history.

From the hardback review: '... Marcuse has definitely identified something both strangely disturbing and of great symbolic importance.' Times Literary Supplement From the hardback review: 'Clearly and sensitively written, the book is accessible to a broad audience. It belongs in every library.' Choice From the hardback review: '... Marcuse extends his story well into the present ... Marcuse's book comprehensively documents the tug-of-war between the interests of local and regional authorities ... ' German Historical Institute London