ABSTRACT
This chapter considers one concrete aspect in the history-defining process that was meant to produce very public, concrete, and ostensibly longer lasting results conforming to the ideologies of the respective governments: i.e., the setting, dedication, conservation, and destruction of monuments. It discusses the ongoing transformation of what is sometimes called the Denkmallandschaft, the ensemble of monuments occupying a landscape, and after a more general consideration of monument building and destruction in Germany during this century. The chapter focuses on the most reconfiguration of that landscape within the territories of the former German Democratic Republic. The German monument at Tannenberg celebrated the victory of Field Marshall Hindenburg over superior Russian forces in 1914 and came to exemplify the myth of German armies, undefeated on the battlefield but betrayed by traitors on the Home Front. An analogous fabrication of the historical can be observed in the policies of the GDR with regard to the erection and removal of monuments.
