ABSTRACT
Germany’s changing approach to memorialisation of the Nazi and GDR past has left its marks on the memorial sites that underpinned this research project. This chapter charts the way in which memory politics have influenced the development of the memorial sites, impacting on tourists today. Ravensbrück in the former East Germany, and Flossenbürg, located in North Bavaria, were subject to destruction and/or transformation, requiring imagination from today’s visitors to fill the gaps. The House of the Wannsee Conference grapples with the challenge of exhibiting the perpetrator, while Bautzen II, the former Stasi prison, has to accommodate three very different periods within a confined space: the Soviet Special Camps, the Stasi prison and the Nazi imprisonment. Moreover, Bautzen II operates within a politically heated climate, emphasising the difficulties of managing a memorial site that commemorates a past that is still in living memory. As such, this chapter explores the memorial sites’ position within the wider German memory and tourism landscape.
