Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Tzalmona, Rose

Titel

Traces of the Atlantikwall or The Ruins that were Built to Last

Ist Teil von

• Third text, 2011-11, Vol.25 (6), p.775-786

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Quelle

Taylor & Francis Journals Auto-Holdings Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Atlantikwall, a defence-line comprising 12,000 bunkers, was constructed along the Western European coastline (1941-1945) to protect 'Greater Germany' from an impending allied invasion. Designed by military architects and engineers and erected by slave labourers, the Atlantikwall can be regarded as an embodiment of nationalistic ideology, and as built evidence of Nazi war crimes. Postwar years were marked by the desire to forget, and recovery was equated with erasing the traces left behind. Nevertheless, a slow shift in appreciation towards the bunkers is taking place, as the stories that lay dormant are gradually uncovered. In recent years these ruins have begun to fascinate artists, who, while searching for the 'forgotten' and the 'mystical', encounter remnants of an abandoned buried history. The bunkers that were built in haste for a short-lived war may ironically prove to be Hitler's lasting legacy, representing the essence of the twentieth century - its barbarity.