The city restored: Memory, civic identity, and reconstruction in Augsburg, 1944--1955

This dissertation examines the construction of civic identity in Augsburg from the end of the Second World War to the end of the city's reconstruction in 1955. Augsburg is a city with a history that extends back to the Roman Empire, when a Roman settlement was founded on the site during the reign of the Emperor Augustus. It remained an important city through the Middle Ages up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, when under Napoleon, Augsburg lost its independent status as an imperial free city and was placed in the Kingdom of Bavaria. Traditionally a Swabian city, Augburgers have constructed an image of themselves as citizens of a city with a rich history that has seen its prestige diminish under the rule of the Bavarian State. Furthermore, I argue, this identity was intricately linked to Augsburg's history and to its topographical space.;During the Second World War, much of the city's historic center was destroyed by Allied bombing. The destruction of historically important buildings in Augsburg meant that Augburger's sense of identity as city dwellers, civic identity, was fundamentally altered. During the American occupation and the reconstruction period, Augsburgers faced the task of both reconstructing their city as well as reconstructing their civic identity. Through the reconstruction process, Augsburgers reconstructed their own civic identity, and in so doing, emphasised the commercial and religiously tolerant republican values that they believed were embodied in the Renaissance. To that end, the main goal of Augsburgers became to restore their city as much as possible to its prewar condition. At the same time, this also meant that Augsburgers would view the recent past not as Germans, but as citizens of Augsburg, and they came to remember the war as an evil brought to their city primarily by outsiders, although they shared some responsibility through their acquiescence to Nazi rule. Through reconstruction and city planning as well as through a ceremony entitled the "Day of Reflection," Augsburgers attempted to come to terms with their past in order to put that past behind them.