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This article traces the debates surrounding the conception of the Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism in Munich in order to understand why it took the city whose history is so deeply intertwined with National Socialism so long to acknowledge its dark past. It investigates whether the final conception of this unusual museum is the expression of a new transnational trend that provided new perspectives on memorialization. It argues that the museum actively attempts to create an arena for public engagement with the past by encouraging visitors to take responsibility for their own interpretation of history based on the material presented.
Keywords: memorial museum; World War II; National Socialism; transnationalization; historical memory
INTRODUCTION
The first sentence on the home page of the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, opened in 2015, reads: "The City of Munich is aware of its special obligation to keep alive the memory of the Nazi era and its crimes and to inform citizens and visitors about it."1 It reiterates the uncontested acknowledgment of responsibility for the wrongdoings committed during the Third Reich on German soil, an acknowledgment that has been firmly encoded in German memory culture since the 1970s. Variations of this sentence can be found in political speeches during commemorative events, public documents published by the German government and on various websites of memorial museums.2 It is thus not surprising that the website of the Documentation Center is no exception. On the contrary, given the specific history of the city of Munich and the role it played during the Third Reich, one would expect it to further underline its "special obligation" to keep the memory of National Socialism alive.
However, what the website does not mention is that it took exactly seventy years after the end of World War II before a museum dedicated exclusively to the history of National Socialism was opened in Munich. This is surprising considering that the rise of the National Socialist movement began in Munich after World War I. Munich was also the scene of Hitler's attempted putsch of 1923 and his subsequent trial. It was in Munich that Hitler found influential patrons who gave him entry to bourgeois circles. The first concentration camp, Dachau, was erected in...