Was Roland a Nazi? Victims, Perpetrators, and Silences during the Restoration of Civic Identity in Postwar Bremen

Drawing on newspaper articles, contemporary architectural writings, diaries and archival records, this essay examines National Socialism's afterlife in the early Federal Republic in a local context. Focusing on debates that shaped the postwar reconstruction of Bremen's historic market square and its monuments, it shows how complicated the recovery of local history proved to be. The interplay of silence on issues of guilt, narratives of victimization and stories of reconstruction explains why postwar efforts to reestablish a historically grounded sense of Heimat furthered the acceptance of the Federal Republic but retained a tentative, provisional feel a decade after the war's end.