Remembering Right-Wing Violence in Post-unification Eastern Germany

Abstract After the demise of the German Democratic Republic, social and economic instability, coupled with the growth of right-wing extremism, resulted in a number of violent and racist attacks on migrant workers as well as riots that lasted several days. This article examines the ways in which these attacks have been remembered in the public sphere since unification, with a particular focus on physical memorialization. Efforts to commemorate these events in the built environment have not, however, been without controversy and raise significant questions relating to notions of Heimat and its disruption. As the article argues, remembering these events today has increasingly become a central part of the construction of local identities and active socio-political spaces, and can be seen as an important element in the practice of Beheimatung .