Kłopotliwe dziedzictwo? Architektura Trzeciej Rzeszy w Polsce

ED. ZANNA KOMAR, JACEK PURCHLA

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Heritage can be problematic, as the former Auschwitz concentration camp and the Palace of Culture and Science bear witness to. However, the greatest problem we have is with what the Third Reich left in our country. The latest book by the International Cultural Centre shows how complex this issue is. And it provides the fullest ever, often surprising overview of these “ill-born” buildings.

In the volume “A Troublesome Heritage? The Architecture of the Third Reich in Poland”, the authors reconstruct the “plans for a new German Europe” that architects implemented from 1933 in the Reich itself, some of which found their way into Polish borders after the war, and in the territories conquered in 1939. They describe Nazi architecture in both major cities: Gdansk, Krakow, Poznan, Szczecin, Warsaw or Wroclaw, as well as in the regions: in Mazovia, Mazury, Pomerania, Silesia, and Greater Poland. They show entire housing estates, self-sufficient towns built for German settlers during the war, stadiums and sports facilities, palaces, hospitals, hotels, casinos for officers and administrative buildings. Architectural changes affected not only public buildings, but also symbolic places - such as the Krakow Market Square or the Wawel Castle, rebuilt for the seat of the new governor Hans Frank, because in the occupier’s conception Krakow was to become an “old German city” - “Urdeutsche Stadt Krakau”.

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