"Rudy Koshar constructs a framework in which to examine the subject of German collective memory, which for more than a half-century has been shaped by the experiences of Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust. Koshar surveys the evidence of postwar German memory in the context of previous traditions. From Monuments to Traces follows the evolution of German "memory landscapes" all the way from national unification in 1870-71 through the world wars and political division to reunification in 1990.

Koshar argues that in Germany, memory landscapes have taken shape according to four separate paradigms - the national monument, the ruin, the reconstruction, and the trace - which he analyzes in relation to the changing political agendas that have guided them over time."--BOOK JACKET.