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Redeeming Objects
A West German Mythology
Natalie Scholz
George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas
Steven E. Aschheim, Skye Doney, Mary Louise Roberts, and David J. Sorkin, Series Editors
“Scholz explores the afterlife of Nazism as a repurposing and remythologizing process. Scholars have yet to learn how to account for the ‘affective legacies’ of the Third Reich, or even to realize that they existed. Scholz’s analysis of the postwar fabric of Nazi myth showcases a subject and an approach that could be of great consequence for contemporary German and, more generally, post-totalitarian scholarship.”
—Michael Geyer, University of Chicago
VW Beetles, laundry detergent, the functional simplicity of Bauhaus—tracing the reinvention of products rooted in Nazi culture
Redeeming Objects traces the afterlives of things. Out of the rubble of World War II and the Holocaust, the Federal Republic of Germany emerged, and with it a foundational myth of the “economic miracle.” In this narrative, a new mass consumer society based on the production, export, and consumption of goods would redeem West Germany from its Nazi past and drive its rebirth as a truly modern nation. Turning this narrative on its head, Natalie Scholz shows that West Germany’s consumerist ideology took shape through the reinvention of commodities previously tied to Nazism into symbols of Germany’s modernity, economic supremacy, and international prestige.
Postwar advertising, film, and print culture sought to divest mass-produced goods—such as the Volkswagen and modern interiors—of their fascist legacies. But Scholz demonstrates that postwar representations were saturated with unacknowledged references to the Nazi past and older German colonial fantasies. Drawing on a vast array of popular and highbrow publications and films, Redeeming Objects adds a new perspective to debates about postwar reconstruction, memory, and consumerism.
Natalie Scholz is a professor of modern and contemporary history at the University of Amsterdam.
Praise
“A fascinating, meticulous, and seminal study. . . . Groundbreaking.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Scholz is at her best when dissecting the Volkswagen Beetle and the transformation of West German interior design, showing convincingly how claims of ‘timeless’ design could replace unpleasant references to the Nazified patterns.”
—CHOICE Reviews
“Stimulating. . . . A rich rereading of West Germany’s early material culture, one that opens up a range of unsettling questions about how the ghosts of the past hid in plain sight at the time.”
—Journal of Design History
“An immensely rich and yet concisely written analysis, Redeeming Objects invites the reader to savour each page. Scholz’s text lingers at the symbiotic intersection of history and memory, deftly combining nuanced theoretical interpretation with rigorous archival research. . . . A fresh and insightful contribution.”
—German History
“A well-written, persuasive, and, above all, engaging account of West German consumer culture in the early post-war years.”
—Modern Language Review
“Highly engaging. . . . Scholz’s book is significant for its integration and careful examination of many media types and the seriousness with which it scrutinizes film and advertising as elemental initiators of our pasts, present, and futures.”
—Film & History
“Helpfully unites long-running scholarly discussions of Nazi continuities in the FRG with the history of consumer culture and postcolonial studies, while calling due attention to the affective and symbolic ambiguities of these objects.”
—German Studies Review
“This remarkable book offers a new way to conceptualize postwar West German history, which integrates familiar historical topics: sites of memory, the Nazi past, consumer society, racial ideologies, and imperialist imaginaries. What emerges is an uncanny whole, a broad perspective on the time period that should spark further historical studies. . . . Redeeming Objects offers a fresh take on postwar West German history but also a new way to think about other nations, other imaginaries, other traumas, other myths.”
—Joe Perry, George L. Mosse Program in History Blog
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A West German Mythology and the Ghosts of the Past
Chapter 1. Stranded Objects: The Political beneath the Rubble
Chapter 2. Miraculous Objects: The Volkswagen as Imperial Debris
Chapter 3. Timeless Objects: Good Modernity and its Other
Chapter 4. Expanding Objects: At Home in Globalizing Germany
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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