Germany is often praised for its "Erinnerungskultur,” meaning “Culture of Remembrance.” On any given street in the big cities you will find a stolperstein, one of more than 100,000 “stumbling stones” across Europe bearing the names, birth, and death dates of victims of Nazi persecution, placed outside their former homes. You will see memorial plaques on buildings or parks for Jews or other victims of the Nazis. Even so, many find the repurposing of significant historical sites contradictory to this culture of remembrance.
My Canadian peers and I commonly debated this dilemma during my two-month exchange program in Kassel, Germany. Some argued it is inappropriate to idly walk around a site formerly used for Nazi terror; memorials should be visited for contemplation and remembrance – not somewhere you picnic on a sunny day. Others favoured transforming former Nazi sites into something practical; it is unrealistic to commemorate every regime related location, especially given the fact that Nazism was deeply entrenched in daily life.
One weekend, some classmates and I visited the Norisring in Nuremberg, which has been a racing venue since 1947. While tour guides hold up photos of sleek-looking cars, their excitement is at odds with discomfort. This stadium was the site of Hitler’s infamous Nuremberg Rallies between 1923 and 1938. Along the race track is Hitler’s marble podium, today used as bleachers for spectators.
Zeppelin Field, the green space outside the Norisring arena, has undergone extensive “rebranding” since the fall of the Third Reich. Within the premises is the former Hitler Youth Stadium, now refurbished as the Max-Morlock Stadium. Past the race track is the Nazi Congress Hall, which is set to reopen as an opera house in the spring of 2026.
Zeppelin Field’s fraught history is readily brought to the attention of its visitors in museums and monuments, such as the Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds. For Canadian and American tourists, picnicking in this area might seem unthinkable; however, the use of the fields reclaims the space once commandeered by the Nazis, while acknowledging its terrible history.
Finding new life and purpose in sites destroyed by Nazism and the war extend into the personal sphere. One night, a friend invited me to her host family’s home for dinner. I had a long conversation with her host father, where I mentioned that my grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. He told me about his grandfather, a Nazi soldier who served in North Africa, and that we were sitting in the garden of this grandfather’s house. He showed me pictures of the property, almost destroyed during the war but since rebuilt. Today, two young girls are raised in that house, but they do not ignore its former occupants’ history. They are regularly reminded by their father (who renovated it) of the significance of its past.
I initially thought that my classmates who argued for Nazi refurbishment were being far too dismissive of Germany's past sins. However, in my weeks in the country talking to young Germans my age, I’ve come to believe that this can be a decent path towards peace and reconciliation, if done in the right way.
Often, I heard the same sentiment from young Germans: They have extensively learned about the atrocities of the Third Reich in school, and are horrified by their country’s former actions. Nevertheless, they don’t believe they should be “punished” for the sins of their great-grandparents. Meanwhile, older Germans I talked to voiced their fears that the evils of Nazism is being swept under the rug, especially given the rise of Germany’s far right party the AFD (Alternative for Germany), which has been accused of antisemitism and Holocaust denial.
A balance must be struck between allowing young Germans to separate themselves from their country’s painful history while ensuring they are aware of the patterns and conditions that lead to the emergence of facism and the Holocaust. This is not an easy balance to achieve. I don’t agree with converting Hitler’s Podium into a race track; there are other, more appropriate, uses of the site. But the line of balance is hard to define. Moving forward should focus on open dialogue and listening closely to a variety of opinions, with an emphasis on education and activism.
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