In 1945, no one in Germany thought of preserving the memory of most Nazi sites in this way. But after 1989, nearly every proposal to sweep away a relic of the East German state was met with opposition in the form of calls for remembrance. This should not have been a surprise. As we shall see, attitudes toward the Nazi past, and toward Nazi sites, had in the meantime undergone a long and painful transformation. The cumulative effects of two world wars plus a cold war have made German historical memory excruciatingly sensitive, at least in Berlin.
