Locating Former Nazi Terror Sites: A Methodological 'How-To' for Archaeological Research and Heritage Management

Abstract

Since the 1980s, there have been increasing efforts by heritage offices in Germany and Austria, and many of the countries that were occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, to locate places of former Nazi terror and, where possible, to protect them from further destruction in order to preserve them as places of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism. However, methodological considerations and approaches for locating, recording, and eventually assessing the 'heritage value' of former Nazi terror sites remain rather obscure, since little has been published on the methodological approaches taken by different institutions. This article presents a systematic workflow for recording former sites of Nazi terror, which was developed in the framework of the Natzweiler-Concentration-Camp-System-Project based at the Heritage Office of the State of Baden-Württemberg (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege im Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart). It aims to provide a methodological 'How-To' for creating archaeological inventories of former Nazi camps, associated sites and whole 'landscapes of destruction', hints at where to locate useful primary sources, but also to critically reflect on challenges encountered during the project and how they could be approached in the future.