A Mausoleum for Bach?: Holy Relics and Urban Planning in Early Communist Leipzig, 1945–1950

Abstract

In the immediate aftermath of Nazi misrule and wartime bombing, as Germans struggled to survive amid the ruins of their national identity and architectural treasures, passionate debates arose over how to devise usable symbols for the new post-Nazi cityscape. This article features the zealous dispute in Leipzig over how to make Johann Sebastian Bach a symbolic centerpiece, either by erecting a splendid new mausoleum where Bach had been buried or by moving his remains to a new shrine in the Thomaskirche, where Bach had served as cantor. So great were the perceived stakes that even Communist officials took opposing sides in this fight for the postwar urban memory landscape.