Twinned cities: reconciliation and reconstruction in Europe after 1945 – an introduction

Abstract While town twinning has played a crucial role in reconciliation and reconstruction processes in Europe after World War II, urban historians have not yet paid sufficient attention to it. This special issue thus addresses this historiographical neglect through a set of case-studies that examine the role of twinned cities in post-war reconciliation and reconstruction between former enemy nations and across the ideological fault lines of the Cold War. The framework that underpins all contributions rests on the use of ‘twinned cities’ as an umbrella term to denote various forms of inter-municipal links and builds on similarly broad definitions of ‘reconciliation’ and ‘reconstruction’.