How should we remember Buchenwald?
Nick Tyldesley believes that we should not expect easy answers to examples of tragedy
The city of Weimar is a cultural historian’s dream. It is chock-a-block with elegant, pastel coloured eighteenth century buildings in the classical style. There is the obligatory Schloss and along the cobbled streets are coffee shops offering a mouth-watering selection of cakes. Weimar is the cradle for German literature as both Goethe and Schiller lived and wrote there. A museum of Bauhaus art is opposite the main theatre. Hitler regarded the town as one of his favourite places. On the way to the station there are some public buildings from the Nazi era, shorn of their insignias, designed in an ersatz classical style. But no one wants to rent this available office space today.
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