This chapter examines popular appeal to local Heimat as a site of political renewal in Cologne. It shows how democratically engaged localists advanced narratives of “Cologne democracy” and “openness to the world,” while replacing nationalist narrative of their region as a “Watch on the Rhine” with that of the Rhineland as a “bridge” to the West. Democratically engaged localists further argued that Heimat should be about promoting European unity and post-nationalist ideas of nation. Such groups constructed these narratives by pulling on useable local histories and reinventing local traditions. Such early democratic identifications, however, existed alongside major failures in democratic practice and frequent depictions of the Eastern bloc as an “anti-Heimat.” Emphasis on democratic local histories also aggravated failures to confront guilt for the Nazi past. Exclusion of newcomers also represented a significant challenge. More inclusively minded Cologners attempted to combat persistent exclusionary practices by arguing for “Cologne tolerance” as a local value and by insisting that a correctly understood Heimat concept should generate sympathy for the displaced.

Moving from Cologne to the Hanseatic cities, this chapter demonstrates remarkably similar Heimat revivals and trends in local identity narratives in early post-war Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen. All three cities saw a major renaissance of local culture and emphasis on the value of Heimat in repairing community bonds and mobilizing for reconstruction. Democratically engaged locals argued for “democracy” and “openness to the world” as Hanseatic values and redefined the long-standing metaphor of their cities as “gates to the world.” Abandoning nationalist narratives of them as exit points of German power, such groups argued for their maritime cities as sites of international reconciliation. Locals wove such narratives by drawing on useful local historical memories. Hanseatic locals, however, reflected the same shortcomings in democratic practice, including persistent attempts to evade guilt for the Nazi past, gendered understandings of Heimat, and exclusion of newcomers. As in Cologne, more inclusively minded locals, however, sought to combat hostilities towards newcomers by engaging with the Heimat idea and arguing for “tolerance” as a local value.

This introduction outlines the main questions and debates which the book addresses, followed by an overview of the history of the Heimat idea and the study’s methodological approach. While scholars have looked at post-war cinematic and literary Heimat tropes, the book argues for more attention to Heimat as specific sites of home. On the question of the concept’s Germanness, it steers a middle path that recognizes how the history of German-speaking Europe has shaped the concept, while acknowledging its connection to broader questions about place attachment. Rather than positing a single “German” understanding across time and space, the work approaches discussions about Heimat as an evolving and contested discourse about place attachments and their relationship to diverse political and social issues. The introduction continues by outlining the book’s contribution to debates about West German democratization, reconstruction, post-war confrontation with dissonant lives, and expellee history. It concludes by outlining the book’s findings on the history of efforts to eliminate the concept in the 1960s and left-wing attempts to re-engage with Heimat in the 1970s and 1980s.

The chapter examines heated debates about Heimat, federalism, and regional identity in the German Southwest during referendum campaigns over the construction of new federal states in the region. While this history has often been glossed over as the pre-history of Baden-Württemberg, the chapter shows how it was saturated with debates about the spatial foundations of democracy. Opposing groups of regionalists who had different cognitive maps of region advanced similar ideas about “democracy” and “openness to the world” as regional values. Abandoning narratives of their region as a bulwark of the nation, many on both sides competed over whose regional vision would offer a better “bridge” to France and Switzerland. Many federalist regionalists in the Southwest further argued that Heimat feeling should bolster decentred ideas of nation. As in the case of Cologne and the Hanseatic cities, the case of the Southwest again demonstrates how early post-war denizens used regional identities to forge early identifications with democracy and European unification. At the same time, the referenda simultaneously demonstrated the same serious shortcomings in democratic mentalities and practice.