Introduction: what makes a memory place?

In Kassel and Magdeburg, memory of the air war is the memory of catastrophe. At the centre of the cultures of remembrance in the two cities stand devastating fire raids, the RAF attack on Kassel of 22 October 1943 and the RAF raid on Magdeburg of 16 January 1945. The two air raids have given rise to commemoration days that can be understood – in Pierre Nora's famous metaphor – as ‘places’ or lieux in which memory has been ‘condensed, embodied or crystallised’. Their annual return forces the two urban communities to return to the experience of aerial warfare, to remember the destruction and to commemorate the dead. In newspaper articles, public ceremonies and exhibitions, but also in personal reminiscences and conversations, the past is relived, imparted with meaning and compared with the present.