‘Lightening’ Nazi heritage: curatorial strategies and their implications at Atlantic Wall bunker museums in the Netherlands

Abstract

The Atlantic Wall was a Nazi-German military defense line comprised of tens of thousands of concrete fortifications spanning the Western European coast. Once condemned as symbols of the Third Reich, over the previous decades numerous Atlantic Wall structures have been renovated and curated to serve as heritage sites. This study investigates the curatorial strategies employed at Atlantic Wall bunker museums in the Netherlands, and assesses their moral and political implications, by applying thematic analysis to data gathered from observational fieldwork and interviews with museum curators. It finds that the museums focus largely on the technical aspects of the fortifications themselves and exhibit a great deal of Nazi-German material heritage, yet obfuscate their connections with the violent and distressing aspects of WWII and the Nazi regime. Moreover, the museums eschew relevant moral and political themes and attempt to divorce Nazi heritage from its moral and political contexts. These curatorial strategies create ‘lighter’ dark heritage products that risk trivializing–and even inadvertently celebrating–the bunkers, WWII, and the Third Reich, and, furthermore, limit the museums’ ability to convey cautionary moral and political messages. These findings are instructive for Atlantic Wall heritage and other forms of conflict, Nazi, and dark heritage.