History of the Federal Office building for Migration and Refugees in Germany(Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF)

The construction of the Nazi Party rally grounds(Reichsparteitagsgelände) in Nürnberg was one of the most representative city construction plans carried out by Hitler.(Site of the Nazi Party Rallies; Stadt der Reichsparteitage) The Nazi Party rally grounds, which has been a full-fledged propaganda ground for the Nazi regime since 1936, has become a space that symbolizes Nazism both internally and externally. Riefenstahl’s documentary of 1935 ‘Triumph of the Will’ and the Nazi racist law ‘Nürnberger Gesetze’ are evidence of this. A SS barracks were also built in this huge Nazi Party rally grounds to protect the sacred spaces of the Nazis. Unlike Zeppelin Field and Congress Hall, which are used as spaces for memory and reflection on Nazi history, the SS barracks, one of the remaining buildings, is used as a federal office for immigration and refugees in Germany. Construction of the SS barracks, built under the order of SS leader Himmler, began in 1938 and was completed in 1940. The purpose of the barracks construction was for the SS to lead the security and events of the Nazi Party rally. However, with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, these objectives could not be achieved. The barracks became a space for the training of the SS’s communications unit. From 1941 it served as an external camp for the Dachau and Flossenbürg concentration camps, supplying labor to industrial facilities in the Nürnberg region. After the war ended in 1945, the SS barracks were taken over by the U.S. military and renamed Merrell barracks. Until 1947, Merrell Barracks had been used as a temporary camp for freed foreign forced laborers brought in by the Nazi regime. From 1952 to 1992, the Merrell barracks were used as barracks for the 2nd U.S. Armored Cavalry Regiment in Germany. The Merrell barracks were a symbolic space of the world order expressed by the Cold War, and at the same time, it was a space where the barracks culture of the U.S. military, which was sickened by drug and crimes, coexisted. The history of Merrell's barracks could be rewritten as Germany was unified and U.S. troops withdrew. Overcoming the inherent limitations of a barracks building, this building can be used for a completely different purpose than before. In 1998, when the Federal Office for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees entered the main building of the barracks, it became a space to realize humanitarian purposes. With the enforcement of the Immigration Act in 2005, the name of federal office was changed to the Federal Office for Immigration and Refugees. At the same time, the Z-building, which was an SS officer’s residence building, has become a modern cultural center for young cultural artists in Nürnberg since 2015, suggesting a new way to overcome Nazi history. The space of ‘exclusion’ and ‘discrimination’ held by the SS's barracks embodying Nazi ideology has transformed into a space of ‘integration’ that combines humanitarian refugee policy, social integration of immigrants, and the culture of young artists.