Between heritage and countermemory: Varieties of historical representation in a West German community

Contrasting views of the past are often understood in terms of dichotomies (e.g., hegemonic–counterhegemonic and regressive–progressive), but ethnographic data gathered in a German community suggest the need for a more differentiated approach. The public presentation of history in that community corresponds to one of three conventions: (1) the commemoration of the founding of local institutions by their members, (2) “hometown history,” an avocation of the local bourgeoisie, and (3) citizens' initiatives for coming to terms with the Nazi past. German‐area specialists have tended to dismiss the first two types and to valorize the third, but different representations of the past in the present are best viewed as varieties of symbolic capital, which members of different social groups employ in the institutional settings to which they have access and in which they are authorized to play active roles.