A Memory in Transition: The University Church of St. Paul in Leipzig

On the 30th of May 1968 the medieval university church of St. Paul in the East German town of Leipzig was blown down. The reason for this radical act was that the Politbüro of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) had decided to build a new university complex. In this re-shaping of the very heart of Leipzig — the Karl-Marx-Platz — the East German leadership saw it important to get rid of the church. What the SED was aspiring was a kind of mending of this part of the world according to Soviet socialist principles. Today — nearly five decades later — the St. Paul church is being rebuilt. This article scrutinizes the destruction and re-building of the university church from a cultural memory perspective.