Disposing of Hitler

Preventive training course for young people with Mario Hechenblaikner (Office for the Protection of the Constitution)

What to do with the remnants of National Socialism? Should they be disposed of? Is it acceptable to sell them at flea markets or on the internet? What is remembrance, what is transfiguration and what is re-activation? Last year, the Haus der Geschichte Österreich (hdgö) presented a successful exhibition on these questions and chose the catchy title "Disposing of Hitler. From the Cellar to the Museum". Visitors received a decision card with their admission ticket and were asked to answer the above-mentioned questions for an object that many of us might have in our cellar. To deepen the theme, the exhibition chose 14 objects with a Nazi connection that had been given to the hdgö in collection appeals. The Stadtarchiv/Stadtmuseum Innsbruck is now showing a local version of this exhibition. We are supplementing the Viennese exhibition with objects from our holdings as well as from friendly Innsbruck archives and collections. We have changed the subtitle a little for our exhibition because archives also have other tasks than a museum.