Reims on Fire: War and Reconciliation between France and Germany

Thomas W. Gaehtgens As the site of royal coronations, Reims cathedral was a monument to French national history and identity. But after German troops bombed the cathedral during World War I, it took on new meaning. The French reimagined it as a martyr of civilization, as the rupture between the warring states. Despite a history of mutual respect, the bombing of the cathedral caused all social, scientific, artistic, and cultural ties between Germany and France to be severed for decades. The resulting battle of words and images stressed the differences between German Kultur and French civilisation. Artists and intelligentsia caricatured this entrenched cultural dichotomy, influencing portrayals of the two nations in the international press. This book explores the structure’s breadth of meaning in symbolic, art historical, and historical arenas, including competing claims over the origins of Gothic art and architecture as national style and issues of monument preservation and restoration.