When Fascination Obscures Fate

The Bunker “Valentin” in Farge, a suburb of Bremen, is one of the biggest relics of armament projects in the Second World War. Although it was built by up to 10,000 forced laborers under brutal conditions leading to a death toll of up to 1,600, it was primarily remembered as a technological masterpiece. This article describes the history of the bunker and how its remembrance changed over time. It assesses the formation of competing narratives of war technology and forced labor and explores the meaning of the material remains of the Second World War for the culture of remembrance of German war crimes at and after the end of the age of eyewitnesses.