Euer Dorf soll schöner werden: Ländlicher Wandel, staatliche Planung und Demokratisierung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Strube, Sebastian | from Multimedia Library Collection:
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Euer Dorf soll schöner werden. Cover.

Strube, Sebastian. Euer Dorf soll schöner werden: Ländlicher Wandel, staatliche Planung und Demokratisierung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Umwelt und Gesselschaft, edited by Christof Mauch, Helmuth Trischler, and Frank Uekötter, vol. 6. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co, 2013.

Between 1961 and 1979 villages participated in the contest “Unser Dorf soll schöner werden” (May our village become more beautiful). No other project enjoyed such popularity in rural areas. The contest was about far more than just kitschy flower decoration. Rather, it was an important means of encouraging the formation of a new order in a time when modernization was changing the rural landscape more than ever before. As “peasant folk culture” died out, a modern, functionally diverse region took its place. Even isolated villages were economically integrated into the rest of Germany and gained new importance as spaces for vacation homes and recreation. (Text adapted from Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht and the Rachel Carson Center)

Read an excerpt here.