This chapter works with a mixture of discourse analysis, cultural anthropological empiricism, integration of behavioural research, and not al least conceptual argumentation. It integrates different, but corresponding strands of discussion and controversies from German-speaking politics and culture, from academic discourse, research, and art to develop a comprehensive discursive view of a discourse landscape on the phenomenon of spatial-oriented collective identities in the multi-national German-speaking culture.
The chapter seeks an answer to the political as cultural identitarian challenge of public history of all kinds in recent years. The answer is essentially sought in a re-discovery and re-conceptualization of the category “heimat”. This is an not-so-old German concept, wandering through different milieus since the modern age, often abused, but always effective in addressing human needs. Where does its fascination come from? How can the corresponding needs be thought of without it becoming identical appropriation, exclusion from others, rejection and hatred. This article seeks an answer to this question. In this respect he has a political significance for the present, too.