| Abstract: | In this article I consider Albert Speer’s theory of ruin value through a discussion of the work of two Weimar theorists of ruination, Ernst Jünger and Walter Benjamin. The first section of the article relates Speer’s original theory of ruins to Nazi ideology. After this consideration of the Nazi obsession with ruination, the second division of the article explores the work of Jünger in terms of his problematic relation to National Socialism. Beyond this investigation of Jünger’s work the final section of the article argues against what I call the Weimar right’s version of ruin value through an elaboration of Walter Benjamin’s catastrophic utopianism. In this section of the article my argument is that it is possible to save the concept of ruin value for the cause of human emancipation through the construction of a critical theory that seeks to oppose the politics of memory to the ideological necrophilia of the Weimar right and National Socialism. |
