_Thingmovement and Thingplays
The Thingstätten – the Thing sites or arenas – dotted over much of Germany (and lands formerly German), are the colossal remnants of a failed experiment in twentieth-century mass culture. They date from the early years of Nazi rule and constitute what was perhaps the most visible cultural investment made by the Third Reich. While the ideas underpinning the so-called Thing(spiel) – the Thing play – did not actually originate inside the Nazi Party, their coincidental emergence in 1933 gave the regime a ready means to make its mark in the cultural sphere. (Gerwin Strobl)
