Spatial research between National Socialism and Democracy – the difficult heritage of the Reich Association for Spatial Research This volume presents the proceedings of a conference organised by the ARL – Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association (until 2019: Academy for Spatial Research and Planning) under the title ‘From the RAG to the ARL: Personnel, institutional, conceptual and spatial planning (dis)continuities’, held in Hannover on 7 November 2019. The focus of the conference was on critical reflection of the history of the ARL and the organisations that preceded it, examining their institutional structures and working practices before and after 1945. Looking back on the Reich Association for Spatial Research (Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft für Raumforschung − RAG) founded in 1935 included the consideration of its research programme. The history of other institutes of spatial science also was investigated, such as the Viennese Working Groups for Spatial Research (Wiener Hochschularbeitsgemeinschaften für Raumforschung) and their research in Southern Europe during the Nazi era and in the post-war period. The research programme of the Institute for the World Economy (Institut für Weltwirtschaft − IfW) based in Kiel revealed the instrumentalisation of academic research and its methods for National Socialist spatial planning. The Central Place cept, which continues to be the basis of regional planning in the German federal states, was the object of critical reflection. Discussion also considered early planning in the state of Bavaria and its continuities in terms of legal foundations, personnel structures and fields of engagement.weiterlesen