The Bauhaus was never just a school, but was also subject to various forms of instrumentalization, politicization, and, at the same time, depoliticization in the process of its reception. Each of the four present publications deals with this history and critically examines it. To begin with, this essay will consider two volumes that reflect upon the reception of the Bauhaus; in the first case by re-assessing the role of the second director of the Bauhaus, Hannes Meyer, and in the second case by deepening understanding of the instrumental role of the Bauhaus in West German cultural politics after the Second World War through the case study of the Bauhaus and the modern art exhibition at Kassel, documenta. What is more, the second two volumes considered in this review offer more specific new insights into the reception of the Bauhaus as a design school, by shedding light on the legacy of the Bauhaus within design practice in the former GDR and the region of East Germany. All of these publications took the 2019 anniversary of the Bauhaus as the time to add new source material and critical reflections on the far too common presuppositions on the Bauhaus and design in West and East Germany. Hannes Meyer (1889-1954) was a socially committed architect and one of the leading exponents of 'Neues Bauen'. In addition to a few outstanding buildings and unrealized projects, he was the co-founder of the avant-garde Swiss architecture magazine ABC - Beitrage zum Bauen (1924-1928), a founding member of the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in 1928 and after Walter Gropius (and on his recommendation), the second Bauhaus Director from 1928 until 1930. The understanding of the role and importance of Meyer with regards to the Bauhaus was for a long time determined by the fundamental question of whether he had realized the promises of a socially oriented modernity that had been formulated when the Bauhaus was founded or whether he jeopardized them by politicizing the school through his Marxist outlook. Opinions were divided on this subject. He became a persona non grata at the Bauhaus itself, where he was dismissed in 1930. Meyer himself described the political dispute over the end of his directorate, in 'Mein Hinauswurf aus dem Bauhaus' ('My dismissal from the Bauhaus') in 1930 and he fueled the conflicting interpretations that also accompanied his subsequent life. 'Im Streit der Deutungen' ('In dispute of interpretations') is therefore a fitting subtitle for this volume; the result of a research project at the department of Architectural Theory and Design at the Kunsthochschule Kassel that was intended to address the lacunae in Meyer's historiography. Philipp Oswalt, who with Thomas Flierl is the editor of this volume, was responsible for the research project that led to the publication, and he simultaneously published a voluminous monograph on Meyer in 2019.
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