Phaenomenologie des Kitsches. Ein Beitrag zur anthropologischen Aesthetik  

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Phaenomenologie des Kitsches. Ein Beitrag zur anthropologischen Aesthetik (Rothe Verl. Heidelberg 1960) is a book by Ludwig Giesz.

Excerpts on the Heidelberg Castle:

"Ruins are the pinnacle of what we have called "historical" Exoticism. As a jumping off point, a story from experience may serve: in 1945 shortly after the surrender of Germany, when asked by an American soldier who was eagerly "picture-taking" at the Heidelberg Castle how this place of pilgrimage for all Romantics came to be a ruin, I replied mischievously, "it was destroyed by American bombs." The reaction of the soldiers was very instructive. I will speculate briefly: the shock to their consciousness—stemming from an aesthetic, not an ethical problem—was extraordinary: the "ruin" no longer appeared beautiful to them; on the contrary, they regretted (thus: with realistic present consciousness) the recent destruction of a large building."

Professor Ludwig Giesz goes further in his remarks about the ruins:

"The important culture and era critic Günther Anders pointed out that—contrary to widespread opinion—the Romantic Era did not first admire the view for the "beauty of the ruin." Rather the following inversion took place: the Renaissance (like the first generation) admired the ancient Torso, "not because, but although it was a Torso". One found beauty, but "unfortunately" (!) only as ruin. The second generation inverted the "ruin of the beautiful one" for the "beauty of the ruin." And from here to industrial "production of ruins" the way was clear: like garden gnomes one now sets ruins into the landscape, in order for the landscape to become beautiful.--Ludwig Giesz: Der Kitsch, Tübingen: Verlag Ernst Wasmuth, 1982