In the 70 years since the Second World War ended, the spectre of Nazism has been something we all want consigned to the history books.

However, there are very real and concrete reminders of what the Third Reich established in their quest for global dominance... and that is something that fascinates Colin Philpott.

Colin, former head of the National Media Museum and now boss of the advocacy group Bradford Breakthrough, has spent the last couple of years researching the legacy of the Nazis in the form of the buildings and spaces they created which still exist today.

He has compiled his findings into a book - Relics of the Reich - which will be published early next year, and about which he will be talking at a Bradford Literature Festival event this Sunday.

He says: "A lot of Nazi-era buildings are still there, though a lot of people think they might have been swept away after the war. The book is the story of how, over the last 70 years, some of these buildings have created what is really something of an awkward legacy.

"One of the interesting things is that any building associated with the Nazis is tainted by association and condemned in some way. The reality is that a lot of these buildings are still in use and have been repurposed in some way."

The book looks at around 50 locations, mainly in Germany, from sites which are associated with what Colin calls "the Nazi terror" - concentration camps and the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin - to industrial sites, to monumental buildings: "Things built to make a statement of the power of the Nazis, embedding themselves in the German psyche and sending a message to the rest of the world."

One of the most fascinating locations is Prora-Rugen on the Baltic coast, which towards the end of the war was being developed into what was essentially a massive holiday camp for the Germans.

Colin says: "It would have accommodated around 20,000 people and was based on the Nazi concept of 'strength through joy'; the German masses would have gone there to take part in exercise regimes."

After lying unfinished since the end of the war, the site is now being redeveloped into - somewhat ironically - holiday apartments.

There is also the famous Olympic Stadium, built for the 1936 Games, which was redeveloped into a football venue for the 2006 World Cup. Colin says: "The symbolism of this is very important. One one level it was a massive Nazi exercise, on the other hand it was the venue where [black American athlete] Jesse Owens won four gold medals and confounded the Nazi ideas of racial superiority."

Of course, many people do visit the former concentration camps where the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust took place behind barbed wire fences. Colin says: "Going to a place such as Dachau is called in academic terms 'dark tourism'... we feel awkward and guilty about visiting such a place, but on the other hand it's entirely appropriate that we know what went on and remember it.

"A lot of the concentration camps were destroyed by the Germans at the end of the war, to cover up the evidence, as it were, of what went on there. Today, most of the sites that still exist are effectively memorials."

There is much debate in Germany about whether the sites created by the Nazis should be preserved for history or wiped away. A case in point is the site where the infamous Nuremburg Rallies took place. Colin says: "It's still there, and covers a vast area. The interesting thing is that the buildings, particularly the grandstand, are crumbling away and there's a big debate about whether to save it or lose it.

"It is estimated that it would cost 70 million euros to stop it falling down and obviously there are a lot of people who are saying, why spend that amount of money?

"But the prevailing view seems to be that keeping and preserving the grandstand sends out an important educational message - a warning from history, if you like."

Colin adds: "I'm in no way attempting to glorify what happened with the book, it is a factual account of the buildings the Nazis created which are still around today.

"Perhaps, simply because these buildings are Nazi architecture it doesn't mean they have to always have those associations - in many cases they have outlived their original purpose and become new places."

* Colin Philpott will be talking about Relics of the Reich at 12.30pm on Sunday at the Cubby Broccoli Cinema, the National Media Museum, Bradford, as part of the Bradford Literature Festival. For details go to www.bradfordliteraturefestival.co.uk