from the SHELL STADTKARTEN 1934
Looking towards Odeonsplatz during the state funeral of Gauleiter Adolf Wagner on April 27, 1944.
Platz der Opfer des Nationalsozialismus
Square for the Victims of National Socialism
Looking as if it was set up as a mere afterthought, an eternal flame burns in memory of victims of the Nazis. When it was first erected, it was shut off each night until enough of a protest had been made. By October 2012 it was missing altogether but has since reopened.
Not far away is located since 1995 a recessed memorial stone to murdered Munich-based gypsies. In March 2008 a Mexican tourist posed the Nazi salute at Platz der Opfer des Nationalsozialismus whilst her husband took a photo. A passer-by reported them to the police and they were fined €450: Mexikanerin posiert mit «Hitler-Gruß» an Münchner NS-Gedenkstätte
A prominent victim of the “Aryanisation” carried out between 1933 and 1945 which took the form of a looting campaign of enormous proportions was the “Modellhaus Adolf Rothschild”, formerly the Palais Eichthal, a dressmaker’s and furrier’s shop located at Brienner Straße 12. Owing to a dramatic fall in sales, Adolf Rothschild was forced to stage a clearance sale in September 1938 and thus sell the business for well below its value. Although Rothschild himself managed to emigrate to London, most of his assets were confiscated.
Munich Gestapo Headquarters
From 1933 onwards the Wittelsbach Palais in Brienner Straße 22 was the headquarters of the Bavarian Political Police, which later became part of the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei or secret state police). This regional headquarters of terror spread fear and dread among the population. Anyone resisting the regime in Munich fell into the clutches of the Gestapo. The carpenter Georg Elser, for example, who attempted to assassinate Hitler on 8 November 1939 by planting a bomb in the Bürgerbräukeller, was interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp after weeks of interrogations in Munich and Berlin. He was later taken to Dachau, where he was shot by the ϟϟ shortly before the end of the war. The Gestapo officials in the Wittelsbach Palais were also responsible for issuing orders to compile death lists and for dispatching the deportation orders that led to the annihilation of Munich’s Jewish community.
ThemenGeschichtsPfad National Socialism in Munich
"prisoners had open wounds all over their bodies, primarily on their backs... They were forced to lie with such open wounds on dirty cots. I was often witness to such scenes, especially at the time when the focus was on the BZK. I know of some six people among this group of prisoners dying because they were so badly mistreated. And as I learned later, various others died whilst being transported to Dachau.In 1955 there were discussions on building a cultural or popular education centre on the site, but it was sold to the BayernLB (Bank of Bavaria) in 1958.
1951 testimony by former Gestapo prisoner Josef Eberl about inmates being bull-whipped here at the Wittelsbacher Palais
The stone lion in front of the northern entrance on Gabelsberger Straße is a copy, placed here in 1980 with the inscription: “Copy of the lion destroyed when the Wittelsbacher Palais was bombed in AD 1944.” As the historian Gavriel D. Rosenfeld writes, “A clear example of the postmodern scorn towards artistic authenticity, this monument seems to have been meant to prevent any further commemoration at the site which might have addressed its Nazi past.”
Directly
behind was to have been the site of Hitler's mausoleum. The mausoleum
was to be connected to the planned Halle der Partei at Munich by a
bridge over Gabelsbergerstraße (where, at no.37, the NSDAP’s Main Office
for Local Government played key roles in the unrestrained plundering of
the Jews, directed at private property, art
collections and libraries, houses, flats and land, but also at
commercial enterprises.) to become a party-political cult centre in the
city regarded by Hitler as the home of the Nazi party.
The
dimensions were slightly smaller than the Pantheon. The oculus in the
centre of the dome was to be one metre wider in diameter than that of
the Pantheon (8.92 metres) to admit more light on Hitler's sarcophagus,
placed immediately under it on the floor of the rotunda. The modest
dimensions of the structure and its lack of rich decoration are at first
sight puzzling in light of Hitler's predilection for gigantic
dimensions, but in this case the focal point of the building was the
Führer's sarcophagus, which was not to be dwarfed by dimension out of
all proportion to the size of the sarcophagus itself. Likewise, rich
interior decoration would have distracted the attention of "pilgrims"
Giesler's scale model of the building apparently pleased Hitler, but the
model and plans, kept by Hitler in the Reichskanzlei, are are now
probably in the hands of the Russians or have been destroyed.
House of German Doctors (Haus der Deutschen Ärzte)
Established
after plans of Roderich Fick, this building was in the possession of
the NSDAP from November 3, 1935 when it was inaugurated in Hitler's
presence. Hitler liked the building so much that he made Fick a
professor of architecture at Munich's Technical University; in 1939 he even appointed Fick Reich Architect for Linz and had been commissioned to work on a number of projects on the Obersalzberg. Bernhard
Bleeker designed the emblem above the entrance which still sports the
two snakes and faintly preserves the title. Located today on Brienner
Straße 23, it now serves as Ober-Österreich-Haus.
The emphasis on "German" proclaimed the medical group's status as a
pure, 'aryanised' organisation by which time Jews had been prohibited
from practising medicine. The members of this organisation included not
only the ideologues of racially based medicine but also the advocates
of medical experiments on humans, forced sterilisation and
'euthanasia'.
In 1933 Jewish doctors were deprived of their licences to practise under health insurance plans. From 1938 onwards they were only allowed to practise as “providers of treatment” for Jewish patients and not permitted to use the title “doctor”. The Association of Health-Fund Physicians of Germany, which had its Munich headquarters in the House of German Physicians, inaugurated in 1935, and the Association of National Socialist German Physicians at Karlstraße 21 played a key role in these measures. The members of these organisations included not only the ideologues of racially based medicine but also the advocates of medical experiments on humans, forced sterilisation and “euthanasia”.
The first Reich Doctors' Leader (Reichsärzteführer) was Dr Gerhard Wagner, in large measure responsible for euthanasia and sterilisation carried out against Jews and the handicapped, and who showed himself at the Nuremberg Party Congress in 1935 to be a staunch proponent of the Nuremberg Laws, and thereby also of Nazi Germany's race legislation and racial politics. Under his leadership before dying suddenly in Munich in 1939, the Nazi killing institution at Hadamar was established. He instructed doctors to be less dogmatic in their approach to and understanding of medicine:
The first Israeli consulate in the Federal Republic of Germany opened in Munich at 11 Maria-Theresia Street, closing June 30, 1953.
Looking down the street towards Karolinenplatz, much has changed postwar; only the gate on the left and the balcony offer points of continuity.
Kraft durch Freude - München-Oberbayern
Reich HQ of the National Socialist Women's League
Hitler relaxed with a sketching pad, deftly drawing a Party Forum that should grace Munich after his death – a parade square, Nazi Party office buildings, a bridge across Gabelsberger Strasse, and his own mausoleum, dwarfing the city’s famous Frauenkirche and built to ‘last until the end of time.’ It was a concrete sign of his optimism about the future.Irving (178)
House of German Doctors (Haus der Deutschen Ärzte)
In 1933 Jewish doctors were deprived of their licences to practise under health insurance plans. From 1938 onwards they were only allowed to practise as “providers of treatment” for Jewish patients and not permitted to use the title “doctor”. The Association of Health-Fund Physicians of Germany, which had its Munich headquarters in the House of German Physicians, inaugurated in 1935, and the Association of National Socialist German Physicians at Karlstraße 21 played a key role in these measures. The members of these organisations included not only the ideologues of racially based medicine but also the advocates of medical experiments on humans, forced sterilisation and “euthanasia”.
The first Reich Doctors' Leader (Reichsärzteführer) was Dr Gerhard Wagner, in large measure responsible for euthanasia and sterilisation carried out against Jews and the handicapped, and who showed himself at the Nuremberg Party Congress in 1935 to be a staunch proponent of the Nuremberg Laws, and thereby also of Nazi Germany's race legislation and racial politics. Under his leadership before dying suddenly in Munich in 1939, the Nazi killing institution at Hadamar was established. He instructed doctors to be less dogmatic in their approach to and understanding of medicine:
In his thinking and practice, the German doctor must become closer to nature. He should no longer swear solely and only by the dogma of his university acquired Schulmedizin-based knowledge. Rather, he should also master the methods of Naturheil, homeopathy, and Volksmedezin. We National Socialists subscribe neither to economic nor intellectual dogma, we only know one dogma: The well-being of the German Volk.
Chad Ross (78-9) Naked Germany
After the war the second floor swastika and laurel wreath were removed and the stone plaque altered to read Haus der Muenchener Ärzte. (Munich and Memory: Architecture, Monuments, and the Legacy of the Third Reich by Gavriel David Rosenfeld, page 80)
Ironically
enough, directly across the street from the former Gestapo HQ (right) and next
door to the former House of German Doctors is the current Israeli
Consulate with Drake Winston standing in front, thus explaining the constant police presence.
Kraft durch Freude - München-Oberbayern
The
site of the former headquarters of the Upper Bavarian branch of the German Labour Front
(DAF) on the left, whose goal was to bring together in a single organisation all
»working Germans«, regardless of their training, social status or
actual profession, and indoctrinate them with Nazi ideology. The DAF was made particularly attractive by the leisure activities and holidays offered by its Strength through Joy organisation (Kraft durch Freude– KdF). They were located here at Brienner Straße 26–28 when, 1935 the KDF
took over the business premises and house of the Jewish antiquarian
bookseller Jacques Rosenthal who was forced to sell the building to the
Reich Leadership of the NSDAP for well below its value. Rosenthal died on 5 October 1937 in Munich, his wife Emma emigrating to Zurich in December 1939.
Next
door shown on the right is the former site of the German Labour
Front and the offices of the Gau for Munich-Upper Bavaria, formerly the Palais Matuschka.
After the free trade unions were disbanded in May 1933, their assets were confiscated and many trade-union functionaries were arrested. They were replaced by the German Labour Front (DAF), whose goal was to bring together in a single organisation all “working Germans”, regardless of their training, social status or actual profession, and indoctrinate them with Nazi ideology. The DAF was made particularly attractive by the leisure activities and holidays offered by its “Strength through Joy” organisation (“Kraft durch Freude” – KdF). The headquarters of the Upper Bavarian branch of the DAF were located at Brienner Straße 26–28, and in 1935 the KdF took over the business premises and house of the Jewish antiquarian bookseller Jacques Rosenthal at Brienner Straße 26. Rosenthal was forced to sell the building to the Reich Leadership of the NSDAP for well below its value.ThemenGeschichtsPfad (57-58)
Reich HQ of the National Socialist Women's League
(Reichsführung der NS-Frauenschaft)
The headquarters of the head of the Woman's Bureau in the German Labour Front and, from 1934 onward, Reichsführerin of
the National Socialist Women’s Association. The Nazi women's movement ( NSF ) was the women's organisation of the Nazi Party founded in October 1931 as a federation of several national and nationalsocialist women's associations, such as the German Women's Order (DFO), which had already been founded in 1926. In connection with this reorganization, Gregor Strasser , Reichsorganisationleiter der NSDAP , had limited the tasks of the women's organization to economic and nursing activities, as well as the participation in the political training of female NSDAP members. During the Nazi era from 1933 onwards, the NSF served the equalisation of all other non-nationalsocialist women groups and associations under the umbrella of the German Women's Federation (DFW). However, the political influence of the NSF within the NSDAP and the power of the state tended to be zero, which may have been due to the national socialist image of women, which did not envisage a power and political participation for women. The "German woman" was defined as a housewife and mother, a roll distribution, which was also propagated by Nazi women. The general care and the education of the children were called "feminine habitat" (in the sense of a social environment), a designation which the national socialism took over from the conservative-bourgeois women's movement . The women's mothers' training courses, which had been attended by every fifth woman (over 20 years) until 1937, were the main cause of a wide-spread effect. The training content was based primarily on the book The German Mother and her first child of the National Socialist Johanna Haarer . With the task of carrying out systematic supervision, training and leadership tasks, the members had to participate at least once a month in the weekly women's meetings. The focus of this educational work lay in the preparation of women for their duties as housewife and mother. This was done within the framework of courses on household and health management as well as on educational issues. According to the information given by the NS women, this organisation had 109,320 members on December 31, 1932; in the meantime, there was a membership barrack as in the NSDAP, and in 1939 it was 2.2 million members. From February 1934 to the end of the Second World War 1945, the Nazi women's leadership was led by the "Reichsfrauenführer" Gertrud Scholtz-Klink , who also headed the DFW. Scholtz-Klink
(1902–99) had been charged with the responsibility of persuading
women to work for the good of the Nazi government; its offices provided training programmes relating to women's domestic work. In 1938, she argued
that "the German woman must work and work, physically and mentally she
must renounce luxury and pleasure", though she herself enjoyed a
comfortable material existence.
Unlike man, as Alfred Rosenberg once put it, woman thinks 'lyrically’ and not 'systematically’, 'atomistically’ and not 'synoptically’, whatever that may mean; and while he saw it as one of woman’s main tasks 'to preach the maintenance of the purity of the race’, the Reich Women’s Leader Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, in full agreement, complained especially of the absence in sober modern times of the sacred racial function and significance of women and called upon them 'to become once more the priestesses of the family and nation’.
Fest (316) The Face Of The Third Reich
She
eventually served eighteen months in gaol after the war (only having
been caught whilst in hiding in 1948 after witnesses had claimed she had
died in the bunker with Hitler) and remained an unrepentant Nazi until
her death in 1999, twenty years earlier In she had dedicated her book The Woman in the Third Reich
to “the victims of the Nuremberg trials.” The building itself today
dates from 1957 after the original was bombed during the war.
Former NSDAP Accounting Office (Reichrevisionsamt/Rechnungsamt)
Palais Asbeck-Lotzbeck, located
at Karolinenplatz 3, had served as the Nazi accounting office until suffering damaged in 1944 and 1945 with its ruins torn down and made the site in 1955 of the Amerika-Haus.
Initially American cultural officials concentrated on the transmission of high culture so as to overcome inherited notions of German cultural superiority. Its chief instruments were the several dozen “America Houses,” which in the larger cities offered a rich selection of U.S. newspapers, journals, and books that would help curious Germans quench their thirst for information. Typical of their political message was the celebration of America by the poet Stephen Vincent Benet: “There is a land of hope, a land of freedom. There is a land in which the most different kinds of people live, descendants of all peoples of this earth living together under the same big sky.” Especially appealing were novels by Ernest Hemingway, William Saroyan, and others that furnished a key to understanding this land of contradictions, as well as art exhibits that brought back masterpieces of modernism from their exile in the United States. Attempts to convey the work of classical composers like Aaron Copeland and dramatists such as Thornton Wilder, however, proved more difficult. But when reading Nathaniel Hawthorne, one young English major noted enthusiastically: “Finally, [this is] another America than the one we’re used to from the U.S. newspapers, journals, and the occupiers.”
Konrad H. Jarausch (121) After Hitler: Recivilising Germans, 1945–1995
Oberstes Parteigericht
Formerly
the site of Palais Törring built in 1812 from the plans of Karl von
Fischer, this was the site of the Supreme Court of the NSDAP headed by
Walter Buch (whose daughter ended up marrying Martin Bormann). Located at Karolinenplatz 4, it was
responsible for settling internal party conflicts and disciplining
individual members whose behaviour might be damaging to the party. By the constitution of the NSDAP of July 21, 1921, a conciliation committee and a committee of inquiry were set up, which had to assess all new admissions and decision-making procedures. Adolf Hitler saw these committees as an instrument to prevent internal opposition. After the founding of the NSDAP in 1925, the two committees were merged into the examination and conciliation committee (USCHLA). According to the statutes of 25 May 1926, the main task of the new body was the examination of admission and exclusion procedures and the mediation of intra-party disputes. On local and regional level local USCHLAs were formed, which the USchlA in Munich headed. The committees included a chairman and two assessors. In order not to bind the members of the committees as an executive organ of the party leadership, the exclusion was not precisely defined, which led to the judges having more liberties. In 1929, new guidelines were issued for USCHLAs, which were based on the criminal code of procedure. In 1931 the jurisdiction was extended to the SA and SS. After the introduction of the Law for the Protection of the Unity of the Party and the State in December 1933, the USCHLA was renamed Party Attacks, with the Supreme Party Judge having several chambers. In 1934, the procedures were aligned more to criminal proceedings by means of new directives. The criminal catalogue was expanded and re-admissions allowed. The party reports were regarded as a separate branch of the state courts, state courts had to provide legal assistance, from 1936 judges who were jurists were the right to sworn witnesses and experts. Efforts to create a separate jurisdiction for the SA failed due to the veto of Hitler and the resistance of the judiciary and the Reichswehr. The court played an important role after the November pogroms in 1938, as it helped to cover up crimes and cover up criminals, thereby strengthening the Nazi dictatorship. After the trial against Josef Wagner, in which the court did not see any grounds for condemnation against the will of Hitler for formal juristical reasons, the power of the court was considerably reduced, especially since every judgement had to be confirmed by the party. In 1944 almost all proceedings were suspended. The building itself was destroyed during the war and completely rebuilt.
Reichsrechtsamt der NSDAP
Now the the location of the Sparkassenverband Bayern at Max-Joseph-Straße 4 by the obelisk on Karolinenplatz, this served as the offices of the Legal
Department of the NSDAP including, according to the 1942 German
Addressbuch "Section on Administration and Public Economy in Bavaria:"
1. Central Office: Chief: Oberbereichsleiter HEINZ EISENLOHR
2. Office for Legal Administration: Oberbereichsleiter Dr. WALTHER BERCKHOLTZ
3. Office for Legal Policy: Chief: Reichsamtsleiter HEINRICH BARTH.
4. Office for the Enforcement of the Legal Rights of the German People: Chief: Oberbereichsleiter HEINZ EISENLOHR.
5. Office for Legal Literature: Chief: Reichsamtsleiter HEINRICH BARTH.
6. Office for Legal Training: Chief: Reichsamtsleiter HEINRICH BARTH.
7. Office for Judicial Advisers (Rechtswahrer): Chief: Reichsamtsleiter Dr. WILHELM HEUBER.
According to The Hitler Pages, in
the summer of 1927 Geli Raubal's history teacher, Hermann Foppa, asked
her if she could arrange a class meeting with her uncle. In the
beginning of July the class went here to the villa of Elsa and Hugo
Bruckman on the Karolinenplatz where they had the meeting with Hitler. With benefactresses such as Elsa Bruckmann and Helene Bechstein vying for his favour, Hitler was able to gain introductions to numerous public figures, including Richard Wagner’s daughter-in-law Winifred, who later became an enthusiastic supporter of the NSDAP. It was also in these circles that Hitler met his later personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, who was to heavily influence Hitler’s public propaganda image.
Of Elsa, Hitler would later remark on the night of March 10, 1942:
One day I detected an unexpected reaction even in Frau Bruckmann. She had invited to her house, at the same time as myself, a very pretty woman of Munich society. As we were taking our leave, Frau Bruckmann perceived in her female guest's manner a sign of an interest that she doubtless deemed untimely. The consequence was that she never again invited us both at once. As I've said, the woman was beautiful, and perhaps she felt some interest in me—nothing more.
Hitler's Table Talk (359)
As a student in Munich, future Hitlerjugend
leader Baldur von Schirach lived in the house of the publisher
Bruckmann, who was friendly not only with his parents but also with
Hitler." Fest (456), The Face Of The Third Reich.
It was also here that Hitler first met his favourite architect, Professor Ludwig Troost, in 1928,
and that same day he told the architect, "When I come to power, you will be my architect. I have great plans in mind and I believe you are the only one who can carry them out for me." Troost did not however live long. As Hitler gave the obligatory three taps to the foundation stone for the House of Art (which still stands in modern Munich), the shaft of the silver-headed hammer broke, an omen of ill fortune of the highest degree, as the local architect Schiedermayer tactlessly whispered to the Führer in his dialect: "Dös bedeudt a Unglück."
Irving (100) Hitler's War
If the Feldherrnhalle honours those who fought against Napoleon, this obelisk in the Karolinenplatz commemorates the 30,000 Bavarian soldiers who were sent to fight for
Napoleon and died in Russia. In his final speech before the court on
March 27, 1924 during his putsch trial, Hitler declared: "It will be
said one day, I can assure you, of the young men who died in the
uprising what the words on the Obelisk say: 'They too died for the
Fatherland!' That is the visual proof of the success of November eight,
that in its wake youth rises like a raging flood and is united. That is
the great success of the eighth of November: it has not led to
depressed spirits but has brought the people to the highest pitch of
enthusiasm. I believe that the hour will come when the masses who today
bear our crusading flags on the streets will join with those on
November eight shot at them." In fact, when Hitler often maintained in
party circles that the victims of June 30 had died “for the liberation
of the Vaterland,” he was alluding to the same inscription and had
actually granted substantial pensions to the survivors of those slain
on June 30, 1934.
Looking towards Königsplatz from Karolinenplatz during a march past the Brown House in 1932 and the scene today.
Just past Karolinenplatz on the former Adolf-Hitler-Strasse was The Brown House (Das Braunes Haus)
Das Braune Haus behind the Temples of Honour shown on the left with part of the Führerbau.
The Nazi Party Reich Office: Braunes Haus, Briennerstrasse 45, Munchen 33. It was named for the colour of the party uniforms. On the ground floor was displayed the Blutfahne
('Blood Flag') of the failed Munich beer Hall putsch of November 9,
1923. Hitler, then leader of the SA Ernst Rohm, and the party treasurer
had offices on the top floor. After becoming Chancellor Hitler gave the
building to Rudolf Hess. Also maintaining offices here were Hans
Frank, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering, Philipp Bouhler, and Franz
Xaver Schwarz. The former three-story, neo-classical Barlow
Palace dated from 1828 in the plain Biedermeier style common in those
times, and it was renamed the Brown House (for the colour of the SA
uniforms) in 1931. It had once been the former Italian legation, and the
Nazis converted the attics into another story.
Architect Dr. Paul Ludwig Troost did the renovation. Sepp Dietrich had a room there, and sometimes the Führer stayed overnight. From the Brown House, Hitler executed his plans for the political conquest of Germany during 1929–33.
During 1933–35, a tunnel reportedly was built connecting the Brown House with the nearby Fuhrerbau, and it was from the Brown House that Hitler went by car to arrest Rohm and the other dissident SA leaders on “The Night of the Long Knives,” June 30, 1934.
Inside the Führer’s second floor office, there was a bust of Mussolini, red-brown walls, and high windows (a future typical room feature) looking out onto the Konigsplatz. Peter Adam in Art of the Third Reich noted, “The standard for future Party buildings was set here . . . Much earnest wood panelling on walls and ceiling . . . A vast staircase led to Hitler’s office, with its portrait of Frederick the Great over a large desk. There were also pictures of Prussian battles . . . a Senate chamber was constructed . . . 60 chairs in red leather, with swastikas on their backs for 60 Senators around a vast conference table.”
A Nazi Senate never met, however, as the Führer feared being voted out of Party office by such a body- something that happened to Mussolini in 1943 by the Fascist Grand Council in Rome. Dr. Otto Dietrich recalled in his memoir, Hitler, “The Party Senate—which Hitler had promised to form and for which the Senate Hall in the Brown House at Munich had been completely furnished—never came into existence. Decisions were made by Hitler alone, then passed on to the government and the Party as accomplished facts. Having announced his decrees, Hitler declared that they were essential to the welfare of the nation.”
Architect Dr. Paul Ludwig Troost did the renovation. Sepp Dietrich had a room there, and sometimes the Führer stayed overnight. From the Brown House, Hitler executed his plans for the political conquest of Germany during 1929–33.
During 1933–35, a tunnel reportedly was built connecting the Brown House with the nearby Fuhrerbau, and it was from the Brown House that Hitler went by car to arrest Rohm and the other dissident SA leaders on “The Night of the Long Knives,” June 30, 1934.
Inside the Führer’s second floor office, there was a bust of Mussolini, red-brown walls, and high windows (a future typical room feature) looking out onto the Konigsplatz. Peter Adam in Art of the Third Reich noted, “The standard for future Party buildings was set here . . . Much earnest wood panelling on walls and ceiling . . . A vast staircase led to Hitler’s office, with its portrait of Frederick the Great over a large desk. There were also pictures of Prussian battles . . . a Senate chamber was constructed . . . 60 chairs in red leather, with swastikas on their backs for 60 Senators around a vast conference table.”
A Nazi Senate never met, however, as the Führer feared being voted out of Party office by such a body- something that happened to Mussolini in 1943 by the Fascist Grand Council in Rome. Dr. Otto Dietrich recalled in his memoir, Hitler, “The Party Senate—which Hitler had promised to form and for which the Senate Hall in the Brown House at Munich had been completely furnished—never came into existence. Decisions were made by Hitler alone, then passed on to the government and the Party as accomplished facts. Having announced his decrees, Hitler declared that they were essential to the welfare of the nation.”
[Hitler] took over the Barlow Palace, an old mansion on the Briennerstrasse in Munich, and had it remodelled as the Brown House. A grand staircase led up to a conference chamber, furnished in red leather, and a large comer room in which Hitler received his visitors beneath a portrait of Frederick the Great. The Brown House was opened at the beginning of 1931, a very different setting from the dingy rooms in the Corneliusstrasse or the Schellingstrasse.
Bullock (149-150) Hitler: A Study in Tyranny
With
supporters inside. Hitler often ate his meals in the Brown House
canteen with brown-shirted SA men seated on rustic Bavarian chairs.
Besides Hitler’s own office on the second floor, there were also those
of the SA chief of staff, the Party treasurer, and the Party
administration. Hitler spent little time there, though, preferring
instead to carry on Party business at his usual cafe and eatery haunts.
The photo on the right shows Hitler leaving the Brown House after the 1930 election results.
At the right time, fate led to his meeting with his architect, Paul Ludwig Troost, with whom he soon formed a friendship based on an affinity of minds. What Dietrich Eckart was to The Leader as far as the exchange of ideas of a philosophical nature was concerned, Professor Troost soon became for him as far as architecture was concerned.
The first building to arise through the unique combination of these two men, and also the first small construction of the Movement, was the Brown House in the Briennerstraße in München. It was only a renovation, but for that time, as The Leader sometimes related later, a massive undertaking. Here one can already see everything that was to be expressed even more distinctly in the buildings which were to be constructed after he came to power: severe and austere, but never monotonous. Simple and clear, and without false decoration. Ornamentation used sparingly, but in the right place, so that it could never be considered as superfluous. Material, form and lines combine to create an impression of nobility.
From Adolf Hitler- The Life Of The Leader
The
Brown House was greatly damaged by Royal Air Force bombs on March
9–10, 1943, and in October later that year and by the time of its fall
to the US Army in 1945, it was a mere shell of its former self. The rubble was cleared away in 1947, leaving an empty lot. It
was eventually razed to the ground in 1947 and as can be seen in my
photo, the plot remains empty. Apparently the Bavarian government will
make this site the home of the future NS-Dokumentationszentrum
UPDATE: This notice board has been erected at the site this week confirming the proposed centre (August 2010):
The site from atop the remains of an ehrentempel January 2012
UPDATE: This notice board has been erected at the site this week confirming the proposed centre (August 2010):
The Brown House at that time was a pompous villa kitted out in a not unpleasant way in something approaching imperial style; but it was quite useless for the purpose it was meant to serve. It did not have the right office rooms. Hitler’s work room was on the first floor, in the corner. The entrance led through a little room in which Hess worked. I don’t know if this word ‘worked’ is actually suitable here. The first impression which I . . . had was of boundless disorder. Letters, newspapers, magazines, everything lay strewn around the room. . . .
At once I noticed that Hitler was notable in the Brown House by his absence. He ignored his colleagues and advisers completely and let them do whatever they wanted. He was only there to talk by chance about anything substantial, and only then about what interested him or about what he wanted to discuss. Already he had a special circle around him which was in no way identical with the office holders in the party.
H. Nicolai, Mein Kampf ums Recht.
Across the street from the Brown House was the so-called Black House- Palais Degenfeld- that served as the Apostolic Nunciature to Bavaria. Under the Nazis, Bavaria was not to hold diplomatic ties of its own any more with the Vatican. Whilst its Apostolic Nuncio Eugenio Pacelli, the penultimate nuncio to Bavaria and future Pope Pius XII, managed to continue the nunciature to Bavaria as a kind of outpost of the nunciature to Germany, the Nazi government prompted the expulsion of the last nuncio to Bavaria in 1936. The building had been bombed in 1944 and later completely destroyed- today there is a large space where it was once located- the Verwaltungsbau is seen behind.
At the very corner of the street are the remains of the 'Temples of Honour'
The day after Hitler made his annual speech to the party’s old guard at the Bürgerbräukeller on November 8, 1933 to mark the anniversary of the failed putsch, he unveiled a small memorial with a plaque underneath at the south side of the Feldherrnhalle.
Two policemen or the ϟϟ stood guard on either side of the memorial’s
base and passers-by were required to give the Hitler salute.
According to Peter H. Koepf in "Swept Under the Carpet. How Munich quietly disposed of its Nazi 'martyrs’ in 1945, Hitler
commemorated the sixteen dead as “Heroes of the Movement” as soon as
he took power by having twin Temples of Honour built on Königsplatz
between the two main Nazi Party buildings. Twenty fluted columns
towering 23 feet above the ground were arranged on two 70-foot-wide
limestone pedestals and which supported an open roof of steel and
concrete with etched glass mosaics decorating the underside.
In a two-day ceremony, Hitler brought the dead to their final resting
place. On Nov. 7, 1935, 12 years after the attempted putsch, the
bodies of Ehrlich and others were exhumed and taken to the Feldherrnhalle,
escorted by SA storm troops. After the pallbearers ceremoniously
carried the caskets up the massive steps, the crowd sang the Horst
Wessel song. Soon after, Hitler appeared and individually saluted the
dead men before pausing in front of each casket.
The
next morning began with a 16-gun salute. The old comrades assembled
around the “Bürgerbräukeller” and, commemorating the infamous march of
1923, silently retraced their steps to the Feldherrnhalle led by Julius Streicher behind whom were three men bearing the Blutfahne.
Hitler was flanked by veteran fighters followed by members of the
“Blutorden”, SA and ϟϟ troops, Hitler Youth, and paramilitary troops. A
crowd of tens of thousands stood along the parade route lined by a
cordon of SA soldiers. Accompanied by marching drummers, the Horst
Wessel song blared from gigantic loudspeakers. Black smoke wafted from
400 blazing pylons along the route, each bearing the name of one of the
“martyrs” of the movement in gold letters. Flag-bearing delegations
from the Nazi administrative districts stood nearby. As Hitler passed
each pylon, the immortalised name of each “martyr” was announced over
the loudspeakers.
The
caskets were then taken on carriages to Königsplatz square. The moment
the first carriage arrived on the square, a shot was fired and the
flags of the movement and of the Wehrmacht were lowered. Veteran
fighters placed the caskets on the podium. Two large swastika banners
were then raised in unison. The Völkischer Beobachter reported
that Königsplatz had thus been transformed into “a mighty forum for
the movement.” The heroes were now resting in the Nazi Party’s “holy
sanctuary.” Hitler proclaimed: “Just as they marched fearlessly, so too
shall they lie in the wind and weather, in the storms and rain, in the
snow and ice, and in the sun, under the heavens. They will lie here in
open as an eternal symbol of the German nation. For us they are not
dead.”
It
was in 1935 that the remains of the sixteen putschists were brought
here on the anniversary. This had followed the purge of the SA during
the Night of the Long Knives the year before. The bodies were exhumed
from their graves and taken to the Feldherrnhalle where they were placed
beneath sixteen large pylons bearing their names. The next day, after
Hitler had solemnly walked from one to the next, they were taken down
the monument’s steps and taken on carts, draped in flags to Paul Ludwig
Troost’s new Ehrentempel monuments
at the Konigsplatz, through streets lined with spectators bustling
between 400 columns with eternal flames atop. Flags were lowered as
veterans slowly and orderly placed the heavy sarcophagi into place. In
each of the structures eight of the martyrs were interred in a
sarcophagus bearing their name.
Each temple held the sarcophagi of eight 'martyrs' with two ϟϟ honour guards keeping vigil.
Hitler and Mussolini beside one temple with the braune haus behind
Standing in front of the ruins of the Ehrentempels in 2007 and 2010. Only
the foundations are visible today after the temples had been blown up
in January 1947; trees and bushes are growing on top.
The sunken area for the sarcophagi became a pool of water after the war
In a thread on Axis History Forum, pionier44
provided several photos of the area around Konigsplatz, including a
few on top the Ehrentempels. In a couple are shown small holes which he
suggests could have been used for drainage; indeed, he later asks "the
only visible thing up top is some open stand pipes. Were these for the
eternal flames?"
I had my picture taken next to one for perspective as another poster inquired as to their size.
The sunken area for the sarcophagi became a pool of water after the war
I had my picture taken next to one for perspective as another poster inquired as to their size.
According to the Munich tourist board, the “Ehrentempeln” – or Temples of Honour – on Munich’s Königsplatz were “National shrines of the German people.” Millions of Hitler Youth and Nazi party members regarded the men buried there as role models of self-sacrifice. Ehrlich and the others had become National Socialist heroes. In 1945, Munich officials decided to eradicate this former Nazi shrine. Even Karl Meitinger, head of the city planning department under the Nazis, was busy thinking about the future. Speaking at the city council’s first postwar meeting in August 1945, he said: “We must strive to salvage the form and appearance of the old city centre at all costs.” He expressed the hope that, within a few decades, “our beloved Munich” would be restored to what it once was. The city would then be the focus of a new era of tourism, and its reputation as Germany’s city of the arts could once again flourish. To this end, he said that the Königsplatz would be “de-Nazified,” the Temples of Honour torn down. The bodies of Ehrlich and the other Nazi “martyrs” would have to be removed as discreetly as possible.
http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=359
I had revisited the site on March 11, 2011 and found a glass candle holder and a bone (!) placed on top a stone:
From atop the other ehrentempel remains beside the Fuehrerbau, January 2012
From atop the other ehrentempel remains beside the Fuehrerbau, January 2012
On
the night of July 5, 1945, the 16 “martyrs” from the Temples of Honour
were removed and quickly buried elsewhere. The remains of Johann
Rickmers were sent to the city crematorium but, as domestic mail
services had been suspended by the Allies forces, his ashes couldn't be
sent to their final resting place in Westphalia. All these burials were
lonely affairs. On June 27, 1945, Mayor Karl Scharnagl, appointed by
the American occupying forces, published the following decree: “Any
public participation during the burials, or any kind of outward display
whatsoever, must be avoided.” On July 12, the director of Munich’s
municipal cemeteries submitted his report to the mayor: “On July 5,
1945, the bodies, or the remains thereof, were removed from the temples
on Königsplatz square without incident. The bodies were placed in family
gravesites or buried in common graves. This was carried out at a time
of day when the cemetery was closed to the public.”
On
January 9, 1947 the upper parts of the structures were blown up. The
central portion was subsequently partially filled in but often filled
with rain water which created a natural memorial. When Germany was
finally reunited plans were made for a biergarten, restaurant or café
on the site of the Ehrentempel but
these were derailed by the growth of rare biotope vegetation on the
site. As a result of this the temples were spared complete destruction
and the foundation bases of the monuments remain intersecting on the
corner of Briennerstrasse and Arcisstrasse.
In the intermittent period of the 1947 destruction and 1990 handover
basements (hitherto unknown to the Americans) were uncovered beneath the
structures. A small plaque added in 2007 explains their function.
Designed by Professor Heinlein, the sarcophagi originally cast at the
Wasseralfingen steel works in Baden-Württemberg and the eight columns
weighing over 21 tonnes were recycled to make brake shoes for municipal
buses. Weighing nearly 2,900 pounds, the metal caskets were converted to
repair rail ties and electrical lines.
Munich had discreetly rid itself of its former Nazi “heroes.” The
bronze eagles designed by party member Kurt Schmidt-Ehmen were removed
and the former Nazi buildings on Königsplatz are now used by music
students and cultural institutions.
Türkentor
Running off Briennerstrasse just outside the Alte Pinakothek within the Museumsquartier is the Türkentor, the only remaining section part of the Türkenkaserne barracks, built in 1826 for the Royal Bavarian Infantry Lifeguards Regiment. According to The Hitler Pages, on "October 8, 1914 a ceremonial farewell of Hitler’s regiment took place at the Türkenkaserne, with the king present."
Just down the road on Türkenstraße 23 was the home of SS-Brigadeführer Reinhard Heydrich, at the time head of the Bavarian police and SD, and also served as the main
office of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). The SD was created primarily to
identify and suppress plots against Adolf Hitler personally and against
the Nazi regime generally. Under Reinhard Heydrich, the SD often
exceeded its brief and conducted espionage abroad. The SD operated as a
rival agency to the Abwehr, much to the degradation of the quality of
German intelligence.
The Sicherheitsdienst (SD), “Security Service,” was the intelligence service of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS). From 1933 to 1939, the SD was under the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police), then was transferred to the Reichsicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Service Office, RSHA). The SD was created in 1932 by Reinhard Heydrich, who built it into a powerful organization that became the exclusive Nazi Party “information service” on June 9, 1934. In 1938, the SD was made the intelligence organization for the Reich as well as for the Nazi Party. It worked in parallel with the Gestapo, which it supported with intelligence information. The mission of the SD was primarily to detect and eliminate those who would subvert or otherwise harm the Nazi Party and the Reich. The SD cultivated and managed a network of several hundred agents and thousands of informants throughout the Reich and, during the war, in the occupied territories as well. The SD was always primarily an intelligence-gathering agency serving the Gestapo, which was the executive agency. Ultimately, therefore, the SD came under the control of Heinrich Himmler, who, as chief of the German police, headed the Gestapo and was also the senior officer of the ϟϟ.Axelrod (728) Encyclopedia of World War II
Alte Pinakothek
Hitler had declared on the night of 15th-16th January 1942 that
Neue Pinakothek
The
Alte Pinakothek situated in the Kunstareal is one of the oldest
galleries in the world and houses one of the most famous collections of
Old Master paintings. The midsection had been destroyed during the war
and was reconstructed in 1952 - 1957 by Hans Döllgast.
The Munich Pinakothek is one of the most magnificent achievements in the world. It's the work of one man. What Munich owes to Ludwig I is beyond computing. And what the whole German people owes to him! The palace of the Uffizi at Florence does honour not to Florence alone, but to all Italy.
The restored section can clearly be seen today. Outside the building on the western side is the sculpture of the horse tamer (Rosselenker) by Hermann Hahn from 1928, its bullet holes serving as "scars of remembrance."
After... and in their new positions across the street from each other. The Rossebändiger was so badly damaged during the war that the horse was melted down.
Before the war when the two horse tamers were placed in front of the Munich Technical College in 1931.
After... and in their new positions across the street from each other. The Rossebändiger was so badly damaged during the war that the horse was melted down.
Neue Pinakothek
[W]ith the advent of war in 1939, the Alte and Neue Pinakotheken closed their doors to the public and the artworks were sent to the provinces for safekeeping. Although restoration work continued in the museums’ workshops through 1944, there were no wartime exhibitions to organise.It had been all but destroyed during the war and its ruins demolished in 1949. Designed by architect Alexander Freiherr von Branca, the new postmodern building shown on the right opened in 1981.
Jonathan Petropoulos (24) The Faustian Bargain - The Art World in Nazi Germany
