Traces of Evil
aims to serve as a comprehensive digital archive designed to visualise
the geography of the Third Reich for students, educators, and historians
through innovative then and now photography and animated GIFs, mostly
resulting from actually cycling to the locations. Established nearly two
decades ago, the site juxtaposes modern photographs of obscure and
prominent historic sites against their archival counterparts to render
the past tangible and illustrate the physical evolution not just of
locations associated with the Nazi Party and the Holocaust, but going
back into time from ancient history and place. These visual comparisons
are supported by primary source documents, film footage, and survivor
accounts to create a vivid connection to historical events grounded in
meticulous fieldwork. As the Head of Humanities at the Bavarian
International School and an educator accredited by the Dachau Memorial
Site as well as licensed tour guide, I've managed to obtain unrivalled
access to sites such as the the Führerbau, Hitler's Prinzregentenplatz
apartment, ϟϟ training grounds in Dachau etc. I
have also developed this platform to provide robust teaching resources
strictly aligned with GCSE, A Level, and International Baccalaureate
Diploma Programme curricula. The repository includes detailed lesson
plans on the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler, graded student
responses, and examination-style questions derived from my twenty-five
years of experience as an history educator and IBDP examiner. This
pædagogical framework is validated by my certification from Yad Vashem
and professional recognition including the Outstanding High School Teacher Award from the University of Chicago and the ITC Teacher of the Year
award recommended by the University of Cambridge. Traces of Evil
ultimately functions as both a rigorous historical database and a
practical educational toolkit verified by coverage in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and presentations at the Association of German International Schools.
GERMANY
Given
the extensive destruction and reconstruction of the area, I focus on
corporeal decay: Hitler’s tremors, Eva Braun’s presence, the Goebbels
children’s poisoning, and the charred remains ignited in the Chancellery
garden. Such visceral details, paired with forensic analysis of
bloodstained sofas and contested skull fragments, strip away myth to
expose raw desperation. Central are the visual confrontations; archival
schematics map the Vorbunker’s warren-like layout beside contemporary
photographs—my students dwarfed by overgrown foundations, the emergency
exit choked by weeds—to underscore terrain irrevocably altered yet
hauntingly resonant. Provocation emerges through dissonance—footage of
Churchill scrutinising the ruins in 1945 collides with modern
re-enactments, whilst STASI film from 1988 reveals flooded corridors
mere years before redevelopment entombed them beneath parking lots.
Soviet troops hauling away a Reich eagle with Groucho Marx’s Charleston
atop Hitler’s grave. Degussa’s anti-graffiti coating on Holocaust
Memorial stelae—produced by the firm behind Zyklon B. Through it all I
try to frame the Führerbunker not as inert stone but as a palimpsest
where ideology, erasure, and frail humanity collide.
Sites featured:
Führerbunker, New Reich Chancellery, Old Reich Chancellery,
Mohrenstrasse Underground Station, Wilhelmplatz, Memorial for the
Murdered Jews of Europe.
This
page focuses on the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag, using archival
images, student photographs from my class trips over decades, and
detailed historical commentary to show how architecture, power, and
memory intersect in one of Europe’s most contested cities. It traces the
Gate’s transformation from imperial symbol to Nazi propaganda tool then
through wartime ruin, Cold War division as part of the Berlin Wall’s
death strip, and post-1989 reunification. The Reichstag’s examined
through pivotal moments: the 1918 republic proclamation, the 1933 fire
and debate over Nazi involvement, its capture in 1945, and post-war use
as a museum before Lord Foster’s reconstruction. The site’s Soviet-era
graffiti is presented as raw testimony of conquest and memory. I also
include analysis of manipulated photographs, challenging mythologised
narratives and document wartime destruction, the fate of buildings like
the Adlon Hotel and Palais Arnim, and lesser-known stories such as the
Kapp Putsch, the Volkssturm, and individual figures like Marija
Limanskaja using primary sources, academic works, and eyewitness
accounts. The juxtaposition of my students at these sites with
historical events creates a direct link between past and present.
Sites featured:
Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Pariserplatz, Various embassies (American,
Swiss, French), Adlon Hotel, Konzerthaus Clou, Akademie der Künste,
Central Office of the Inspector General for Construction in the Reich
Capital, Berlin Wall, Moltke bridge and various sites associated with
the Battle of Berlin.
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My
exploration of Unter den Linden examines Berlin's ceremonial boulevard
as a palimpsest of competing historical narratives, from Prussian
grandeur through Nazi spectacle to divided city and reunified capital. I
trace the street's transformation using archival photographs, Nazi-era
postcards, and contemporary visits with my students, documenting how
monumental spaces designed for mass rallies have become sites of amnesia
and ambiguity. Through then-and-now comparisons, I reveal the Neue
Wache's evolution from Prussian guardhouse to Wehrmacht shrine to DDR
memorial, now housing an enlarged Kollwitz pietà that conflates
perpetrators with victims under the vague dedication "To the Victims of
War and Tyranny." My look at Bebelplatz integrates footage of the 1933
book burning with images of today's subtle underground memorial,
demonstrating how the square that witnessed Goebbels's "cleansing by
fire" now hosts tourists who often miss Micha Ullmann's subterranean
empty library. I bring to life the Lustgarten's transformation from site
of million-strong Nazi rallies using photographs of Hitler addressing
the SA alongside images of my students standing where tanks defended the
Museum Island in 1945. My coverage extends to contested
reconstructions: the Stadtschloss rising where the Palast der Republik
once stood, the Alte Kommandantur's "bogus neo-Renaissance front"
concealing modern offices, and debates over authentic preservation
versus Disneyfication. Through images of wedding ceremonies at the Dom
draped in swastikas, the Armistice railway carriage displayed as trophy,
and Great War tanks pressed into final service, I demonstrate how the
street served as theatrical backdrop for Nazi power. My juxtaposition of
Wehrmacht honour guards with schoolchildren, demolished ruins with
pristine façades, reveals Berlin's approach to its difficult past:
neither honest preservation nor complete erasure, but selective
reconstruction that smooths over historical ruptures.
Sites featured:
Humboldt Universität, Berliner Dom, Ehrenmal, Friedrichstraße, Neue
Wache, Bodemuseum, Museumsinsel, Alte Kommandantur, Stadtschloss,
Lustgarten, Gendarmenmarkt, Staatsoper, Zeughaus, Bebelplatz, St.
Hedwig's Cathedral, Französischer Dom, Deutscher Dom, Kaiser Friedrich
Museum, Altes Museum, Pergamon Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berliner
Schloß, Russian embassy, Reich Ministry of the Interior.
Lined
with imposing buildings and government offices, Wilhelmstraße was the
epicentre of Nazi governance, housing key institutions and ministries
essential to the regime's control. Among these were the offices of the
Reich Chancellery and Goebbels's Ministry of Propaganda which played a
crucial role in shaping public opinion and disseminating Nazi ideology.
Here I guide you down the street’s historical significance as a metonym
for the German Reich government, focusing on the Reich Aviation
Ministry, the only major Nazi-era building still standing, and the
Gestapo headquarters, now the Topography of Terror exposing the
bureaucratic machinery of Nazi terror. The Aviation Ministry stands as a
monumental relic of Nazi ambition, its stark limestone façade and vast
scale embodying the regime and today serving the Federal Ministry of
Finance, raising questions about repurposing structures tied to
oppression. Equally significant is the Berlin Wall’s presence along
Wilhelmstraße, which marked the Cold War divide between East and West.
My GIFs contrast the Wall’s imposing barrier in 1990 with its remnants
today, underscoring the street’s layered history of division and trauma.
The Wilhelmstraße History Mile, with glass information boards, attempts
to contextualise sites like the Reich Colonial Office, where the Herero
and Nama genocide was orchestrated. By weaving these visual comparisons
into its narrative, I challenge my students to reflect on how Berlin
navigates its complex legacy, balancing preservation, erasure, and the
enduring weight of history’s atrocities.
Sites featured:
Reich Justice Ministry, Reich Colonial Office, Reich Foreign Office,
Central Office of the Führer's Deputy, Reich Aviation Ministry,
Reichsministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaf, British Embassy,
Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung, Gestapo
Headquarters, Haus der Flieger, Reich Propaganda Ministry,
Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, Topography of Terror, Berlin Wall, Hotel
Kaiserhof.
By
focusing on Friedrichstrasse I examine Berlin's north-south artery as a
continuum of state terror, from Nazi deportations through Cold War
division to contemporary commercial amnesia. I present the street
through an analysis of Battle of Berlin photographs—identifying specific
vehicles, units, and casualties, the half-track of ϟϟ-Hauptsturmführer
Pehrsson, the bright red Bergmann Deutsche Reichspost van, Swedish
volunteers' corpses arranged for propaganda effect— Soviet
documentation, and contemporary visits with my students, to reveal how
successive regimes weaponised this street. My then-and-now comparisons
trace the station's evolution from deportation point for Jews to the
DDR's "Tränenpalast" where families were torn apart at the heavily
guarded transit point between East and West. I document the
Reichsbahnbunker's transformation from forced-labour construction to
NKVD prison to "banana bunker" to luxury penthouse, each iteration
erasing previous histories. Through archival footage and contemporary
photographs, I show how the street served both regimes: the Gestapo's
surveillance of travellers, mass deportations continuing even under
Allied bombardment, then the Stasi's control of the few permitted
crossing points. My focus on Checkpoint Charlie extends beyond Cold War
clichés to examine its commercialisation—from the 1961 tank standoff to
today's costumed guards posing for tourist selfies. I juxtapose Peter
Fechter bleeding to death in no-man's land with souvenir shops selling
Wall fragments, Wehrmacht parades with James Bond film locations. The
systematic documentation of wartime destruction—Soviet artillery
coordinates, casualty figures, building-by-building combat—contrasts
with the street's current incarnation as shopping destination and
tourist trap. Through identification of corpses and commercial façades, I
present Friedrichstrasse as where state terror's infrastructure becomes
retail therapy's playground.
Sites featured:
Main Synagogue, Bendlerblock, Siegessäule, Alexanderplatz, Stauffenberg
office/site of execution, Soviet memorial Tiergarten, Friedrichstrasse,
Charlottenburg, Lichterfelde, Reichsbahnbunker Friedrichstraße,
Weidendammer bridge, Admiralspalast, Memorial to Homosexuals,
Tiergartenstraße 4, Various Fascist Embassies, Wehrmacht Headquarters,
Rotes Rathaus.
Tiergarten
is where Nazi ideology, wartime destruction, and postwar
memorialisation intersect along Berlin's diplomatic quarter. I document
the Soviet War Memorial on Straße des 17. Juni using archival
photographs from 1945 and class visits, showing how this monument built
from materials allegedly taken from Hitler's Chancellery sits
provocatively in the former British sector, tracing its construction in
November 1945 when Zhukov refused to request British permission, its
role during the Cold War when Soviet honour guards from East Berlin
stood watch in West Berlin, and incidents including the 1970 shooting of
a guard by neo-Nazi Ekkehard Weil. At Tiergartenstraße 4, I document
the headquarters of the T4 euthanasia programme through visits to the
site now occupied by a rusted metal memorial, detailing how from this
address Hitler's secret order led to the murder of over 70,000 disabled
patients before personnel were transferred to implement the Final
Solution. I examine the fascist embassies built between 1938 and 1943 as
compensation for demolitions required by Speer's Germania plans.
Through images of the Victory Column's 1938 relocation for the east-west
axis, wartime damage, and visits with students, I show how the monument
survived despite French attempts at vandalism. At the Bendlerblock, I
document the site of the July 20 plot through photos of Stauffenberg's
office with its surviving swastika parquet, the courtyard where
conspirators were executed, and Scheibe's memorial statue created by an
artist who received both Nazi and Federal honours. I reveal again how
Tiergarten's monuments and buildings embody Berlin's layered history:
Soviet victors occupying space planned for Germania, euthanasia
headquarters marked by abstract sculpture, fascist embassies retaining
their authoritarian symbols, and military buildings where resistance
came too late transformed into memorial sites that obscure as much as
they reveal.
Sites featured:
Tiergarten, Bendlerblock, Siegessäule, Stauffenberg office/site of
execution, Soviet memorial Tiergarten, Memorial to Homosexuals,
Tiergartenstraße 4, Various Fascist Embassies, Wehrmacht Headquarters.
I
start this page by tracing Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church from imperial
monument through British bombing to preserved ruin, showing how Egon
Eiermann's modernist church coexists uneasily with the hollow tower
where Coventry's Cross of Nails now stands as reciprocal symbols of
destruction. I document Plötzensee Prison's execution shed where over
2,500 died, including July 20 plotters hanged from meat hooks whilst
cameras rolled for Hitler's viewing pleasure, the memorial created by
sculptor Richard Scheibe who received both Nazi and Federal honours. My
look at Anhalter Bahnhof juxtaposes Hitler's triumphant return from
France with the station's use deporting 9,600 Jews, the adjacent bunker
that housed 12,000 during Berlin's fall now containing controversial
Hitler room reconstructions. At Karlshorst, I show where Keitel signed
Germany's surrender, his monocle dropping before Zhukov in the former
military canteen. Through systematic comparison of execution protocols,
deportation logistics, and architectural survivals, I demonstrate how
Berlin today transforms terror infrastructure into commercial normality,
revealing through specific locations how the city neither preserves
honestly nor erases completely, creating instead a landscape where Nazi
eagles persist on pharmacies whilst memorial plaques proliferate, where
each site embodies Germany's continuing inability to reconcile
preservation with progress, memory with amnesia.
Sites featured:
Kaiser Wilhelm Church, Plötzensee, Deutschlandhalle,
Reichspostministerium, Schillertheater, Reinickendorf Heiligensee,
Charlottenburg, Karlshorst, Anhalter Bahnhof, Invalidenstrasse,
Frankfurterallee, Fehrbellinerplatz, Horst Wessel's grave, Horst Wessel
Platz, Volksbühne, Kino Babylon, Europahaus, Gasthaus Zum Nußbaum,
Berlin Story Museum, Bülowstraße U-Bahn, Mehringdamm, Eldorado Gay Club,
Berlin Messe, Städtische Krankenhaus am Friedrichshain, Hermannplatz,
Haus der Reichsjugendführung.
This
page looks at how Berlin's Olympic Stadium complex, conceived for the
cancelled 1916 Games, was transformed by Werner March into a limestone
colossus for the most spectacular propaganda exercise ever staged by the
Nazis. Using archival footage, Nazi-era postcards, and then-and-now
GIFs, I trace the stadium's evolution from athletic venue to ideological
theatre. I document the surviving Nazi sculptures and analyse how these
remain displayed without contextualisation. Through comparisons of the
Führerbalkon where Hitler watched Jesse Owens triumph, the bell tower
where the Olympic bell still bears its half-heartedly defaced swastika,
and the Langemarck Hall celebrating military sacrifice, I reveal how the
complex served dual purposes: impressing foreign visitors whilst
preparing for war. I examine the torch relay's invention here, running
from Greece through territories soon to be invaded, and Riefenstahl's
Olympia which transformed the Games into cinematic myth. I examine the
Olympic Village, Hitler's "village of peace" that became Wehrmacht
barracks then KGB torture facility, and where 20,000 watched Nazi
Thingspiel productions beneath Wamper's reliefs that still flank the
entrance. I conclude at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery where my
great-grandfather lies, having died in 1950 helping rebuild the
democracy on the ruins of the regime that hosted these Games five years
helping to destroy. Here I'll show you how Berlin's Olympic complex
embodies Germany's selective preservation: Nazi sculptures remain as
"art", the bell tower was faithfully reconstructed, yet interpretive
silence allows the site to function as mere sports venue rather than
confronting its role in legitimising a regime that would soon engulf the
world in war.
Sites featured:
Haus des Deutschen Sports, Olympiastadion, Olympic Stadium,
Reichssportfeld, Commonwealth War Cemetery, Dietrich-Eckart-Bühne,
Sportforum, Nazi Statues, Olympic bell tower, Olympic village
Wustermark, Olympia-Stadion subway station.
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Here's
my detailed examination of the Wannsee Conference, held on January 20,
1942 in a luxurious villa by Berlin’s Wannsee lake, to reveal its
chilling role in coordinating the Nazi genocide. The site, now the House
of the Wannsee Conference memorial and educational centre, meticulously
documents the meeting where Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, and
other senior Nazi officials planned the "Final Solution" to exterminate
Europe’s Jews. Through archival records, then-and-now photographs, and
survivor testimonies films and graphic novels, I trace how the
conference clarified responsibilities for deportations and mass
killings, integrating existing extermination efforts with bureaucratic
precision. The villa’s serene setting contrasts starkly with the
horrific decisions made within, a juxtaposition captured in my images
showing the preserved conference room alongside modern educational
displays. The permanent exhibition details the systematic exclusion,
ghettoisation, and extermination of Jews from 1933 to 1945, using
Eichmann’s minutes, which reveal the euphemistic language of
"evacuation" for murder. I explore the site’s post-war transformation,
from its use by the Red Army and American forces to its rededication in
1992 as a memorial named after historian Joseph Wulf, who survived
Auschwitz but later took his own life, despairing at Germany’s
indifference to Holocaust memory.
Sites featured:
Site of the Wannsee Conference, Reichsluftschutzschule,
Liebermann-Villa, Villa Herz, Flensburg lion, Villa Oppenheim,
Schweden-Pavillon, Waldhof am Bogensee, The Bridge of Spies, Glienicke
Bridge.
We
start at Treptower Park, the Soviet Memorial, built between 1946 and
1949, commemorates 20,000 Red Army soldiers who died in the Battle of
Berlin. Its colossal statue and cemetery, with then-and-now images
contrasting 1956 ceremonies with modern visits, underscore its role as
both a tribute to Soviet sacrifice and a symbol of Cold War tensions.
The memorial’s swastika, depicted as smashed, highlights its
anti-fascist narrative, yet its Soviet origins evoke debates about
liberation versus occupation. In Schöneweide, the preserved Nazi forced
labour camp at Britzer Straße exposes the grim reality of over 2,000
workers housed in barracks. Sachsenhausen, a Nazi and later KGB
concentration camp, is shown through then-and-now images of its guard
tower and crematorium ruins, reflecting its shift from a site of Nazi
terror to a memorial confronting its layered history. The UFA Studios in
Babelsberg reveal their role as a Nazi propaganda hub under Goebbels,
contrasting with their post-war DEFA legacy. Fort Hahneberg is shown its
military past and partial post-war demolition, whilst Tempelhof
Airport’s redesign as a Nazi-era gateway reflects its propaganda role
and later significance during the Berlin Airlift.
Sites featured:
Reichsadler, Charlottenburg, Treptower Park, Tempelhof, Schöneweide,
Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen, UFA Studios, Fort Hahneberg, Reichpost TV
Studios, Reichspolizeischule für Leibesübungen, Siemens Ehrenmal, Martin
Luther Memorial Church, Adolf-Hitler-Platz, Schloss Bellevue,
Charlottenburg Palace, Amtsgericht Wedding, Reichsluftschutzschule,
Schlossbruecke, Denkmal der nationalen Erhebung, Metropol Theatre,
German Reich Railways Central Office, Regionaldirektion
Berlin-Brandenburg, Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS, Heavy
Load Testing Body, Reichsbank, Flakregiment at Reinickendorf
Heiligensee, Volkssturm along Hermannstrasse.
I
made the most of my access to Cecilienhof Palace, where fifteen
officials spent two weeks in 1945 dividing the post-war world, to trace
how the last Hohenzollern palace became the unlikely venue for
determining the fate of the world. Through comparisons of wartime photos
with contemporary documentation, I reveal how each delegation's
quarters were colour-coded with Churchill relegated to the library
whilst Stalin and Truman occupied ground-floor studies. My analysis of
the conference hall shows where Truman casually informed Stalin about
the atomic bomb on July 24, 1945, a moment Stalin feigned ignorance
about despite Soviet intelligence having already briefed him. I examine
the White Salon's transformation from Crown Prince's music room to
Soviet reception space, documenting how furniture was brought from
bourgeois households to create Stalin's deliberately modest æsthetic.
The garden terrace where press photographers captured the "Big Three" in
wicker chairs now displays those same chairs as museum pieces, whilst
Christlieb's deer statues were returned only in 2020. We look beyond the
palace to Potsdam's broader transformation: the Garrison Church where
Hitler and Hindenburg staged their March 21, 1933 handshake, destroyed
by British bombing in April 1945; the Lustgarten where Wehrmacht
ceremonies occurred; KGB Military Town No. 7 with its hundred buildings
and interrogation facilities.
Sites featured:
Velten, Brandenburg, Cecilienhof, Potsdam, Luckenwalde, Finsterwalde,
Frankfurt/Oder, Eberswalde, Rathenow, Ravensbrück, Chorin, Prignitz,
Falkensee, Schöneweide, Grünewalde, Treuenbrietzen, Gütergotz, Sans
Souci.
Allow
me to take you along Munich’s 1923 Beer Hall Putsch route where we'll
traces the physical and ideological transformation of the march from the
Bürgerbräukeller toward Marienplatz. I examine how the Third Reich
monumentalised this path into a sacred landscape of Nazi commemorative
ritual, and how post-war urban planning systematically erased or
repurposed these historical sites. I analyse the structural
denazification of the Ludwigsbrücke and the Deutsches Museum's
suppressed history of institutional collaboration, notably its hosting
of the Der ewige Jude propaganda exhibition. Moving beyond the failed
coup, I investigate the spatial origins of the early Nazi apparatus
along this route, from the birth of the ϟϟ inside the Hotel Torbräu to
Hitler’s fateful introduction to the DAP at the Sterneckerbräu. Finally,
I assess the extensive WWII bombing damage and the complex
architectural debates surrounding the post-war restoration of Munich’s
historic landmarks, including the mediæval Isartor.
Sites featured:
Bürgerbräukeller, Gasteig, Ludwigsbrücke, Deutsches Museum,
Kongresssaal, Isartor, Hotel Torbräu, Am Tal, Sterneckerbräu, Hitler
paintings, Hotel Schlicker “Zum Goldenen Löwen”, Marienplatz.
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I
start from high above Munich’s Marienplatz and its surrounding environs
from where I trace how the city confronted its 'tattered past', moving
from a stage for Nazi spectacle to a symbol of determined post-war
reconstruction. I examine the dual functions of the Neues Rathaus, which
served as a backdrop for both political theatre and, post-1945, the
administrative hub for the American forces, and detail how the Altes
Rathaus hosted Goebbels’s infamous Kristallnacht speech. I go beyond the
square to explore the sites of Nazi atrocities and early party
organisation, from the Aryanisation and persecution of Jewish businesses
on Kaufingerstraße. I examine the public debate over whether to
preserve ruins or recreate pre-war identity which represent a deliberate
and at times contested effort to overcome the war's devastation and the
historical memory of the Third Reich, as shown by the post-war
memorials to German prisoners of war which preceded any similar plaques
for Nazi victims. Along the way I explore the roles of key figures like
Rupert Mayer, who opposed the regime from a church now containing his
tomb, and the police headquarters on Ettstraße, a site of early Nazi
terror bureaucracy.
Sites featured:
Sendlinger Tor, Frauenkirche, Isartor, Hitler Paintings, Hofbräuhaus,
Marienplatz, Karlstor, Polizeipräsidium, Peterskirche, Sterneckerbräu,
Pfeffermühle, Kaufingerstraße, Neues Rathaus, Altes Rathaus, Sites
associated with Kristallnacht, Viktualienmarkt, Maxburgstrasse, Alte
Akademie, St. Michael's church, Asamkirche, Alter Hof, Burgstraße, Hotel
Schlicker "Zum Goldenen Löwen", Am Tal, Haus Neumayr, Nürnberger
Bratwurst Glöckl.
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Again
we start this page literally high above Munich’s Königsplatz to examine
the symbolic heart of the Nazi movement. We look at how the site,
originally a 19th-century neoclassical ensemble honouring art and
antiquity, was transformed under the Nazis into a monumental Teatrum
sacrum as a stage for ideological ritual. Using archival images,
then-and-now images, and historical analysis, see how the square became
central to Nazi myth-making, hosting annual commemorations, and parades.
The site’s complex legacy is further illustrated through events like
the 1933 book burnings, the American occupation, and the Monuments Men’s
work restoring looted art. Today, overgrown temple foundations and
subtle plaques mark a deliberate effort to ignore the past and so my
webpage serves as a case study in how cities confront dark histories,
showing Königsplatz not just as a physical space, but as a contested
symbol of memory, ideology, and architectural power.
Sites featured:
Braunes Haus, Temples of Honour, Königsplatz, Staatliche
Antikensammlungen, Königlicher Platz, Parteizentrum der NSDAP,
Verwaltungsbau, Zentrale, Glyptothek, Führerbau, Ehrentempel, Propyläen,
Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Hitler Paintings.
This
exhaustive then-and-now documentation centres on the Führerbau at
Arcisstraße 12, the exact building where Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler
and Mussolini signed the Munich Agreement in the early hours of
September 30, 1938, dismantling Czechoslovakia and marking the zenith of
appeasement. I again enjoyed the rare opportunity to explore the site
to take then-and-now photos to present precise superimpositions of the
conference photographs onto the identical rooms today, including
Hitler’s office, the large reception hall with its still-intact
monumental fireplace, the grand marble staircase, the radiators with
original wooden covers, and the balcony from which Hitler and Mussolini
appeared to the crowds. It details the building’s architecture by Troost
to the post-war American substitution of the Nazi eagle with the bald
eagle, and the building’s later use as Amerika-Haus. Extensive
historical commentary and rare archival footage stills explain how
Munich represented both Hitler’s greatest diplomatic triumph and his
private fury at being denied war. The page extends to the twin
Verwaltungsbau, its intact library, the underground connecting tunnel,
the post-war looting, the Monuments Men operations, and the fate of the
eight-million-strong party membership card index saved from destruction.
It concludes with the wider Königsplatz complex: the demolished
Ehrentempel foundations, the camouflaged buildings during the war, and
the ideological transformation of the entire Nazi party centre into
institutions of culture and remembrance.
Sites featured:
Führerbau, Hitler’s office & conference room, grand staircase,
balcony, large reception hall & fireplace, Verwaltungsbau,
Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Bibliothekssaal, Karteisaal,
underground tunnel, Ehrentempel ruins, Temples of Honour sarcophagi
sites, Central Collecting Point, Amerika-Haus, Monuments Men Munich,
Palais Pringsheim site, Zentraleinlaufamt der Reichsleitung,
Meiserstraße/Katharina-von-Bora-Straße buildings, former Reich treasurer
offices, Palais Moy (Hess chancellery).
My examination of the Parteizentrum der NSDA focuses on the administrative and cultic core of the Nazi movement situated adjacent to Königsplatz. Through precise then-and-now photographic alignments, I document the overgrown limestone foundations of the Ehrentempel, constructed by Paul Ludwig Troost to house the sarcophagi of the sixteen 1923 putschists. I contrast archival records of their 1935 consecration and the annual November 9 blood cult rituals with the structures' post-war demolition by the US Army in 1947 and their current state of deliberate neglect. Adjacent to these ruins, I analyse the surviving Verwaltungsbau, which housed the party's central bureaucracy and the subterranean vaults designed to protect millions of NSDAP membership cards. The research extends along Meiserstraße (now Katharina-von-Bora-Straße), charting the sprawling network of mundane office buildings- including the Zentrale with its Nazi reliefs still in place- and various treasury departments, that managed the logistics, finance, and personnel of the totalitarian state. By isolating these administrative and memorial structures from the primary diplomatic staging ground of the Führerbau, I try to expose the stark physical contrast between the regime’s monumental ideological shrines and the surviving bureaucratic infrastructure that facilitated its daily operations.
Sites featured: Ehrentempel foundations, Verwaltungsbau (Central Institute for Art History), Parteizentrum der NSDAP, Meiserstraße (Katharina-von-Bora-Straße) administrative offices, NSDAP Zentrale, Brienner Straße.
The focus of this page is Munich’s Odeonsplatz and the
Feldherrnhalle as a key site of Nazi myth-making, tracing the site’s
transformation from a 19th-century military memorial into the Nazis'
“Altar of the Movement” after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Through
my GIFs and archival material, I show how the Nazis repurposed the site
for annual commemorations, complete with ϟϟ guards, mandatory Hitler
salutes, and the display of the blutfahne. I research the propaganda
machinery behind the cult of the sixteen “martyrs,” including the 1935
reburial ceremony and the construction of the Temples of Honour on
Königsplatz whilst presenting counter-memories: the police officers
killed resisting the putsch, their memorial’s removal, and later
attempts to revise the past, such as Reinhold Elstner’s 1995
self-immolation. The site’s post-war evolution is covered, including the
dismantling of Nazi symbols, the unofficial “Shirker’s Alley” where
locals avoided saluting, and graffiti like “I am ashamed to be a
German.” I critically engage with contested imagery, such as the
disputed photo of Hitler in the 1914 war rally, and include artistic
representations, political protests, and modern-day tensions over
remembrance to use the site as a case study in how public space is
weaponised for ideology and how societies grapple with its legacy.
Sites featured: Odeonsplatz, Isartor, Feldherrnhalle,
Kriegsministerium, Theatinerkirche, Palais Preysing, Zentralministerium,
Drückeberger Gaßl, Residenz, Shirkers' Alley, Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler
Paintings, Theatinerkirche, Residenz, Ludwigstraße.
The product of rare access to The Haus der Kunst at one end and Hitler's apartment at the other, I manage to show how Hitler
envisioned the avenue as a symbol of unyielding power, driving its
redesign with structures like the Haus der Deutschen Kunst, a vast
neoclassical edifice intended as a temple for ‘genuine German art’. My
GIFs contrast the street’s original elegance with its wartime
alterations, including the demolition of town houses and the erection of
the Luftgaukommando headquarters, now a ministry building still marked
by eagles and swastika grilles. These images highlight the regime’s
imposition of severity, from the Haus der Kunst’s portico sealing off
the English Garden to the Versuchsbauten blocks, designed for a
never-realised Südstadt and now housing art exhibitions in repurposed
bunkers. I delve into the Haus der Kunst’s exhibitions, revealing the
regime’s meticulous curation of approved art against ‘degenerate’ works,
and its post-war role as an officer’s mess before becoming a
contemporary gallery. I
was given rare access to Hitler's residence at Prinzregentenplatz 16 to
have a personal 2 hour tour conducted by the police inspector whose
department now uses the site
to see where Hilter's niece killed herself, the bunker system below,
and have my photo taken where Chamberlain had his 'Peace for our Time'
declaration signed by Hitler. Today, debates over
concealing Nazi symbols, like the planned tree removal at the Haus der
Kunst, underscore ongoing tensions, challenging visitors to confront the
persistence of ideological architecture in modern life.
Sites featured: Day
of German Art, Luftgaukommando, Schackgalerie, House of German Art,
Hofgartenarkaden, Remaining swastikas, Prinzregentenstraße, Hitler
Residence, Degenerate Art Exhibition, Wagner memorial,
Prinzregentenplatz, Kunstbunker Tumulka, Friedensengel, Hubertusbrunnen,
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Kolonialpolitische Amt der NSDAP, Reich
Governor of Bavaria Headquarters
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Munich’s Brienner Straße, once renamed Adolf-Hitler-Straße,
was transformed from a 19th century boulevard into a corridor of Nazi
authority. My visual comparisons contrast the street’s elegant façades
with their wartime devastation and post-war reinvention, highlighting
sites like the Wittelsbacher Palais, which housed Gestapo headquarters
and became a symbol of terror, where many faced execution. Next door was
Hitler's planned mausoleum and he Haus der Deutschen Ärzte, the
epicentre of Nazi medical policy and the Holocaust’s grim beginnings.
This building housed the Reich Physicians’ Chamber, where racial laws
and the T4 euthanasia programme were devised and implemented, leading to
the forced sterilisation and murder of hundreds of thousands deemed
“unworthy of life.” The building’s architecture and symbolism reinforced
the regime’s racial ideology, making it a chilling monument to
state-sponsored medical atrocities. I trace the Brown House, the Nazi
Party’s nerve centre, where Hitler orchestrated his rise, and the Palais
Törring, site of the Supreme Party Court, underscoring the regime’s
internal mechanisms of control. I critique the persistence of Nazi
symbols, like the altered eagle on surviving buildings, and debates over
memorials, such as the Platz der Opfer des Nationalsozialismus,
questioning how such spaces confront or conceal historical complicity by
being purposely vague and obfuscating the past, and attack the current
NS-Dokumentation Zentrum's director's focus on kowtowing to current Woke
fetishes rather than the history it purports to document.
Sites featured: Schwabing, Maxvorstadt, Alte Pinakothek,
Neue Pinakothek, Brown House, Alter Simpl, House of German Doctors,
Osteria Bavaria, Schellingstraße, Adolf-Hitler-Straße, Hitler's
Mausoleum, Karolinenplatz, Gestapo Headquarters, Café Luitpold, Israeli
Consulate, Strength Through Joy Headquarters, DAF Headquarters, League
of German Women Headquarters, Reichrevisionsamt, Palais Törring, Black
House, Nazi Documentation Centre, Türkentor, Reinhard Heydrich
residence, Nazi Party offices, Völkischer Beobachter offices, Schelling
Salon, Georg Elser memorial, Türkenstraße, Square for Victims of
National Socialism, Maximiliansplatz, Wittelsbacher Palais.
I investigate Munich's Maxvorstadt, focusing on the
interconnected histories of Schellingstraße and the adjacent Kunstareal.
I document the area's role as the administrative cradle of the early
Nazi Party, from the party headquarters at Schellingstraße 50 where the
Reich-wide apparatus was organised, to the nearby offices of the
Völkischer Beobachter propaganda newspaper and the Sicherheitsdienst
(SD) under Reinhard Heydrich. This political history is juxtaposed with
the area's legacy as a centre of Schwabing's bohemian life, exploring
the legendary cafes like the Schelling Salon and Osteria Italiana where
figures such as Hitler and Lenin coexisted uneasily with artists and
intellectuals like Bertolt Brecht and Oskar Maria Graf. The analysis
then turns to the wartime devastation and complex post-war
reconstruction of the Kunstareal, detailing the destruction of the Alte
and Neue Pinakotheken and the pivotal architectural debate between
traditionalists and modernists over their restoration. I focus on Hans
Döllgast's celebrated reconstruction of the Alte Pinakothek and the
deliberate preservation of war damage, such as the bullet holes on the
Rosselenker sculpture, as 'scars of remembrance'. Finally, I examine
individual acts of resistance and persecution within this quarter,
including Georg Elser's preparations for his assassination attempt and
the fate of performer Fritz Gruenbaum, arrested after a satirical
routine at the Alter Simpl.
Sites featured: Türkentor, Türkenkaserne, Alte
Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek, Rosselenker sculptures, Schellingstraße,
Türkenstraße, Amalienstraße, Nazi Party offices (Schellingstraße 50),
Völkischer Beobachter offices, Schelling Salon, Osteria Italiana, Alter
Simpl (Café Simplicissimus), Georg-Elser-Platz, SD Headquarters
(Türkenstraße 23), Munich's Nazi-era coat of arms relief.
Ludwigstraße housed key institutions and buildings that
served various functions during the Third Reich. Among them the
Landeszentralbank, as Bavaria's central bank, managed financial affairs
crucial to the Nazi war effort, whilst the Kriegsministerium, oversaw
military operations and strategic planning during the war. Munich
University became a centre for Nazi propaganda and indoctrination,
influencing professors and students alike. Haus Deutschen Rechts
accommodated legal bodies instrumental in enforcing Nazi laws, whilst
the Staatsbibliothek provided resources for Nazi propaganda and
ideological research. The Staatsministerium facilitated the
implementation of Nazi policies at the regional level, and the
Siegestor, a triumphal arch, symbolised German nationalism and
militarism. The Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern oversaw
internal security and law enforcement, whilst the Zentralministerium für
den gleichgeschalteten bayerischen Staat centralised control over
Bavarian government agencies under Nazi rule.
Sites featured: Landeszentralbank, Ludwigstraße,
Kriegsministerium, Munich University, Haus Deutschen Rechts,
Staatsbibliothek, Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Staatsministerium,
Siegestor, Café Heck, Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern, Day of
German Art, Zentralministerium für den gleichgeschalteten bayerischen
Staat, White Rose, Hitler Paintings.
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Various sites within walking distance between Munich's
Karlstor and the main railway station. Park Café in the Old Botanical
Garden served as a social hub during the Nazi period, frequented by both
citizens and party officials. Nearby, the central railway station,
facilitated the transportation of troops, supplies, and prisoners to and
from Munich, playing a logistical role in Nazi operations. The
Oberfinanzpräsidium administered financial affairs in the region under
Nazi control, overseeing taxation and economic policies and still boasts
the largest Nazi eagle in the city. The Justizpalast near Karlsplatz is
renowned for hosting the Volksgerichtshof trials, where numerous
anti-Nazi conspirators, including members of the White Rose resistance
group, faced prosecution. The Ausstellungspavillon, the first Nazi
edifice, hosted Nazi exhibitions and displays promoting racial
superiority and militaristic ideals. Additionally, remnants of Nazi
eagles and statues around the area serve as stark reminders of the
regime's propaganda. The Main Synagogue, destroyed months before
Kristallnacht, marks a site of profound loss and remembrance.
Collectively, these sites around Stachus not only highlight Munich's
architectural and cultural history but also its dark chapter under Nazi
influence.
Sites featured: Park Café, München Hauptbahnhof,
Oberfinanzpräsidium, Justizpalast, Remaining Nazi eagles, Nazi statues,
Hitler's artwork, Karlstor, Stachus, Neptunbrunnen,
Ausstellungspavillon, Lenbachplatz, Bernheimer Haus, Main Synagogue,
Sites associated with Kristallnacht.
Munich's Hofbräuhaus emerged as a pivotal site for Hitler and
the Nazi Party, serving to galvanise support for the Nazi movement
among the populace, marking it as a symbolic venue for the propagation
of Nazi ideology and political mobilisation. The nearby Pfeffermühle
cabaret was a hub for anti-Nazi satire, offering a platform for
performances that subtly critiqued the regime, symbolising the
underground resistance in Munich. The Arisierungsstelle played a key
role in the confiscation and forced sale of Jewish-owned businesses and
properties as part of Nazi racial policies. The Nordbad, a public
swimming pool, was emblematic of the Nazi emphasis on physical fitness
and public health, serving as a site for the regime’s ideological
propagation. Munich's Opera House, a cultural landmark, was often used
for Nazi propaganda events and attended by high-ranking officials,
reflecting the regime's efforts to intertwine culture with their
political agenda. Hitler’s Residence in Munich served as a personal and
political headquarters for Hitler, where numerous strategic decisions
were made particularly after the Munich Agreement was signed.
Sites featured: Gasthaus Deutsche Eiche, Pfeffermühle,
Hofbräuhaus, Arisierungsstelle, Nordbad, Munich Opera House, Hitler
Residence, Alter Hof, Hitler's artwork, GärtnerPlatztheater.
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Among the sites featured are the Deutschen Museum, one of the
largest science and technology museums in the world, was utilised by
the Nazi regime for propaganda purposes, showcasing achievements in
German science and technology to promote the regime's image of progress
and superiority. The Löwenbräukeller was a venue frequented by Hitler
and the Nazi Party for political meetings and rallies. Oktoberfest, an
annual beer festival held in Munich, was appropriated by the Nazis as a
celebration of German nationalism and cultural identity, with propaganda
displays and events promoting Nazi ideology. The Freikorpsdenkmal, a
monument in Munich commemorating the Freikorps soldiers who fought in
the early 20th century, was appropriated by the Nazis as a symbol of
militarism and nationalism, glorifying the paramilitary groups that
paved the way for Hitler's rise to power.
Sites featured: Hitler's Residences, Löwenbräukeller,
Oktoberfest, Deutschen Museum, Remaining swastikas, Freikorpsdenkmal,
Ruhmeshalle, Maximilianeum, Hofbräukeller, Ludwigsbrücke, Baldham, Nazi
Party Headquarters, Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, Münchner Neueste
Nachrichten, German Research institute for Psychiatry, Eternal Jew
exhibition, Kongreßsaal, Remaining Nazi Eagles, Beer Hall Putsch sites,
NSDAP Publishing House, White Rose, Ostbahnhof.
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Another sprawling page of Nazi-related sites in Munich
including Nymphenburg Palace, repurposed by the Nazi regime for various
functions, including hosting official receptions and ceremonies to
bolster the regime's image of power and grandeur. Stadelheim Prison,
used as a detention facility for political prisoners, resistance
fighters, and other perceived enemies of the regime, where many were
subjected to harsh conditions and torture. The Reichsfinanzhof was
responsible for overseeing financial matters and taxation policies under
the Nazi regime, playing a crucial role in funding the regime's
activities and war effort. The Reichszeugmeisterei was responsible for
overseeing the production and distribution of uniforms and equipment for
the Nazi military and paramilitary organisations, ensuring uniformity
and adherence to Nazi standards. Flughafen Oberwiesenfeld was an
airfield used by the Nazis for military purposes, including training
pilots and conducting reconnaissance flights. Much is devoted to
football under the Third Reich.
Sites featured: Nymphenburg, Stadelheim, Deutschland
Kaserne, Funk Kaserne, Hofgarten, Staatskanzlei, Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier, Football under the Nazis, Pasing, Englischer Garten, Haidling,
Reichsfinanzhof, Adolf-Hitler-Kaserne, Reichszeugmeisterei, Flughafen
Oberwiesenfeld, Night of the Amazons, Grünwalder Stadion, Olympic
Stadium, Site of the Black September 1972 Olympic Games terror attack,
Allianz Arena, Nazi statues, schloß Blutenburg, Manchesterplatz, Site of
the Manchester United Air Crash, Gebsattelbrücke, Death March memorial,
Scholl graves.
I spent considerable time exploring of Munich’s Nazi-era housing developments to examine
how the regime embedded its ideology not in grand administrative
centres, but in the domestic fabric of the city through numerous
Siedlungen, or settlements. Using my own then-and-now photography
alongside historical analysis, I document multiple sites including the
Mustersiedlung Ramersdorf, the Reichskleinsiedlung Am Hart, and the
enigmatic Klugstraße settlement to reveal the dual purpose of these
projects: providing homes for Party affiliates and workers whilst
functioning as tools for social engineering and propaganda. I analyse
the overt and esoteric symbolism employed, from the Heimatschutzstil
architecture and idealised reliefs at Erich Kästner Straße to the
perplexing astrological runes and alleged Masonic symbols on Klugstraße,
linking them to figures like Heinrich Himmler and organisations such as
the DAF. I highlight the unsettling survival of this architectural
legacy, showing how these seemingly ordinary suburban streets remain
contested spaces, serving as a case study in the insidious nature of
totalitarian design and the complex legacy of its remnants within a
modern city.
Sites featured: Alpine
Museum, The Great Escape film locations, Siedlung, Bayerische
Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie, Pullach, Remaining Nazi
iconography, Mustersiedlung Ramersdorf, Adolf Hitler fountains, Siedlung
Am Hart, Siedlung Neuherberge, Siedlung Kaltherberge, Reichssiedlung
Rudolf Hess
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A virtual tour around Munich’s principal cemeteries,
including the Nordfriedhof and Waldfriedhof, seeing these sites as
complex repositories of the city’s twentieth-century history. Using my
own then-and-now photography and historical analysis, I document the
final resting places of the Third Reich's most significant figures, from
high-ranking perpetrators such as Ernst Röhm and Paul Ludwig Troost to
cultural icons like Leni Riefenstahl and victims of the regime like
Gustav von Kahr. The work juxtaposes the grand state funerals of the
era, such as those for General Dietl, with the quiet, often unassuming
graves of today, creating a visual dialogue between past propaganda and
present-day remembrance. I also document the graves of collaborators,
resistance figures, and those whose legacies remain deeply contested,
revealing how these burial grounds serve as a microcosm of the period's
moral and political conflicts. By presenting these individuals, from
Hitler’s chauffeur Emil Maurice to the philosopher Oswald Spengler,
within their final, shared landscapes, my examination offers a unique
perspective on the intertwined fates of the era’s key players and how
their legacies are confronted, or ignored, in modern Munich.
Sites featured: Westfriedhof, Waldfriedhof, Nordfriedhof,
Hochbunker, Gräfelfing, Ostfriedhof, Various Nazi-related graves:
Troost, Bauriedl, Hoffmann, Riefenstahl, Wünsche, Böhme, von Kahr, Emil
Maurice, Traudl Junge, Oswald Spengler, von Rauchenberger, Ferdinand
Marian, Tirpitz, Bandera, Paul Hausser, Franz von Stuck, Röhm, Hans
Baur, Anton Drexler, Rudolf Trauch, Eisner, Gerhard Wagner, Julius
Schaub, Hjalmar Schach, von Gersdorff, Julius Schreck.
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This webpage traces Munich’s dual role as a crucible for both
Lenin’s revolutionary ideology and Hitler’s nascent fascist vision,
framing the city as an unlikely intersection of 20th-century political
cataclysm. Focusing on Schwabing’s Schleissheimer Strasse, it
underscores the remarkable proximity of their residences —Lenin at #106
(1900–1902) and Hitler at #34 (1913–1914)—to argue Gellately's point
that Lenin created the system Hitler would impose. Now stripped of
plaques commemorating their infamous inhabitants, Lenin’s Munich years
are reconstructed: his aliases, clandestine publishing of Iskra from
cramped apartments, and debates with figures like Rosa Luxemburg and
Georgy Plekhanov, which crystallised his vanguard party theory. I
emphasise his tactical ingenuity—smuggling literature via Stuttgart
printers, forging Bulgarian passports, and leveraging Munich’s relative
political stability—whilst situating his intellectual labour within the
city’s physical fabric. Hitler’s presence is framed through his
transient, almost mundane existence in the same streets and cafes:
sketching, avoiding rent payments, and absorbing the nationalist fervour
of pre-war Munich. Here the mundane logistics of revolution (printing
presses, postal addresses) and the banality of daily life (Lenin’s
influenza, Hitler’s tailor-made suits, both using the Schelling Salon's
urinals) underpin grand historical narratives. By mapping their
movements, from Lenin’s library research at Ludwigstrasse to Hitler’s
coffeehouse rants, I would argue for Schwabing to be considered a
microcosm of Europe’s ideological fractures.
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Given rare access to the memorial site and surrounding ϟϟ
compund now used by the Bavarian Ript Police both as a certified guide
at the site and an history teacher nearby, I was able to offer this
detailed exploration of the Dachau concentration camp and its
surrounding historical sites, moving beyond a simple summary of
atrocities to an examination of the camp's architectural, ideological,
and post-war legacy. Exploiting my links with the memorial site, I
highlight how the camp served as a model for the entire Nazi system,
with its infamous ‘Arbeit macht frei’ motto and methodical design, but
it also delves into the cynical and sadistic realities that belied this
propaganda. Through powerful then-and-now visual comparisons, my page
juxtaposes images of the camp during its operation and liberation with
its present-day appearance, highlighting both the deliberate
reconstruction of key features like the gate and watchtowers, and the
subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, signs of the past’s contested
legacy, such as a Confederate flag flying on the former ϟϟ residence of
Adolf Eichmann. I draw attention to the ongoing debates over how to
commemorate victims, such as the exclusion of homosexuals, ‘asocials’,
and common criminals from some memorials. I also include nearby sites
like the Hebertshausen shooting range, where 4,000 Soviet prisoners were
murdered, and the ‘plantation’ where slave labour was exploited for
pseudo-scientific agricultural projects. Through this I reveal the
complexities and controversies that have long surrounded Dachau, from
the American soldiers' summary executions of guards upon liberation to
the subsequent denial and selective remembrance that shaped the
memorialisation of the site.
Sites featured: Dachau Waldfriedhof, Konzentrationslager,
Dachau, Hebertshausen ϟϟ Range, Müttererholungsheim, Deutenhofen,
Kräutergarten, War Crimes Trial, Site of American Massacre of Guards,
Bavarian Riot Police Headquarters.
This page moves beyond the infamous concentration camp to
reveal the complex and often contradictory history of the municipality
itself. The narrative focuses on how Dachau, a predominantly
working-class town with strong leftist sympathies, was co-opted and then
reshaped by the Nazi regime. I highlight this ideological struggle by
referencing places like the Hörhammerbräu Inn, once a stronghold for
communists, which later became a meeting place for the local Nazi Party.
My page discusses the complicity and resistance of the town's residents
showing how local authorities enthusiastically embraced the Nazi
regime, renaming streets and granting Hitler honorary citizenship,
whilst also detailing the courageous actions of individuals who risked
their lives to help prisoners. My page also presents a sober look at the
aftermath of the war, including the summary executions of ϟϟ guards and
the difficult process of memorialising the victims of the ‘death
marches’ in places like the Leitenberg cemetery. Ultimately I present
Dachau as a microcosm of Germany’s turbulent 20th century, where the
political and social fabric of a community was permanently scarred by
its proximity to the brutal realities of Nazism.
Sites Featured: Various sites of interest within the town
as well as Webling, site of an American massacre of Germans and
Dachau-Leitenberg mass grave.
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Offering a detailed, on-the-ground exploration of Nuremberg’s
Nazi Party rally grounds, using historical photographs, archival
sources, and images from numerous visits to examine how the city was
transformed into a stage for Nazi propaganda. I focus on key sites like
the Zeppelin Field, Congress Hall, and Luitpold Arena, showing how
Speer’s monumental architecture was designed to overwhelm and
indoctrinate. The page documents the annual rallies from 1927 to 1938,
their role in promoting the Nuremberg Laws, and the choreographed
displays of loyalty involving the SA, ϟϟ, and Hitler Youth. It includes
analysis of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, draws parallels to
later cultural imagery including Star Wars and Gladiator, and examines
surviving structures like the Zeppelin Tribune and transformer station,
now repurposed or decaying. The site’s post-war use as a US military
base, sports venue, and location for fast food is contrasted with
ongoing debates about preservation, memory, and the ethics of
maintaining Nazi architecture. The Documentation Centre in the Congress
Hall’s northern wing is highlighted as a key educational resource,
presenting the history of the rallies, the regime’s crimes, and the
challenges of confronting this legacy.
Sites Featured: Märzfeld, Ehrenhalle, Kongreßhalle,
Luitpoldhalle, Luitpoldgrove, Dutzendteich, Zeppelinfeld, Deutsches
Stadion, Fliegerdenkmal, ϟϟ Barracks, Transformatorenstation,
Reichsparteitagsgelände, Hall of Honour.
The
city's historical significance, coupled with its strategic location and
infrastructure, made it a focal point for Nazi activities and
propaganda efforts. Additionally, Nuremberg was the site of the
Nuremberg Laws, a series of antisemitic legislation enacted by the Nazis
in 1935. These laws defined who was considered Jewish and restricted
the rights of Jews in Nazi Germany, laying the legal groundwork for the
systematic persecution and discrimination of Jewish citizens. Nuremberg
also gained international attention as the location of the Nuremberg
Trials after the war From 1945 to 1946, the Allies conducted a series of
military tribunals in the city to prosecute prominent Nazi leaders for
war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other atrocities committed
during the war. The trials marked a watershed moment in international
law and justice, establishing the precedent for holding individuals
accountable for crimes against humanity on a global scale.
Sites Featured: Remaining
Nazi Eagles, Middle Franconia, Adolf-Hitler-Platz, Nuremberg trials
court building, Streicher's Gauhaus, Remaining Nazi eagles, Judensau,
Fränkischer Hof, Deutscher Hof, Adolf Hitler Youth Hostel, Triumph of
the Will locations, Bahnhofplatz, Frauenkirche, Lorenzkirche, Sebaldus
church, Hitler Paintings, Luftschutzschule Hermann Göring,
Reichsbahndirektion, Main synagogue memorial, Aufsessplatz
This
webpage focuses on the area’s central role in the Nazi regime, not as a
remote retreat, but as a nerve centre for political decision-making and
image-making. I highlight how Hitler's fascination with the region
transformed it from a quaint mountain village into a fortified complex,
serving as a backdrop for both international diplomacy, such as the
meetings with Chamberlain and Schuschnigg, and the cultivation of the
Führer’s public persona. The core of the overview is its use of visual
comparisons to reveal the layers of history at these sites. The
then-and-now photos of Berchtesgaden’s train station, for instance, show
how Nazi architectural elements, though altered, have been preserved,
prompting questions about the town's enduring relationship with its
past. I detail the area's association with high-ranking Nazis, from
Göring’s villa to Dietrich Eckart’s grave, and the post-war fate of
these locations, including the decision to raze Hitler’s Berghof to
prevent neo-Nazi pilgrimage, a stark contrast to the preservation of the
Eagle’s Nest as a tourist attraction. The page also touches on the
uncomfortable legacies of individuals like the Duke of Windsor and
Hitler’s sister, Paula, whose stories complicate any simplistic moral
narrative. I try to encourage reflection on how the area’s natural
beauty was used to mask a dark and brutal political reality, with the
historical legends of the Untersberg and Watzmann mountains serving as a
thought-provoking commentary on tyranny and destiny.
Sites featured: Platterhof,
Obersalzberg, Mooslahnerkopf, Kehlsteinhaus, Berchtesgaden, Hotel zum
Türken, Bunker, Eagle's Nest, Berghof, Bischofswiesen, Hitler's Teehaus,
Dietrich Eckart's grave, Paula Hitler's grave, Gästehaus Hoher Göll,
Obersalzberg Documentation Centre
I took
advantage for a few of the locations from Geography fieldtrips I'd run
to Blaueis glacier with my students to investigate the satellite sites
around Berchtesgaden involving the network of administrative, military,
and ideological sites that supported Hitler’s mountain headquarters. I
move beyond the Obersalzberg to examine how the surrounding region was
systematically transformed, documenting locations such as the Adolf
Hitler Kaserne in Strub, the 'Little Reich Chancellery' in Stanggass,
and the militarised spa town of Bad Reichenhall. Using my own
then-and-now photography and historical investigation, I trace the
architectural and ideological imprint left upon these communities. My
work highlights the unsettling survival of this legacy, showing how
Nazi-era eagles—their swastikas now replaced—still adorn the facades of
former government and military buildings, and how sites of
indoctrination like the Adolf Hitler Youth Hostel remain in use today
for me and my students. I also covers the post-war history of these
locations, from the execution of French Waffen-ϟϟ soldiers at Bad
Reichenhall to the modern controversies surrounding extremism within the
Bundeswehr at the former Strub barracks. This examination serves as a
case study in the logistical and ideological colonisation of a
landscape, revealing the pervasive infrastructure of the regime far
beyond the well-known confines of the Berghof.
Sites Featured: Hintersee,
Schönau, Blaueis, Hochkalter, Königssee, Bischofswiesen, Stanggass,
Strub, Reichskanzlei Berchtesgaden, Bad Reichenhall, Ramsau, Obersee,
Adolf Hitler Kaserne, Jägerkaserne, Adolf Hitler Youth Hostel, Bund
Deutscher Mädel, Dietrich Eckart Clinic, Hotel Schiffmeister, Gasthaus
Seeklause
I
try to offer a multi-layered exploration of Oberschleißheim and
Unterschleißheim, presenting them not as a single historical site, but
as distinct areas deeply intertwined with the Nazi regime's military,
cultural, and ideological projects. I focus on schloß Schleißheim, a
baroque masterpiece that was repurposed as a repository for art looted
by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg including the Rothschild
Collection. My then-and-now comparisons underscore the palace’s
transformation from a symbol of Nazi cultural theft to a hub for
post-war art restitution by the Monuments Men, revealing a complex story
of a place’s moral reclamation. I also delve into the military history
of the Oberschleißheim airfield, which served as a crucial training
centre and was the site of significant Allied bombing raids. I offer an
account of the Battle of Lohhof, using photographic evidence to contrast
the violence of the American advance with the peaceful appearance of
the town today only a few miles from where I teach. A particularly
compelling feature is the narrative surrounding the Lohhof flax
processing plant, which functioned as a forced labour camp for Jewish
women before their deportation to extermination camps.
Sites featured: Lohhof,
Schönbrunn, Lustheim Palace, Oberschleißheim, Unterschleißheim,
Schlosswirtschaft, Military Aviation School, Fliegerbeobachterschule,
Fliegerfunkerschule, Lichtbildstelle, Various Film Locations- Paths of
Glory, Three Musketeers, Last Year in Marienbad
Deserving
of especial attention given it's where I currently live, I examine how
this historic episcopal seat was systematically Nazified, from the
coerced resignation of its long-serving mayor and the renaming of its
main street as Adolf-Hitler-Straße, to the public persecution of its
Jewish families. Using my GIFs alongside historical analysis, I document
the sites of Nazi rallies on the Marienplatz, the various military
barracks that dominated the town, and the locations scarred by the
devastating 1945 air raid. I reveal the intimate nature of both
complicity and resistance, tracing the fate of families like the Lewins
and Neuburgers, whose businesses were boycotted before they were driven
to flight or murder, whilst also noting the difficult role of the
Catholic church on the Domberg. My research traces the ambiguous
post-war period, including the establishment of a Jewish DP community
and the slow process of denazification. My photo comparisons highlight
an unsettling legacy, juxtaposing archival images of Nazi parades with
the modern town's tolerance and even encouragement of extremist
vandalism.
Sites Featured: Pettenbrunn,
Kloster Wies, Hexenprozesse, Kreisleitung, Hohenbachern,
Adolf-Hitler-Straße, Lindenkeller, Tüntenhausen, Weihenstephan,
stolperstein, Vimy Kaserne, Hangenham, Dürneck, Münchenerstraße, Alte
Gefängnis, Rathaus, Neustift, St. Georg kirche, Domberg, Gasthof
Kolosseum, Prinz-Ludwig-Straße, Ziegelgasse, Fischergasse, Landshuter
Hof, Hindenburg Straße, Captain Snow Straße, Adolf Wagner Straße, Norkus
Straße, Von-Blombergstraße, Horst Wessel Straße, Hotel Gred, Casellastraße, Hofbräuhaus, Adler
Apotheke, Stauberhaus, Marienplatz, Fürstbischöfliches Lyceum,
Marcushaus, NS-Kindergarten Neustift, Bürgerturm, Prinz Arnulf-kaserne,
Stein kaserne, Pallotti Haus, Knabenseminar, Christi-Himmelfahrt
Evangelical Church, bahnhof, Brunnhausgasse, Mohrenbrücke, bunkers,
Lindenkeller, Waldfriedhof, Isarbrücke, Bayerischer Hof, Technische
Universität München
My page focused on local history around Freising which involves stories of anti-Nazi resistance, including Major Alois Braun's Freiheitsaktion Bayern headquarters in Pettenbrunn and the courageous schoolboys of Hohenkammer who defied the regime. The post documents the inhuman final days of the Third Reich, mapping the brutal Buchenwald and Dachau death march routes through Tüntenhausen, Zolling, Attenkirchen, and Haag an der Amper, where memorials now honour the victims of ϟϟ atrocities. Uncover lesser-known wartime events such as the lynching of American B-24 airmen near Aign, Ferdinand Marian's fatal crash in Dürneck following his role in Jud Süß, and the suppression of left-wing Naturfreunde centres in Hangenham. The guide also examines the Dachau subcamp at Neufahrn, where forced labourers built an unfinished runway, and the controversial Bronze Age site at Bernstorf. Once hailed as the Bavarian Troy, the Bernstorf gold and amber finds remain at the centre of a fierce archaeological forgery debate.
Sites Featured: Bernstorf, Kranzberg, Neufahrn bei Freising, Pettenbrunn, Neufahrn, Allershausen, Aign, Hohenkammer, Zolling, Dürneck, Hallbergmoos, Fürholzen, Eching, Kloster Wies, Hangenham
My
detailed exploration of Moosburg an der Isar examines the town’s
profound transformation under the shadow of Stalag VII-A, the largest
prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. I focus on the camp itself, documenting
its immense scale, its multinational population, and the chaotic
conditions that prevailed, culminating in its liberation on April 29,
1945. I move beyond simple narratives by examining the complex roles of
individuals, from the persecuted Jewish merchant Alois Weiner to the
camp’s final commandant, Colonel Otto Burger, whose defiance of orders
prevented a death march. I also confront the difficult post-war legacy,
including the violent aftermath of liberation and the camp’s eventual
conversion into the Neustadt district for German refugees. Through
photographic juxtapositions of wartime streets and the few surviving
camp structures with their modern counterparts, this examination serves
as a case study in how a small Bavarian town’s identity became
inextricably linked to a vast instrument of war, leaving a layered and
often-overlooked history embedded in its landscape.
Sites featured: Stalag
VIIA, Moosburg, Bernstorf, Neufahrn bei Pettenbrunn, Neufahrn bei
Freising, Allershausen, Aign, Hohenkammer, Zolling, Fürholzen,
Kranzberg, Eching, Hangenham, Dürneck, Hallbergmoos
I
look at Erding’s transformation into a key Luftwaffe hub, documenting
the construction of its air base in 1935, the devastating Allied bombing
of April 1945 that killed 144 people, and the town's unique use as a
primary location for the 1941 aviation comedy Quax, der Bruchpilot
which allows for an examination of the career of its star, Heinz
Rühmann, as a case study in cultural complicity. This cinematic
diversion is juxtaposed with the brutal realities of the regime,
including the persecution of the Einstein family, commemorated today by
stolperstein, and the notable 1941 women’s protest against the removal
of crucifixes from schools. A significant focus is placed on Isen, where
my photographic comparisons document the immediate aftermath of the war
and the American occupation by the 101st Airborne Division, showing GIs
outside the Gasthof Klement, their local headquarters, and chronicling
the complex denazification process. The work extends across the wider
district to map a network of often-overlooked sites, from the strategic
use of the Ismaning radio transmitter during the abortive
Freiheitsaktion Bayern uprising to the grim history of forced labour at
the Meindl brickworks in Dorfen. I also document the fates of
individuals, from the three Hohenkammer schoolboys imprisoned for their
defiance to the American airmen of the Gawgia Peach murdered near Aign after parachuting to safety.
Sites Featured:
Isen, Mauern, Dorfen, Dingolfing, Erding, Wartenberg, Ismaning,
Scheyern, Geisenhausen, Brauerei Bortenschlager, Goldach,
Reichsluftschiff Z1 memorial
A focused examination of Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm’s deep complicity in
the Nazi regime, tracing how this Upper Bavarian town became one of the
movement’s most loyal strongholds well before 1933 and remained so
throughout its rule. The analysis centres on the town’s early embrace of
Nazism, documented through archival photographs and political records
showing that by 1923, local SA men participated in the Beer Hall Putsch,
and by 1933, Pfaffenhofen delivered the Nazis their highest vote share
in Upper Bavaria in the Reichstag election. Hitler himself visited the
town in 1922. and several ϟϟ men from Pfaffenhofen made careers, most notably Anton Thumann, known as the "Hangman of Majdanek".
His presence in the Höcker Album, alongside Mengele and Höss, links the
town directly to the machinery of genocide. Equally vital is the
recovery of Jewish lives erased from official record—Reinhard Haiplik’s
research corrects earlier omissions, identifying families deported to
Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, their fates detailed with precision. Nearby in Eberstetten, a memorial marks the site where young ϟϟ men
were killed by American soldiers in the final days of the war. Holledau
bridge on the Reichsautobahn is relevant as a significant
infrastructure project of the Nazi era in the region. The Rasthof
Holledau, a rest stop built in 1938, was visited by Hitler and still
operates. The
inclusion of Uttenhofen’s forgotten children’s camp, where sixteen
Polish children died in squalid conditions, further exposes the reach of
Nazi racial policy into rural Bavaria.
Sites Featured: Neuburg an der Donau, Rennertshofen, Schrobenhausen, Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, Eberstetten, Rasthaus Holledau, Uttenhofen
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My
exploration of Landsberg am Lech and its surrounding Kaufering camp
complex I researched in the summer of 2023 examines the town’s
contradictory role as both a Nazi shrine and a centre of post-war Jewish
rebirth. I document here Landsberg’s transformation into the "Town of
the Hitler Youth," a pilgrimage site centred on the prison cell where
Hitler dictated Mein Kampf. This
is juxtaposed with the sober reality of the prison after the war, when
it became a centre for holding and executing convicted Nazi war
criminals, a fact that is still commemorated with considerable
controversy at the Spöttingen cemetery. I
visit the brutal reality of the eleven Kaufering subcamps, established
in 1944 for the subterranean production of Messerschmitt Me 262 jets. I
explore the system of "extermination through labour" that defined these
"cold crematoria" and document the camps' liberation by American forces,
including the massacre at Kaufering IV and its impact on soldiers like
J.D. Salinger and survivors like Bill Glied whom I interviewed. Visiting
often-neglected memorial sites today, including the mass graves at
Schwabhausen and the European Holocaust Memorial at Kaufering VII help
present a case study in how a single locality could embody the full
spectrum of Nazi history, from ideological genesis and genocidal horror
to Allied justice and the determined survival of its victims.
Sites Featured: Kaufering
subcamp complex, Landsberg am Lech, KZ Friedhof, Schwabhausen, Buchloe,
Landsberg Prison, ϟϟ graves, Concentration camps, Erpfting Jewish
cemetery, Concentration Camp Cemetery Hurlach, Holzhausen concentration
camp cemetery, Igling–Stoffersberg–Wald concentration camp cemetery
Featuring sites along the Danube situated within Oberbayern including Eichstätt with the remains of its Nazi Thingstätte
high above the town shown here, an open-air theatre used for
propagandistic purposes where Nazi rallies and cultural events were held
to reinforce ideological indoctrination. These gatherings were designed
to foster a sense of community and loyalty to the regime through
orchestrated displays of nationalism. Ingolstadt
housed military facilities and was a centre for armament production,
playing a crucial role in the regime's military preparations and wartime
activities. Also included is an extensive section on Rosenheim,
birthplace of Hermann Göring featuring numerous then-and-now images
from Hitler's visits. The town served an important transportation hub,
facilitating the movement of troops and supplies. Its strategic location
made it a key point in the Nazi logistical network, supporting both
military operations and the enforcement of Nazi policies in the region.
Sites Featured: Eichstätt, Ingolstadt, Thingstätte, Rosenheim, Flötzinger Bräustüberl, Gaimersheim, Markt Indersdorf
This
webpage reveals how picturesque landscapes became instruments of
ideological control by examining sites like Mittenwald, where
traditional violin-making and folklore were weaponised to embody 'Blut
und Boden' mythology, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, host to the 1936
Winter Olympics, demonstrating how the regime exploited international
events for propaganda while enforcing antisemitic policies behind
temporary façades. I expose the deliberate manipulation of alpine
symbolism to sell a myth of Aryan purity, contrasting idyllic postcards
with evidence of persecution, such as the exclusion of Jews from
Mittenwald’s hotels and the removal of Nazi-era murals from town halls.
Central to this is the integration of archival imagery with contemporary
photographs, exposing lingering physical remnants like the Nazi eagle
at Garmisch’s Artillerie Kaserne and the controversial reliefs at
Murnau’s railway bridge. I confronts uncomfortable legacies, such as the
renaming of barracks after war criminals and the contested memorials,
including the cenotaph for Nazi Alfred Jodl on Herrenchiemsee. I also
probes lesser-known histories, like Leni Riefenstahl’s exploitation of
Sinti and Roma extras in Tiefland filmed near Mittenwald, and the death
marches through Wolfratshausen, where memorials now stand alongside
erased traces of violence. By the end it underscores the tension between
preserving heritage and confronting historical complicity, so such
landscapes serve as visceral reminders of how beauty and ideology can be
perilously intertwined.
Sites featured: Chiemsee,
Schönau, Mittenwald, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Starnberg, Mangfall, Bad
Tölz, Murnau, Tutzing, Bodensee, Wolfratshausen, Gmund, Sites associated
with the 1936 Olympics, Remaining Nazi eagles, Herrenchiemsee,
Ludendorff's grave, Lambacher Hof, site of Ludwig II's death, ϟϟ Junker
School Bad Tölz, bunkers, Schloss Linderhof, Meersburg am Bodensee,
Death March memorials
Herrsching’s
Reichsfinanzschule, established in 1935 and adorned with a prominent
Nazi eagle, exemplifies the regime’s ideological transformation of
functional spaces, its grand Feierhalle with monumental spruce beams
later repurposed for post-war civic use, reflecting a pragmatic yet
uneasy continuity. Oberammergau’s Passion Play, co-opted by Hitler in
1934, underscores the regime’s exploitation of cultural traditions, with
modern revisions addressing its anti-Semitic undertones, prompting
reflection on historical accountability. The Weingut I bunker in
Mühldorf, a vast wartime project built by concentration camp prisoners,
stands as a stark ruin, its then-and-now visuals exposing the scale of
Nazi ambition and human cost. Traunstein’s war cemetery and Wasserburg’s
memorial to euthanasia victims further illustrate efforts to confront
suppressed histories, though often with ambiguity, as seen in Mühldorf’s
vague commemorative markers. These comparisons, integrated across the
region, reveal not just physical remnants—eagles, bunkers, and
repurposed buildings—but a contested legacy of ideology, memory, and
architectural power.
Sites featured: Deining,
Oberammergau, Bad Wiessee, Oberbayern, Kaltenberg, Mühldorf,
Oberaudorf, Feldberg, Mangfall, Traunstein, Herrsching, Uffing,
Weilheim, Wasserburg am Inn, Durnbach, Markt Schwaben, Siegsdorf, Gmund
Commonwealth War Cemetery, Weingut I, Rottenbuch, Tegernsee, Aufkirchen,
Red Army Faction, Chiemsee, Lambacher Hof
A
focused examination of Landshut’s entanglement with the rise and rule
of Nazism, centred on the town’s role as an early and enduring Nazi
stronghold shaped by two of the movement’s key figures: Gregor Strasser
and Heinrich Himmler. Landshut served as a military
garrison town, housing troops and supporting logistical operations. Himmler
moved to Landshut in 1913 when his father became assistant principal at
the local Gymnasium, where Himmler studied until graduating in 1919.
In 1921, Landshut saw the establishment of Bavaria’s fifth Nazi Party
branch, led by pharmacist Gregor Strasser, a key early Nazi figure with
membership number 9, who later served in the Bavarian parliament and
Reichstag until his 1934 murder during the Night of the Long Knives. By
December 1944, a Dachau subcamp near Landshut’s train station was set
up, forcing prisoners into labour repairing bomb damage. Allied bombing
in March 1945 devastated the station, but the Gothic old town was
spared. The municipal hospital, where physician Karl Gebhardt worked in 1922, and the Deutsches Arbeit Front
headquarters opposite Trausnitz Castle, remain as relics of Nazi
structures. Vilsbiburg, 18km southeast, saw its Jewish community
eradicated by 1939.
Sites Featured: Landshut,
Vilsbiburg, Trausnitz Castle, Ussar-villa, Städtisches Krankenhaus, St.
Martin's church, Adolf-Hitler-Platz, Himmler residence, Humanistisches
Gymnasium, Niederbayern
My
detailed exploration of Straubing and Passau traces how two quiet
Danube towns became laboratories of Nazi policy, using archival police
reports, local newspapers, then-and-now photographs and survivor
testimony to expose the mechanics of persecution and consent. I follow
the transformation of Straubing’s Ludwigsplatz into Großdeutschlandplatz
after the Anschluss. I reconstruct Kristallnacht through the
smashed interior of the synagogue, preserved only because the fire
brigade feared collateral damage, and pair it with a 1945 photograph of
German women scrubbing the desecrated walls under American orders. The
page documents the first Bavarian murder of a Jew after January 1933 and
places it beside the still-standing houseto show geography itself bears
witness. I trace the economic strangulation of family firms like
Schwarzhaupt and Loose, showing how “Aryanisation” was executed not by
Berlin emissaries but by local banks and neighbours, and let the current
Hafner department store’s proud anniversary slogan sit uncomfortably
against this history. In Passau I examine the renaming of streets after
Hitler’s mother and the installation of a Thingplatz, then cut to the
post-war decision to keep the Nibelungenhalle whilst scrubbing its
dedicatory plaque. I use the surviving Nazi eagle on the Danube bastion,
re-erected in 1954 with swastika chiselled off yet unmistakable in
form, to question whether erasure is ever complete. Throughout, heroic
narrative is replaced with municipal minutes, prison sterilisation files
and Gestapo surveillance logs to show how ordinary routines were
enlisted in genocide, and how those routines still shape the towns’
present streetscape.
Sites Featured: Remaining Nazi eagles, Niederbayern, Passau, Straubing,
Synagogue, Hitler Residence, Schochkaserne,
Hans-Schemm-Schule
How
Nazi ideology infiltrated the Bavarian towns of Kelheim and its
surrounding districts, refracted through architectural spectacle,
political ritual, and the quiet persistence of historical erasure. The
Befreiungshalle, a neoclassical monument to 19th-century German unity,
is repositioned not as a static relic but as a contested site violently
repurposed- Hitler’s 1933 speech beneath its dome reframes it as a
temple of völkisch consolidation, where the language of liberation is
twisted into a justification for expansion and racial purity; the same
stone façades that once bore swastikas now stand cleansed, yet remain
embedded with the memory of orchestrated mass devotion. Archival footage
and survivor testimony reveal the mechanics of early terror and the
town’s reluctant reckoning- revoking Hitler’s honorary citizenship
decades later, renaming streets, preserving but not explaining the
Judensau- is presented as a microcosm of Bavaria’s broader struggle with
complicity. Even acts of remembrance are fraught: the American
soldiers’ memorial erected after a 1975 training accident, stands in
silent contrast to unmarked graves of forced labourers and concentration
camp victims whose presence is acknowledged only obliquely, if at all.
The narrative extends to satellite sites- Steinhöring’s Lebensborn home,
where racial engineering was normalised under the guise of maternal
care; Deggendorf, where a post-war Jewish DP camp emerged on the very
ground of a mediæval massacre; Geisenfeld, birthplace of Gregor
Strasser, whose murder in 1934 underscores the regime’s internal purges.
The result isn't a regional history but a forensic study of how
authoritarianism insinuates itself into the fabric of everyday life,
leaving behind monuments that speak as much through silence as through
inscription.
Sites Featured:
Mainburg, Siegenburg, Bayerisch Eisenstein, Ganacker concentration
camp, Wolnzach, Steinhöring, Osterhofen, Grafentraubach, Geisenfeld,
Schönberg, Deggendorf, Simbach, Weltenburg, Kelheim, Befreiungshalle,
Napoleonshöhe, Abensberg
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I
begin my focused exploration of the Allgäu region with Füssen’s
Generaloberst-Dietl-Kaserne, named after Nazi general Eduard Dietl, with
then-and-now photographs showing its renaming to Allgäu Kaserne and the
persistent Second World War mountain corps relief, capturing the
region’s unresolved tension with its militaristic past. I trace
Kempten’s Prinz-Franz-Kaserne, constructed for Wehrmacht rearmament, and
the nearby Dachau subcamp where prisoners toiled for Messerschmitt,
using visual comparisons to highlight enduring scars. Kaufbeuren’s grim
history under the T4 euthanasia programme, where thousands perished at
the district hospital, is illustrated through stark then-and-now images,
revealing a suppressed legacy. I cycled all the way to Ordensburg
Sonthofen, a Nazi training castle for party cadres, to present through
photographs the contrast between its monumental construction with its
current Bundeswehr use, underscoring a shift from ideological hub to
military base. I also get into Füssen’s prominence in The Great Escape,
with then-and-now visuals of St. Mang, Lechhalde bridge, and
Neuschwanstein Castle, linking wartime settings to their Hollywood
portrayal. By integrating these then-and-now comparisons, the site
offers a sobering examination of the Allgäu’s Nazi-era complicity and
post-war reckoning, whilst its cinematic role provokes questions about
how history is remembered and repurposed in a region defined by both
trauma and scenic allure.
Sites featured: Kempten,
Oberbayern, Oberjochpass, Oberstdorf, Kaufbeuren, Hopfen am See,
Lindau, Steingaden, Ordensburg Sonthofen, Neuschwanstein, Füssen,
Allgäu, Great Escape Locations, Generaloberst-Dietl-Kaserne, Prinz-Franz-Kaserne, Concentration camp Kottern-Weidach, Oberstdorf
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My
detailed exploration of Regensburg traces how a city that survived
seventeen sieges and two millennia of history was forced to confront its
own complicity in genocide. Using my then-and-now GIFs of the Steinerne
Brücke, I juxtapose Hitler Youth marching across its intact arches in
1933 with the same bridge dynamited by retreating ϟϟ troops in April
1945, revealing how the same stones that once carried crusaders later
carried looted gold and concentration-camp jewellery into the Reichsbank
vaults beneath the cathedral square. I follow the precise choreography
of Kristallnacht: NSKK men torching the synagogue on Schäffnerstraße
whilst mayor Otto Schottenheim orders the fire brigade to protect only
neighbouring buildings, then forcing 224 Jewish men on a 'Schandmarsch'
down Maximilianstraße beneath a banner reading 'Exodus of Jews'.
Present-day shots of the same street, now lined with cafés, force the
visitor to measure the distance between past and present. The page
documents how the mediæval Judensau still clings to the cathedral façade
whilst sixty stolen gravestones remain embedded in house walls as
silent witnesses. I trace the post-war DP camp in Ganghofersiedlung,
where 5,000 Ukrainians rebuilt lives metres from where Gestapo files
listed their murdered neighbours, and show how Domprediger Johann
Maier’s public plea for surrender in April 1945 earned him a noose, his
memorial now a discreet plaque on Dachauplatz. Finally, I use Hitler’s
1937 Walhalla ceremony- laying a wreath before Bruckner’s bust as the
Munich Philharmonic played- to expose how cultural monuments were
weaponised to sanctify territorial ambition, a scene I rephotograph from
the exact spot where Sophie Scholl’s bust now stands, asking whether
memory can ever truly displace myth.
Sites featured: Waldmünchen,
Flossenbürg Concentration Camp, Grafenwöhr, Schindler residence,
Weiden, Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Oberpfalz, Regensburg, Walhalla,
Auerbach, Kemnath, Judensau, Adolf Hitler Brücke, Hans-Schemm-Schule
Sites featured: Wunsiedel,
Kulmbach, Bayreuth, Bamberg, Bad Berneck, Coburg, Gefrees,
Hiltpoltstein, Naila, Forchheim, Staffelstein, Pegnitz, Behringersmühle,
Hof Saale, Hohenberg, Lichtenfels, Münchberg, Oberfranken, Schloss
Callenberg, Marktredwitz, House of German Education, Rotmainhalle,
Restaurant Eule, Behringersmühle, Hotel Bube, Bad Staffelstein am Main,
Hohenberg an der Eger, Hirschaid, Burgkunstadt
Located
in the heart of Bavaria, this region bore witness to the full spectrum
of Nazi policies and actions. Fürth exemplifies the party’s gradual
entrenchment: from a struggling 1922 branch facing SPD dominance to a
hub of SA intimidation and antisemitic violence, illustrated by the
Braunes Haus on Nürnberger Straße, its 1935 facade contrasting with its
post-war repurposing. The town’s Jewish community, once centred on the
Jakobinenstraße synagogue, was systematically erased-mirrored in
photographs of Kristallnacht’s aftermath and the mikvah preserved
beneath Pfarrgasse, now part of the Jewish Museum Franconia. Rothenburg
ob der Tauber emerges as a curated Nazi idyll, its mediæval architecture
romanticising “Germanicity.” Strength through Joy tours, documented in
propaganda imagery of Hitler Youth marches and the restored Burggarten,
framed the town as a timeless Aryan utopia. Yet this veneer masked
virulent antisemitism: wooden plaques at its gates, still bearing traces
today, spewed medieval anti-Jewish tropes, whilst the 1938 expulsion of
Jews was lauded as a 'liberation.' I juxtapose these efforts with
Rothenburg’s near-destruction in 1945 and its post-war reconstruction,
which prioritised architectural unity over historical accuracy—a silent
reconciliation with its compromised past. Erlangen’s reichsadlers on the
Amtsgericht and Friedrich-Rückert-Schule symbolise enduring Nazi
symbolism, whilst the Stadttheater’s wartime role and forced
sterilisations at the Frauenklinik underscore systemic oppression.
Zirndorf’s Adolf-Hitler-Platz, paired with a 2016 bomb attempt near a
migrant centre, links historical and contemporary extremism.
Sites featured: Wehrmachtunterkunftheim,
Remaining Nazi eagles, Schwabach, Roth, Zirndorf, Erlangen, Altdorf bei
Nürnberg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Fürth, Leutershausen, Hotel
Eisenhut
Another page illustrating Middle Franconia varied
roles in supporting the Nazi apparatus, but with a special focus on the enduring weight of memory starting with Dinkelsbühl’s
Kinderzeche festival, commemorating a legendary 1632 surrender to
Swedish troops, re-enacted annually with residents in period costume,
juxtaposed against chilling then-and-now images that uncover the town’s
fervent Nazi support, with electoral records showing 67.5% Nazi votes in
1933 against a national 43.9%. These visuals, paired with archival
postcards, contrast festive traditions with the stark reality of the
town’s embrace of Nazi ideology, evident in events like the 1933 glider
christenings named for Hitler. Then to Gunzenhausen, where then-and-now
photographs of the market square, once Adolf-Hitler-Platz, and the
desecrated Jewish cemetery highlight a community complicit in
anti-Semitic violence, notably the 1934 pogrom where two Jews died amid
mob attacks. Weißenburg’s Roman fort Biriciana is meticulously
documented through reconstructions and then-and-now images, revealing
its 2nd-century grandeur alongside its modern archaeological
significance, whilst the town’s Nazi-era renaming of streets underscores
its political alignment. Ermetzhofen’s Jewish cemetery, with its
neoclassical gravestones and symbols like the Kohanim hands, stands as a
testament to a vanished community, its history laid bare through images
contrasting past vibrancy with present desolation. Through these visual
comparisons, the content not only preserves historical traces but also
confronts the moral complexities of a region shaped by celebration,
complicity, and loss.Sites featured: Weißenburg, Dinkelsbühl, Gunzenhausen, Schwabach, Ansbach, Leutershausen, Roth, Ellingen, Allersberg, Ermetzhofen
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For
my exploration of Lower Franconia’s entanglement with the Nazi regime, I
look in particular at the early establishment of Nazi structures: the
formation of local party branches in Würzburg by 1922, the Palais
Thüngen as SA headquarters, the renaming of streets like Theaterstraße
to Adolf-Hitler-Straße, and the construction of institutions such as the
Gauhaus and Dr. Goebbels-Haus to consolidate control over students and
civil life. I bring to life through my GIFs mass rallies such as
Hitler’s 1937 speech at Würzburg’s Residenzplatz framed as a legal
revolution, whilst repression unfolded in parallel: the 1933 book
burnings on Residenzplatz, the forced sterilisations overseen by Werner
Heyde at the Welzhaus, and the deportation of Jewish citizens from
Aumühle station to Riga and Auschwitz. Industrial centres like
Schweinfurt became strategic targets due to their ball-bearing
production, suffering the devastating “Black Thursday” of October 1943,
which I document through archival images of flattened factories and
postwar ruins. My comparison images are used to confront continuity and
erasure: a Nazi eagle still visible on a barracks in Hammelburg, the
altered Studentenstein in Würzburg defaced by extremists, the rebuilt
old towns where little remains of prewar urban fabric. The aftermath of
bombing- Würzburg’s 90% destruction on March 16, 1945, the obliteration
of Gemünden’s mediæval core- is presented alongside American occupation,
the Volkssturm’s last stands, and acts of civilian resistance, such as
the women of Ochsenfurt who dismantled barricades to prevent further
bloodshed.
Sites featured: Kitzingen,
Würzburg, Niederbayern, Ochsenfurt, Lohr, Miltenberg, Aschaffenburg,
Unterfranken, Remaining Nazi eagles, Gemünden, Bad Kissingen,
Pompejanum, Schweinfurt, Hammelburg, Hitlerjugend schule, Adolf Hitler
Tower
My
detailed exploration of Augsburg’s Nazi-era legacy reveals how the city
became a fulcrum of Nazi power and war production. The webpage traces
Hitler’s early political foothold via speeches at sites like Café
Mamimilian, where his 1921 “Worker in the Germany of the Future”
rhetoric laid groundwork for local party growth. By 1933, Augsburg’s
Adolf-Hitler-Platz became a stage for Nazi spectacles, their
then-and-now imagery contrasting swastika-draped parades with today’s
scrubbed streets, where the Reichsadler still clings to the Landratsamt
façade. Central to the narrative is the regime’s architectural ambition:
Hitler’s unrealised Gauforum plan, designed by Hermann Giesler,
envisioned a monumental axis of power replacing Fuggerstraße’s
linden-lined boulevard. I juxtapose these grandiose designs with
post-war pragmatism; the avenue’s surviving trees now mute the regime’s
megalomania. Augsburg’s industrial role is framed as both engine and
victim: Messerschmitt’s Bf 109 production fuelled the Luftwaffe, whilst
Allied raids in 1944 reduced much of the city to rubble. The
Stadttheater’s destruction and the Rathaus’s reconstructed Golden Hall
exemplify fractured continuity whilst Nazi-era reliefs still adorn
buildings. The synagogue’s reopening as a Jewish museum contrasts with
the Hall 116 documentation centre, memorialising the subcamp’s
prisoners, a site only acknowledged decades later. Augsburg is a
contested space: its streets renamed, Gestapo headquarters repurposed,
yet its architecture and scars persist as unresolved dialogues between
ideology, violence, and uneasy remembrance.
Sites featured: Augsburg, Remaining Nazi eagles, Halle 116, Gestapo HQ, Synagogue, Gauforum, Nazi reliefs, Fuggerei
Cycling
through Swabia’s towns reveals a fractured regional memoryscape where
Nazi legacies persist beneath layers of selective commemoration and
uneasy coexistence. Memmingen, Nördlingen, Donauwörth, Günzburg and
beyond, where Nazi-era postcards confront contemporary streetscapes to
expose how communities negotiate complicity. In Memmingen, the
bricked-up Bismarck Tower and haphazard Alles stammt Heil art
installation- meant to condemn the Beer Hall Putsch yet abandoned in a
car park- epitomise the gap between commemorative intent and reality,
whilst the Siebendächerhaus, saved from bombing by citizens propping its
skeletal timbers, embodies resilience shadowed by the synagogue
foundations left from Kristallnacht. Similarly, Nördlingen’s mediæval
walls, built within a meteorite crater, frame contradictions: the
rathaus where Hitler rallied supporters now hosts stolpersteine for
murdered Jews, and the Reichsadler still crowns a war memorial fountain,
untouched since 1902. Donauwörth’s High Street, flattened by raids that
killed 285 civilians, shows how strategic destruction erased physical
traces yet not moral accountability, evident in the Hans-Leipelt-Schule
honouring a White Rose resistor executed locally. Günzburg’s enduring
tension centres on the Mengele legacy. I still try to avoid regional
homogenisation, instead juxtaposing specific scars: Altenstadt’s
synagogue site, now a kebab shop marked by granite steles; Hof’s
Christuskirche with its disputed Hitler-like figure beside Christ;
Aichach’s unblemished town hall where Nazi flags flew from church
towers. All highlighting how Swabia’s landscape absorbs violence through
deliberate erasures (painted-over Bismarck coats of arms), stubborn
survivals (intact Nazi eagles), and performative gestures
(schoolchildren placing stolpersteine).
Sites Featured: Oettingen, Donauwörth, Dillingen, Nördlingen, Günzburg,Wemding, Aichach, Hof, Memmingen, Altenstadt, Friedberg
A
deep-dive into Weimar’s complex history, capturing its transformation
from a cultural beacon to a site of political upheaval, using my
then-and-now GIFs to underscore its layered legacy. Weimar, once the
cradle of the German Enlightenment and home to luminaries like Goethe
and Schiller, became a hub for the Bauhaus movement under Walter
Gropius, with the Haus am Horn standing as a testament to its innovative
design ethos from 1919 to 1925. This sole surviving Bauhaus structure,
now an exhibition space, contrasts with the city’s later role as the
birthplace of the Weimar Republic, where Germany’s first democratic
constitution was signed in 1919 amid post-war chaos. This webpage delves
into Weimar’s darker chapter under Nazi control, highlighted by
then-and-now visuals of the Gauforum, a Roman-fascist-style
administrative centre built by Hermann Giesler, now repurposed for
Thuringian state offices. Archival images of the Hotel Elephant, a
frequent haunt of Hitler, juxtaposed with modern views, reveal how Nazi
propaganda co-opted Weimar’s cultural prestige. The site also examines
the nearby Buchenwald concentration camp, established in 1937, with
stark comparisons of its gate and crematorium courtyard, where American
liberators forced Weimar citizens to confront Nazi atrocities in 1945. I
further explore post-war shifts, such as the Soviet occupation and the
DDR’s Buchenwald memorial, which prioritised communist narratives over
broader victimhood. Through these visual contrasts, I present Weimar as a
contested space, grappling with its Enlightenment ideals, democratic
aspirations, and complicity in Nazi crimes, offering a sobering
reflection on memory and ideological manipulation.
Sites Featured: Buchenwald
Concentration Camp, Buchenwald Memorial, Weimar, Hotel Elephant,
Reichsstatthalterei, Deutsches Nationaltheater, Schiller's house,
Nietzsche Archives, Weimarhalle, Emmy-Göring-Stift, Thälmann memorial,
Ettersberg Cemetery
Cycling
from Bavaria, the journey begins at Cold War border scars like
Billmuthausen- razed villages now marked only by empty fields-where DDR
border walls severed communities, their remnants preserved as museums in
Mödlareuth. Archival photographs juxtaposed with present-day shots
reveal how Nazi rule seeped into daily life: Jena’s Volkshaus, where
Hitler rallied crowds in 1925 against 'Marxist' Zeiss workers, now
stands unadorned beside plaques noting forced sterilisations at the
university. These striking comparisons-Saalfeld’s bombed railway station
contrasted with its pre-war grandeur, or Nordhausen’s shattered Rathaus
flying swastikas versus its modern counterpart- force engagement with
uncomfortable continuities. At Blankenburg, a Nazi barracks repurposed
as a luxury hotel displays original postcards of war ensigns, whilst
Gera’s Osterstein Castle, scarred by 1945 bombing, overlooks streets
where Jewish businesses were "aryanised" . My analysis is grounded in
specific sites: Hummelshain’s seniors’ home, once a REIMAHG hospital
where 175 forced labourers died; Eisenach’s Fürstenhof, where Hitler
denounced "Jewish-capitalist bondage" before 7,000 listeners; or
Altenburg’s demolished marketplace, where 390 citizens committed suicide
under Nazi terror. I end by framing the 2013 Bad Klosterlausnitz spa’s
"romantic Kristallnacht" promotion as symptomatic of Thüringen’s
unresolved reckoning, where Soviet memorials coexist with erased
synagogue foundations.
Sites Featured: Egendorf,
Meiningen, Erfurt, Wasungen, Gera, Jena, Salzungen, Eisenach,
Sonneberg, Blankenburg, Nordhausen, Saalfeld, Thüringen, Greiz,
Quittelsberg, Oberdorla, Eisfeld, Gotha, Altenburg, Masserberg, Bad
Klosterlausnitz, Zeulenroda, Weida, Schmölln, Remaining swastikas
Today
in no other federal state in Germany are there so many properties that
are permanently used by right-wing extremists for political purposes; in
2012, by far the most neo-Nazi concerts took place in Saxony, almost a
quarter in a single inn in Staupitz in northern Saxony. The eight
members of the right-wing terrorist group Freital, who carried out
several explosive attacks on refugee accommodation and political
opponents in Freital and Dresden and were sentenced to several years in
prison by the Dresden Higher Regional Court for forming a terrorist
organisation and attempted murder or aiding and abetting, were active
here. The right-wing extremist NPD entered the Dresden state parliament
in 2004 and 2009 and in the 2017 federal election, the right-wing
Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the strongest force in
Saxony.
Sites Featured: Riesa,
Bad Brambach, Annaberg, Glauchau, Löbau, Frankenberg, Freiberg, Aue,
Zittau, Obergurig, Königsbrück, Rochlitz, Leipzig, Schkeuditz, Plauen im
Vogtland, Hohenstein, Eilenburg, Görlitz, Augustusburg, Zwickau,
Schildau, Geringswalde, Raschwitz Markkleeberg, Hammerleubsdorf,
Leubsdorf, Hohenstein-Ernstthal, Oschatz, Markranstädt, Schwarzenberg,
Neuhausen, Bad Düben, Schlettau im Erzgebirge, Crimmitschau, Bautzen,
Struppen
A
look at how a landscape of mediæval cathedrals and Bauhaus factories
became a laboratory of Nazi policy and post-war erasure. I juxtapose
Dessau’s Marienkirche, once framed by swastika banners, with the same
square now dominated by a statue of Leopold I, asking what visual
absences still speak. I follow the forced closure of the Bauhaus in 1931
and its 1986 resurrection as a museum, showing how architectural
modernism was first criminalised, then commodified. My page documents
the systematic destruction of Jewish life: Zeitz’s synagogue torched in
1938, Köthen’s deportations to Theresienstadt, Halle’s subcamp where
prisoners built Siebel aircraft under ϟϟ
guard. I embed the precise choreography of the Gardelegen massacre-
1,016 prisoners herded into a barn and burned alive- using American
Signal Corps photographs of local civilians burying the dead, then cut
to the same meadow today, now a quiet memorial ringed by suburban
houses. I trace how Ammendorf’s railway works expanded from 2,200 to
4,700 workers between 1936 and 1941, powered by 3,800 forced labourers
housed in segregated barracks, and how the RAF reduced 38% of the
district to rubble whilst production continued until three days before
the Yanks arrived. Finally, I show how the region’s post-war fate,
handed from American to Soviet control in July 1945, then dissolved into
East German districts in 1952, left contested memories: a Rathenau
assassination shrine at Saaleck Castle quietly replaced by a crude
neo-Nazi stone, and Bitterfeld’s poison-gas bunkers still sealed beneath
suburban gardens.
Sites Featured: Burg
Saaleck, Bitterfeld, Staßfurt, Freyburg, Gardelegen, Wittenberg,
Alsleben an der Saale, Zeitz, Torgau, Schafstädt, Köthen, Ammendorf,
Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Merseburg, Dessau, Tangermünde, Stendal,
Bitterfeld, Halle (Saale), Burg Regenstein, Zeitz, Blankenburg (Harz)
Braunschweig’s
status as the site of Hitler’s 1932 naturalisation-engineered through a
sham civil service appointment to grant him citizenship- is central to
my narrative here where I continue to use visceral site-specific
evidence, with then-and-now visual comparisons forming the structural
backbone of the analysis rather than mere decoration via Küchenthal’s
fabricated civil service post in February 1932, juxtaposing archival
shots of SA parades before the palace against its tranquil modern
counterpart to expose bureaucratic theatre. I chart
Goslar’s transformation into Reichsbauernstadt-Hitler addressing
700,000 peasants before the imperial palace in 1934 contrasted with
today’s unassuming square- revealing how blood-and-soil ideology
colonised mediæval spaces. Hanover’s narrative unfolds through the
Kröpcke clock’s enduring presence beside the renamed
Adolf-Hitler-Straße, whilst the Breker lions and defaced
Victory Column silently testify to monumental propaganda. I pilgrimmage
to Bergen-Belsen, where British bulldozers pushing corpses into mass
graves in 1945 are counterposed with Gauck’s 2015 tribute to liberators,
forcing confrontation with the camp’s dual legacy as site of atrocity
and post-war reckoning. Smaller towns yield equally potent evidence:
Quakenbrück’s "Jews unwanted" pool sign versus its current
Adolf-Hitler-Straße renaming; Hildesheim’s reconstructed
Knochenhaueramtshaus rising from 1945’s rubble; Celle’s Schloßtheater
reopening as Nazi cultural propaganda yet retaining its pre-war facade.
Forced labour permeates every locale, from Brunswick’s unprotected
'Ostarbeiterinnen' children dying in clinics to Hanover’s 60,000
enslaved workers shot at Seelhorst cemetery. Throughout I employ visual
dissonance like Tietlingen’s contested Hermann Löns grave or the
Besenmännchen sculpture’s survival to demonstrate how landscapes absorb
trauma without resolution, and memory resides in the space between a
photograph and its present-day echo.
Featured Sites: Bergen-Belsen,
Riddagshausen, Hannover, Stade, Goslar, Wunstorf, Hildesheim,
Bergen-Hohne, Niedersachsen, Braunlage, Braunschweig, Tietlingen, Celle,
Quakenbrück, Bernhard-Rust-Hochschule, Hitler Painting, Technischen
Hochschule
My
continued examination of Lower Saxony’s Nazi landscapes starts with
Wilhelmshaven's transformation under Nazism to show how this naval hub
became instrumental in Hitler's geopolitical strategy. I dissect the
harbour expansion programme begun in 1933, juxtaposing archival shots of
the Raeder-Schleuse lock chambers against today's functional
infrastructure to expose how naval rearmament masked aggressive
ambitions. I foreground Hitler's April 1939 town hall speech where he
declared Germany would "never tire" against British fury against the
unmarked modern square, demonstrating how rhetoric became policy at this
strategic location. Beyond military infrastructure, the page traces the
incremental Nazification of daily life: the Strandhalle's 1938
construction as propaganda architecture, the Neuengamme subcamp memorial
marking where French forced labourers cleared bomb rubble, and
Rüstringen's synagogue site now bearing stolpersteine for the 116
murdered Jews. I visited smaller locales where trauma persists beneath
surface normality: Bückeberg's harvest festival grounds now overgrown
but retaining Speer's Führerweg pathway, Norderney's Strandstraße
swastikas contrasted with its current tourist promenade advertising
"Jew-free" holidays, and Varel's Lichtspielhaus where Jewish shops were
looted now standing unmarked. Forced labour again permeates every
locale, from Wilhelmshaven's concentration camp prisoners to Norderney's
Organisation Todt workers building Atlantic Wall defences. By using
Uslar's repurposed Hitler Tower or Wangerooge's NSKOV holiday home now a
Seeblick hotel I demonstrate how landscapes absorb trauma without
resolution. This is an history where citizenship was forged in
deception, industry thrived on slavery, and memory transactional.
Sites
Featured: Göttingen,
Wittingen, Rüstringen, Bad Sachsa,Varel, Wilhelmshaven, Neuwallmoden,
Norderney, Delmenhorst, Bückeberg, Niedersachsen, Lingen, Bad Nenndorf,
Bad Gandersheim, Hamelin, Bad Pyrmont, Emden, Obernkirchen, Bad Grund,
Uslar, Wangerooge, Hitler Tower, Oldenburg, Varel am Jadebusen
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This
exploration of Dresden and its surroundings analyses the city's complex
role as a cultural metropolis under Nazi rule, its near-total
annihilation, and its contentious post-war reconstruction came out of my
preparation for my subsequent lecture at the 2023 AGIS conference.
Using my own then-and-now photography and historical analysis, I
document Hitler's only visit to the city in 1934, juxtaposing propaganda
images of Nazi rallies on the Theaterplatz with the rebuilt square
today. I look into the city’s cultural life, from the expulsion of
director Fritz Busch from the Semperoper to the Nazi repurposing of
institutions like the Hygiene Museum for their racial ideology. I
describe the systematic persecution of Dresden's Jewish population, the
book burnings, and the executions at Münchner Platz, chronicled through
the diaries of Victor Klemperer. I of course shift to the devastating
Allied bombing of February 1945, contrasting Richard Peter’s iconic
post-war photographs of the ruins with the restored cityscapes of today,
focusing on key sites like the Frauenkirche and the Zwinger palace. I
also visit nearby Pirna, documenting the Sonnenstein Castle's horrific
role as an euthanasia killing centre under the T4 programme. Through it I
offer Dresden as a case study in the layers of historical memory,
contrasting the regime’s use of cultural spectacle with the brutal
realities of persecution and war, and the subsequent, politically
charged processes of destruction and rebirth.
Sites Featured: Saxony,
Luftgaukommando, Dresden, Pirna, Radebeul, Adolf-Hitler-Platz,
Theaterplatz, Dresden-Friedrichstadt Hospital, Luftkriegsschule
Klotzsche, Tachenberg Palace, Zwinger palace, Villa Wach, Kulturpalast,
Frauenkirche
.gif "Hotel Handelshof Hitler Mussolini Nazis")
See how the Rhine-Ruhr heartland, once the industrial engine of the
Kaiserreich, was re-engineered into both arsenal and graveyard under
Nazism. I juxtapose Cologne’s cathedral, its twin spires still scarred
by fourteen wartime hits, with the same towers serving as a navigational
beacon for RAF bombers in 1942, asking what survival means when
everything around is flattened. The narrative focuses on the scale of destruction caused by Allied bombing campaigns alongside the harrowing history of Gestapo brutality at sites like the EL-DE Haus. Throughout I explore the architectural legacy of the Third Reich, specifically highlighting the Ordensburg Vogelsang training complex and other elite indoctrination centres. Through an archaeological and political lens, the text reflects on the postwar reconstruction efforts and the complex transition of cities like Bonn into modern democratic hubs.
Sites Featured: Bad
Godesberg, Ordensburg Vogelsang, Synagogue, Köln, Dortmund, Brühl,
EL-DE Haus, Essen, Rheinhotel Dreesen, Judensau, Erwitte, Remaining Nazi
eagles, Bonn, Schloss Augustusburg, Cologne, Rheinhotel Dreesen,
Universitäts Hauptgebäude, Bad Honnef, Reichsschulungsburg der NSDAP und
DAF, Remaining Nazi iconography
.gif)
Especial
focus is how Himmler’s triangular castle at Wewelsburg was re-imagined
as the mystical 'centre of the world', using period plans signed by the
Reichsführer and present-day photographs of the scorched north tower to
expose the fusion of pseudo-archaeology, racial doctrine and forced
labour that underpinned the project. I juxtapose the castle’s 1938
Obergruppenführersaal, where twelve ϟϟ
generals once gathered around an oak table beneath a black sun mosaic,
with the same chamber today, its acoustics now guiding schoolchildren
rather than consecrating a future Aryan elite. The page follows the
3,900 prisoners of the adjacent Niederhagen camp, 1,855 of whom died
quarrying stone for Himmler’s never-completed Valhalla, and shows how
their unmarked graves lie metres from the tourist car park. I embed the
precise choreography of Kristallnacht in Bielefeld: torch-lit flag
burnings on Schillerplatz, the forced sale of the synagogue for 56,000
Reichsmarks, and the last deportation train leaving the
Adolf-Hitler-Park on July 31, 1942. Finally, I trace how the British
Army’s post-war occupation converted the Ordensburg Vogelsang into a
Belgian barracks, leaving bullet-scarred torch-bearer statues to
confront hikers with the question of whether monumental stone can ever
truly be neutral.
Sites Featured: Bochum,
Herford, Werne, Übach-Palenberg, Münster, Teutoburg, Wewelsburg,
Hermannsdenkmal, Bielefeld, Düsseldorf, Moers am Niederrhein, Siegen,
Mülheim, Hamm, Gremmendorf, Nazi statues, Reichsmuseum für Wirtschafts-
und Gesellschaftskunde, Schloss Jägerhof, Remaining Nazi eagles,
Grevenbroich, Bad Hamm
.gif)
Aachen’s
cathedral- once draped in swastikas for Hitler’s 1932 rally- are merged
with the same stones scarred by American artillery in October 1944,
asking what continuity remains when the fabric of memory is rebuilt from
rubble. I follow the torch-lit parades in Krefeld down
Adolf-Hitler-Straße, the burning of two synagogues, and the first
deportation train of 1,007 Jews freezing toward Rumbula. The page
documents how Jülich, 97 % flattened in a single November 1944 raid,
became the backdrop for Churchill surveying ruins whilst Goebbels
shamelessly compared him to Nero. I embed the transformation of Schloss
Nordkirchen into a Nazi leadership school, its Versailles façade now a
Belgian art depot, and show how Warstein’s psychiatric hospital shipped
1,575 patients to Hadamar under the guise of euthanasia. I end with Wesel’s 97 % destruction followed by
Operation Varsity’s airborne landings, and Duisburg’s “Victory Bridge”
thrown across the Rhine in six days, leaving the city’s swastika-eagles
defaced but still perched above the rebuilt streets.
Sites Featured: Bad
Salzuflen, Lünen, Wuppertal-Barmen, Mönchengladbach, Rheydt, Jülich,
Xanten, Krefeld, Hagen, Selm, Viersen am Niederrhein, Wesel, Ibbenbüren,
Kempen, Duisburg, Horn Bad Meinberg, Aachen, Oberhausen, Hilchenbach,
Dreiländerpunkt, Hamminkeln, Glesch, Burg an der Wupper, Büttgen,
Tondorf, Hasten Remscheid, Warstein, Werl, Remaining Nazi eagles,
Lippstadt
.gif)
This
page documents the methodical process of Nazification, from the
hoisting of swastika flags on Speyer’s rathaus to the establishment of
Gestapo headquarters in Trier’s Hauptwache and the hostile takeover of
the Karl Marx Haus. I look at the architectural legacy, contrasting
images of the swastika-adorned Altpörtel with its modern appearance and
noting the survival of Nazi eagles on buildings like the Worms cathedral
and the Finanzamt in Alzey. A significant focus is the war’s
destructive climax, vividly captured by the comparison of American GIs
taking cover on the heavily contested Nibelungenbrücke in Worms in March
1945 with the same peaceful scene today through my GIFs. I document
pivotal events such as the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen,
the extensive bombing of Mainz, and the post-war Allied occupation. I
also managed to uncover unique local histories, from the use of
Bacharach’s castle as an indoctrination centre and Beilstein as a
Nazi-era film set, to the controversial rebuilding of the imperial
monument at Koblenz's Deutsches Eck. Here I try to use sites from
Frankenthal to Donald Trump's ancestral home in Kallstadt as case studies in uncovering the layers of political violence, wartime
destruction, and contested memory that lie just beneath the surface of a
seemingly tranquil landscape.
Sites Featured: Speyer,
Alzey, Ingelheim, Rheinbrohl, Neuwied, Linz am Rhein, Mainz, Trier,
Laubenheim, Remagen, Braubach, Bacharach, Koblenz, Landau in der Pfalz,
Schweigen-Rechtenbach, Coblenz, Kallstadt, Beilstein, Rheinzabern,
Worms, Werdohl, Frankenthal, Idar-Oberstein, Schifferstadt, Beilstein,
Remaining Nazi eagles
Here
I scrutinise the 1935 referendum not as liberation but as a theatre of
coercion, where bishops’ salutes and Goebbels’s covert religious
fronts, like the anti-Bolshevik exhibition smuggled via Geneva,
exploited Catholic piety for Nazi gain. Visual comparisons chart
Saarbrücken's transformation: the rathaus’s vaulted ceilings framing
both Hitler’s motorcade and modern bureaucracy, or Adolf-Hitler-Straße’s
renamed Bahnhofstraße, where Nazi parades once marched past the
Johanneskirche’s unchanged spire. Outlining collaboration and complicity, I look at how Saarbrücken’s synagogue fell during Reichskristallnacht,
whilst the Neue Bremm camp- hidden beyond the city limits- funneled
thousands toward extermination. Wartime devastation is rendered starkly:
Bahnhofstraße’s skeletal ruins after 1944 bombings contrast with its
rebuilt uniformity, and the Ludwigskirche’s shattered nave mirrors the
region’s fractured identity. Then and now sequences frame contested
memory: the Winterberg Monument’s dynamited plinth, where a Nazi-lit
beacon once glared toward France, now overlooks overgrown foundations;
or the Saarlouis courthouse, its defiant Nazi eagle excised but the
structure’s authoritarian bulk intact. I question why fascist reliefs on
the Saarländisches Staatstheater or Casa Littoria lack explanatory
plaques whilst the narrative lingers on absences: vanished synagogues,
the Hindenburgturm’s toppled eagles, or the unmarked graves of forced
labourers. Ultimately, the webpage frames this tiny region as a
palimpsest of power, where Roman roads, Prussian memorials, and Nazi
forums compete beneath Allied-bombed streets, a landscape demanding
confrontation, not commemoration.
Sites Featured: Galgenbergturm,
Spiesen-Elversberg, Saarlouis, Höchen Bexbach im Saarpfalz, Merzig,
Hanau im Mainz, Dillingen, Saar, Saarbrücken, Bad Hersfeld, St. Wendel,
Quierschied, Winterberg Monument, Saarländisches Staatstheater,
Hindenburgturm
My
brief look at Schleswig-Holstein, Pomerania and Mecklenburg under Nazi
rule traces a landscape reshaped by ideology, militarism and collective
amnesia- swastikas draped over town halls in Kiel and Lübeck, Hitler
Youth marching through Quickborn, the Thingplatz at Bad Segeberg
repurposed from quarry to ideological stage. My then-and-now comparisons
don't merely illustrate change; they confront the persistence of form
amid shifts in meaning; the naval academy in Flensburg still stands as
the “Red Castle,” its Nazi eagle preserved above the entrance, whilst
Bismarck’s mausoleum, bombed in error, remains a site of pilgrimage and
propaganda, visited by Hitler in 1939 as a symbolic prelude to war. The
Kiel naval memorials erected to glorify sacrifice at sea now gaslit into
memorials to peace underscoring a deliberate sanitisation of memory. At
Prora on Rügen, the 4.5-kilometre shell of a never-completed KdF resort
looms over the Baltic, a monument to failed utopianism, its scale
revealing the regime’s ambition to engineer leisure as a tool of
control. Sites of violence are rendered visible through absence: the
Jewish cemetery in Güstrow, burned in 1938, now marked only by a
wrought-iron fence; the synagogue in Neustrelitz, reduced to rubble
after Kristallnacht; the anti-Semitic sign at Dangast, replaced today by
grotesque parody. The forced labour camps embedded within industrial
towns left no formal traces, their victims uncommemorated. In Demmin,
the mass suicides of 1945, triggered by Soviet atrocities but rooted in
years of Nazi indoctrination, were suppressed under East German rule,
their memory buried as inconvenient. Even the liberation was marked by
horror: at Woebbelin, American troops discovered a satellite camp of
Neuengamme, where the dead lay unburied, and locals were forced to view
the corpses.
Sites Featured: Prora,
Kiel, Horst, Heiligendamm, Greifswald, Sylt, Demmin, Rügen, Adolf
Hitler Koog, Güstrow, Schwerin, Friedrichsruh, Pelzerhaken, Barracks,
Mecklenburg, Quickborn, Pomerania, Ahlbeck Heringsdorf,
Schleswig-Holstein, Bad Segeberg, Adolf-Hitler-Schanze, U-Boots
Ehrenmal, Flandernbunker, Kellenhusen, Thingplatz, Plön, Ahlefeld
Bistensee, Flensburg, Bad Arnis, Lübeck, Leck, Neustadt in Holstein,
Heide, Neumünster, Remaining Nazi eagles, Grömitz, Kappeln/Schlei,
Kellenhusen an der Ostsee, Rostock, Wismar, Neustrelit, Zingst, Anklam,
Kellinghusen, Haffkrug, Neustrelitz, Nordseebad Dangast, Kühlungsborn,
Schloß Ludwigslust
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We travel along the Neckar, anchoring
each location in a tight weave of archival documents, eyewitness
accounts, and precisely aligned then-and-now photographs. Beginning on
Heidelberg’s Alte Brücke, I follow SA columns across the same stones I
cycled in July 2022, before mapping the regime’s swift capture of the
university, the Thingstätte’s failed pseudo-Germanic ritual, and the
uneasy afterlife of Führer-era offices now masquerading as music
academies and art institutes. Karlsruhe’s vanished Adolf-Hitler-Platz
appears beside today’s market square, the overlap exposing both the
speed of 1933 renamings and the later scrubbed-clean city map. In
Freiburg, charred synagogue sites, the Möslestadion rally, and the
scorched Bertoldsbrunnen sit alongside contemporary street scenes,
inviting visitors to my site to gauge what restoration chooses to
foreground or forget. Stuttgart’s Killesberg deportation ramp,
Schwetzingen’s toppled Jagdtiger embedded in a corner house, and
Reutlingen’s bomb-shattered market square complete a regional circuit
that treats ordinary pavements as contested archives. Throughout,
detailed captions track electoral figures, firing dates, bombing
tonnage, and post-war planning decisions, challenging visitors to
consider how civic pride, commercial opportunism, and deliberate neglect
shape present landscapes.
Sites Featured: Öschelbronn,
Stuttgart, Esslingen, Konstanz,Thingstätte, Freiburg, Karlsruhe,
Hechingen, Obertürkheim, Durlach, Heidelberg, Fruchtsäule, Schwetzingen,
Bismarckturm, Wilhelmspalais, Stuttgarter Polizeipräsidium, Panzer
Kaserne, Tompkins Barracks, Grenadierdenkmal, Karlsruhe Badisches
Innenministerium, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Adolf-Hitler-Haus,
Möslestadion, Remaining Nazi eagles, Reutlingen
This
webpage provides a detailed, visually-driven account of German
locations transformed during the Nazi era, using archival and
contemporary photographs to contrast past and present. It documents how
towns like Offenburg (renamed Adolf-Hitler-Straße, synagogue destroyed)
and Mannheim (90% of municipal posts Nazified, industrial rearmament,
near-total Allied bombing destruction) were systematically altered. Key
sites include Kehl am Rhein, where Hitler visited a factory in 1939 and
the population was forcibly evacuated; Schwäbisch Hall, featuring a
Sparkasse still bearing a Nazi eagle and the repurposed Neues
Krankenhaus; and Tübingen, where the University became a hub for racial
pseudoscience and forced sterilisations.Visual comparisons are central:
Rexingen’s synagogue site, Göppingen’s 1938 Nazi war memorial, and Sir
Francis Drake’s statue in Offenburg all show deliberate erasure.
Friedrichshafen highlights forced labour use in Zeppelin factories and
wartime bombing devastation. Ulm’s Oberer Kuhberg concentration camp and
the leaning Metzgerturm underscore everyday complicity. Post-war
legacies persist: Blaustein’s site of Rommel's forced suicide, Schloss
Lichtenstein's potential papal internment plan, and Todtnau’s Hitler
Youth hostel now repurposed. Ongoing Nazi symbols remain, such as eagles
on Donaueschingen’s town hall and Heidenheim an der Brenz’s surviving
architecture. The webpage catalogues these locations, offering a sober
record of physical spaces altered by ideology, with present-day images
revealing contested preservation, demolition, or reuse.
Sites Featured: Radolfzell,
Laufenburg, Pfullingen, Villingen-Schwenningen, Offenburg,
Friedrichshafen,Tübingen, Schönau, Breisach, Schwäbisch Hall, Rexingen,
Maulbronn, Ulm, Altenstadt, Mannheim, Schlageter's grave, Breisach am
Oberrhein, Rommel's grave, Rommel's home, Blaustein, Dilsberg, Schloss
Lichtenstein, Metzgerturm, Todtnau, Remaining Nazi eagles, Göppingen,
Donaueschingen, Heidenheim an der Brenz, Kloster Maulbronn, Neues
Krankenhaus Diakonie-Klinikum, Kinzigdamm, Sir Francis Drake memorial,
Ebingen
Through a series of historical photographs and contemporary images of Nazi-era towns in Württemberg,
the narrative traces how local communities were systematically
dismantled and reshaped under Nazi governance. Each town's account
demonstrates a consistent pattern: democratically elected officials were
ousted, Jewish communities were progressively marginalised, and civic
institutions were forcibly aligned with Nazi ideology. Heilbronn’s town
hall draped in swastikas beside its present-day facade, the Rosenberg
Bridge’s surviving Nazi eagle, the Theresienwiese bunker’s austere
structure all anchor the narrative in physical continuity. In Heilbronn,
the forced Gleichschaltung of civic institutions, the eradication of
Jewish life culminating in Kristallnacht, and the use of salt mines for
both war production and looted art storage illustrate the town’s role in
systemic repression and industrial complicity. The December 1944
bombing, which killed 6,500 and reduced the centre to rubble, is
memorialised annually, yet the postwar reconstruction and reuse of
Nazi-era buildings reflect a selective engagement with the past.
Schwäbisch Gmünd’s war memorial, stripped of its swastika but preserved
through postwar debate, embodies the tension between erasure and
remembrance, whilst the fate of its Jewish population underscores the
incremental brutality of local persecution. Aalen’s market square, once
festooned for Hitler’s birthday, now hosts stolpersteine that name
victims like Karl Schiele, whose resistance and posthumous vindication
reveal the cost of defiance. Schloss Sigmaringen’s brief existence as
the Vichy regime’s final refuge highlights the absurdity and desperation
of collaboration’s end. Crailsheim’s near-total destruction during
fierce fighting and its functionalist postwar redesign reject historical
replication, symbolising a forced rupture with the past.
Sites Featured:
Lörrach, Böblingen, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Amstetten, Ravensburg, Hardheim,
Cannstatt, Ebingen, Ludwigsburg, Gengenbach, Nagold, Aalen, Heilbronn,
Bräunlingen, Waldhilsbach, Schirenhof, Wiesendorf concentration camp,
Weingarten, Schloss Sigmaringen, Böblingen, Schloß Kapfenburg,
Esslingen, Künzelsau, Obertürkheim, Remaining Nazi eagles, Bad
Cannstatt, Gengenbach, Crailsheim, Freistett
My focus on Nazi-era Hesse through juxtaposed historical
and contemporary imagery examines how Frankfurt’s Römerberg, where
students burned books to Heine’s prescient warning about burning people,
now bears only a discreet plaque acknowledging this atrocity, its
ox-cart pyre site obscured by modern commerce. Similarly, the IG Farben
Building, once central to nerve gas experiments and forced labour,
retains its travertine façade whilst housing Goethe University, its
Eisenhower-era legacy overshadowing its darker past. Darmstadt’s
Luisenplatz, where Hitler prophesied six million unemployed in April
1932, now stands unadorned, its firestorm devastation of September 1944
memorialised only in the city’s reconstructed plainness. I trace how
sites like Marburg’s university, where Papen’s defiant 1934 speech
preceded the Night of the Long Knives, retain subtle scars: defaced
eagles, repurposed barracks, and unmarked foundations where synagogues
stood. These comparisons reveal not passive decay but active, calculated
erasure where Nazi eagles linger on Luftschutzbunkers in Offenbach
while swastikas are smoothed away, or where Kassel’s firestorm ruins
were rebuilt without acknowledging the 10,000 lives lost. Here the
physical landscape confronts the persistent tension between remembering
and rebuilding, demanding we see beyond the plaques to the spaces
deliberately left uninterpreted.
Sites Featured: Frankfurt,
Windecken, Gießen, Saalburg, Niederwalddenkmal, Darmstadt, Wiesbaden,
Bad Wildungen, Remaining Nazi eagles, Kassel, Runkel, Bad Homburg,
Fritzlar, Hitlerturm, Offenbach am Main, Marburg, Naumburg, Rotenburg an
der Fulda, Bad Sooden-Allendorf, Erlensee, Schloß Dehrn, Rüdesheim,
Fliegerdenkmal, Wasserkuppe
Austria
This
webpage examines Upper Austria's complex relationship with Nazi
history, focusing on sites connected to Hitler's early life and the
region's transformation under Nazi rule. I begin with Hitler's
birthplace in Braunau am Inn, detailing the building's architectural
history and its post-war fate as a contested memorial site. I explore
Hitler's formative years through Linz, where he attended school and
later envisioned grandiose urban redesigns as Führer. We go on to Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camps where details like the
'Stairs of Death' and the 1945 'Mühlviertel rabbit hunt' massacre reveal
the camps’ brutality, whilst post-war images show Austrians burying
victims on the ϟϟ
football pitch. Gusen’s crematorium, preserved only after survivor
protests, now sits ignored in a housing estate. I avoid moralising but
rather highlight tensions in preserving these sites: Hitler’s parents’
grave in Leonding dismantled in 2012 after neo-Nazi visits, whilst the
Burschenschafterturm tower’s Nazi-era slogan was controversially
replaced with a German-nationalist logo. I also cycled to lesser-known
sites like Fischlham, where Hitler attended primary school, and
Leonding, where his family lived, throughout presenting details about
architectural changes, administrative decisions, and ongoing debates
over remembrance.
Sites Featured: Braunau
am Inn, Gusen, Leonding, Mauthausen Concentration camp, Fischlham,
Linz, Hitler's birthplace, Hitler's schools, Adolf Eichmann residence,
Nibelungen Bridge, Burschenschafterturm, Hitler's parents gravesite,
Where Hitler's father died
The
result of two research visits I made to Vienna to explore its
transformation under Nazi occupation and its post-war reckoning with
memory and architectural amnesia, exemplified by the Loos Haus, a
pre-war modernist provocation now tainted by Nazi propaganda shrines,
and the Heldenplatz, where Hitler’s 1938 rally balcony remains sealed
yet still evokes its toxic history. I juxtapose Hitler’s crude
watercolours of Vienna, devoid of human nuance, with the empty
pragmatism of his political rise, asking whether æsthetic failure masked
ideological fervour. Integrating archival images of Nazi rallies
against post-war rubble, I underscore Vienna’s role as a stage for
fascist spectacle and Allied occupation, whilst highlighting monuments
like the Stalin statue on Schwarzenbergplatz- now defaced with Ukrainian
colours- to reflect shifting political sympathies. I use The Third Man
as a lens to critique Cold War-era denial, noting how the film’s
nostalgic portrayal of bombed-out Vienna obscured recent horrors.
Similarly, Vienna’s Jewish community is shown fighting posthumous
erasure: the Judenplatz memorial’s controversial design, which
abstractly honours victims as 'nameless books' sparks debate over
whether æstheticisation risks diluting guilt. Neglected details- a
swastika hidden in a Ferris wheel scene, the persistence of Nazi-era
police uniforms- refuse easy catharsis to show Vienna as a city where
every reconstructed facade and contested monument testifies to the
instability of memory itself.
Sites Featured:
St. Charles's church, Vienna State Opera House, Chancellery, Hotel
Imperial, Heldenplatz, Hofburg, Äußeres Burgtor, Loos Haus,
Michaelerplatz, Burgtheater, Holocaust memorial, Gauhaus,
Adolf-Hitler-Platz, Urania, Schönbrunn palace
Apart
from the various ski resorts frequented by the wife and kid, this
webpage examines key locations across Austria that were transformed
under Nazi rule, focusing on their wartime roles and post-war legacies.
The Kaiservilla in Bad Ischl, where Franz Joseph signed the declaration
of war in 1914, later became a Nazi administrative site. Dürnstein, a
picturesque Wachau town, saw its history co-opted by Nazi propaganda,
including dubious claims about Hitler’s artwork. Melk’s Baroque abbey
overlooked a brutal subcamp of Mauthausen where thousands perished in
underground armaments production. St. Pölten, renamed and reshaped as a
Nazi stronghold, witnessed the expulsion of its Jewish population and
heavy Allied bombing. The analysis extends to Alpine regions like Zell
am See, a Nazi leisure destination that also hosted forced labour camps,
and Kitzbühel, where prominent Nazis vacationed whilst resistance
members were executed. Innsbruck’s mediæval streets became battlegrounds
during Allied air raids targeting the Brenner railway, whilst
Salzburg’s cultural landmarks were repurposed for Nazi pageantry,
including the infamous book burning at Residenzplatz. As always I
contrast archival images with contemporary views of these sites, now
stripped of overt fascist symbolism but still bearing scars to document
the tension between preservation and erasure.
Sites Featured: Döbling,
Amstetten, Kufstein, Zell am See, Innsbruck, Kapfenberg, Salzburg,
Dürnstein, Bad Ischl, Styria, Friesach, Kitzbühel, Melk, Lienz, Bad
Leonfelden, Bad Radkersburg, Gröbming, St. Pölten, Traismauer,
Wolfgangsee
ITALY
My
exploration of Rome’s transformation under Fascist rule, particularly
during Adolf Hitler’s 1938 visit, reveals a city reshaped to project
Mussolini’s vision of a new Roman Empire, blending ancient grandeur with
fascist propaganda. Through then-and-now GIFs and historical analysis, I
examine key sites like Roma Ostiense station, built to welcome Hitler
with a Travertine marble façade and fascist mosaics, including a map of
the Roman Empire framed by a triumphal arch. The station’s decorations,
such as the German eagle and swastika alongside murals glorifying Nazism
and Fascism, underscored Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler. The nearby
Viale Adolfo Hitler, now Viale delle Cave Ardeatine, led to monumental
routes like Via dei Trionfi and Via dell’Impero, showcasing Rome’s
imperial past while masking the destruction of 40,000 square yards of
historic neighborhoods. The Palazzo Venezia, Mussolini’s stage for
speeches, and the Vittoriano, a backdrop for fascist displays, remain
potent symbols, though now repurposed as cultural sites. The Foro
Mussolini (now Foro Italico), with its enduring Mussolini Obelisk, and
the EUR district’s Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, with arches
symbolising Mussolini’s name, reflect Fascism’s architectural legacy.
The Ara Pacis and Mausoleum of Augustus, excavated and relocated to
glorify Mussolini as a modern Augustus, contrast with their current
museum settings. Sites like the Colosseum, once a stage for fascist
rallies, and the Via Rasella, marked by bullet holes from a 1944
resistance attack, bear witness to both oppression and defiance.
Featured Sites: Accademia
Fascista, Quirinal, Via dell’Impero, EUR, Stadio dei Marmia, Stadio dei
Marmi, Termini, Florence, Colosseum, Roma Ostiense, Naples, Foro
Mussolini, Palazzo Venezia, Palazzo Braschi, Via Rasella, Porta San
Paolo, Via Nazionale, Porta San Giovanni, Campidoglio, Capitoline Hill,
Piazza Augusto Imperatore, Ara Pacis, Piazza del Popolo, Castel
Sant'Angelo, EIAR, Caserna Mussolini, Viale Romania, Viale Regina Elena,
Via del Mare, Piazza Bocca della Verità, San Giorgio in Velabro, Arch
of Janus, Largo Argentina, MVSN, Via del Circo Massimo, Curia Julia,
Palazzo degli Uffici dell’Ente Autonomo, Basilica of Maxentius, Campo
Roma
Ruled
by two fascist dictatorships, South Tyrol's unique history and
cultural identity is shaped by its location at the crossroads of
Germanic
and Latin cultures. This webpage interrogates Bolzano’s entangled
legacies, probing how architecture and terrain became instruments of
power across imperial, fascist, and democratic regimes. I scrutinise the
city’s contested identity through the physical remnants of its past,
deploying archival and contemporary imagery to chart transformations.
Visual comparisons anchor the narrative, exposing how neoclassical
ambitions yielded to Mussolini’s rationalist impositions- witness the
Victory Monument’s triumphal arch, its fasces columns and arrow-wielding
goddess still dominating Waltherplatz, or the railway station’s
fascist-era statues framing identical platforms today. The lens lingers
on structures repurposed yet unresolved: the Casa Littoria’s Mussolini
frieze overlooking finance offices, the INFPS building’s defaced
insignia, or the courthouse’s unblinded Justitia. My then and now sequences frame
resilience: Laurin Fountain’s shattered fragments reassembled before the
parliament, or overgrown Temple foundations near Königsplatz echoing
South Tyrol’s own scarred earth. Ötzi’s glacier-encased remains,
juxtaposed against Great War soldiers thawing from Dolomite ice,
underscore humanity’s fragile imprint.
Featured Sites: Bozen,
Chiusa, Alto Adige, Bolzano, Bressanone, Klausen, Brixen, Elephant
Hotel, Victory Monument, INA Headquarters, Headquarters of the fascist
party (PNF), Casa Littoria, Piazza del Tribunale, Viale Giulio Cesare,
INFPS, Gestapo Headquarters
CZECHIA
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Sites featured: Gestapo
Headquarters, Cernínský Palác, Hradcany Castle, Wenceslas Square,
Deutsches Theatre, Operation Anthropoid, Commonwealth War Cemetery,
Prague, Winston Churchill Square, Stalin Monument, Czech Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, New Jewish Cemetery, Soviet Cemetery, Maisel Synagogue,
Armadni Muzeum, National Museum, Staromestske Namesti, Charles Bridge,
Rudolfinum concert hall, New German Theatre, Site of Heydrich's
assassination, Church of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Restaurant Krčma u
Parašutistů, National Liberation Memorial
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A
granular examination of the Sudetenland’s historical trajectory from
its contested status post-WWI to its annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938
and subsequent expulsion of its German-Bohemian population. I compare
archival imagery with contemporary photographs to show the region’s
transformation under Nazi ideology and the fraught post-war settlement.
Key sites such as Asch, Eger (Cheb), and Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary) are
scrutinised to reveal how Nazi authorities repurposed urban landscapes-
renaming streets, erecting propaganda displays, and co-opting historic
monuments to erase Czech and Jewish heritage whilst reinforcing Aryan
supremacist narratives. The inclusion of Hitler motorcade through Asch
and speech in Eger’s market square underscores the performative nature
of Nazi propaganda, contrasting with the region’s earlier multicultural
identity as part of Austro-Hungarian and later Czechoslovak rule. I also get
into the post-war era, detailing the expulsion of approximately 3
million Sudeten Germans under the Beneš decrees and the resettlement of
Czechs, Slovaks, Roma, and repatriates. Then-and-now images of sites
like the bombed Hotel Métropole in Sokolov and the derelict Hotel
Partyzán in Krnov illustrate the physical and demographic collapse of
communities, whilst acknowledging the systemic violence of expulsions,
such as the death march from Brno and the brutal 'blood court' in
Landskron. These accounts are balanced against Nazi-era atrocities,
including the destruction of synagogues in Marienbad and the
exploitation of forced labour in Falkenau’s subcamp of Flossenbürg.
Sites featured: Aš,
Cheb, Olomouc, Karlsbad, Nürschan, Liberec, Marienbad, Bratislava,
Eger, Jägerndorf, Komotau, Görkau, Kamnitz, Wildenau, Leitmeritz,
Czechoslovakia, Falkenau, Wiesengrund, Franzensbad, Sokolov, Lanškroun,
Konrad Henlein Platz,Straße der SA, Hermann Göring Platz, Adolf Hitler
Platz, Orlau, Orlová, Teschen, Cieszyn, Brno
France
My
examination of Strasbourg under Nazi occupationreveals a city subjected
to a systematic campaign of cultural erasure and forced Germanisation.
The regime’s immediate imposition of civil administration under Robert
Wagner initiated a ruthless effort to dismantle French identity,
exemplified by the renaming of streets, banning of the French language,
and removal of national symbols such as the Kléber statue from Place
Kléber. I spent over a week taking photos to juxtapose with archival photographs and contemporary images,
showing how public spaces were overwritten with Nazi iconography-
Adolf-Hitler-Platz replaced Place de la République, whilst Karlsplatz
erased the memory of the French general. The cathedral, a contested
symbol of Alsatian heritage, was seized and closed to Catholic worship;
Hitler’s personal interest in repurposing it as a Nationalheiligtum
underscores the ideological weight placed on architectural control. My
then-and-now GIFs integrated throughout highlight the physical
continuity of the cityscape against the violent discontinuity of its
political and cultural life. The University of Strasbourg was replaced
by the Reichsuniversität, a tool for ideological indoctrination and
racial science, where August Hirt’s grotesque experiments on Jewish
prisoners were conducted under institutional cover. The site of the
former synagogue, burned by Hitler Youth in 1940, now
marked only by absence, speaks to deliberate erasure. Today the city’s
scars- physical, legal, and moral- endure, embedded in its reconstructed
buildings and contested memory.
Sites featured: Cathédrale
Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, Place du Château, Karl Roos Platz, Gare de
Strasbourg, Adolf-Hitler-Platz,Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse, Reichsuniversität
Straßburg, Opéra de Strasbourg, Main synagogue
My
investigation of Alsace under Nazi occupation between 1940 and 1945
reveals a region subjected to an aggressive campaign of political,
cultural and racial reengineering, framed as a “reintegration” into the
Reich yet executed through systematic repression and ideological
violence. At Natzweiler-Struthof, the only Nazi concentration camp on
French soil, forced labour, medical experimentation and mass murder were
institutionalised. Prisoners from across Europe were worked to death in
the Vosges quarries to supply Speer’s monumental architecture, whilst
August Hirt’s skull collection project, using victims gassed at the camp
and later identified through forensic research, exemplifies the
regime’s fusion of pseudo-science and genocide. Public hangings, secret
killings and the burial of ashes in unmarked grounds underscore the
camp’s role as a site of total dehumanisation. In towns like Colmar,
Riquewihr and Kaysersberg, frontline combat during the 1944–45 Colmar
Pocket reduced entire villages to rubble, with civilians caught between
retreating German units and advancing Allied forces. Photos of ruined
churches, shattered homes and scarred landscapes are juxtaposed with
present-day views, highlighting both reconstruction and absence. The
persistence of stork nests on ruined gables, the survival of
half-timbered facades, and the quiet return of daily life contrast with
memorials to the dead and the unmarked graves of forced labourers.
Sites Featured: Jebsheim,
Lauterbourg, Provence, Alsace, Ostheim, Illhäusern, Mulhouse,
Riquewihr, Molsheim, Le Bonhomme, Ammerschwihr, Sigolsheim, Kaysersberg,
Kientzheim, Colmar, Munster, Bergheim, Verdun, Rethondes, Compiegne,
Boulay, Bolchen, Münster im Elsass, Douaumont, Maginot line, Rouffach,
Hill 351 memorial, Haguenau, Bergheim German war cemetery
Croatia
My
research in Split and Trogir uncovers layered histories of occupation,
destruction, and contested remembrance through then-and-now photographic
juxtapositions, revealing how successive regimes inscribed and erased
ideologies onto Dalmatian stone. My then-and-now GIFs bring the Ustaše
and the brutal Italian and subsequent Nazi occupations to life. I visit
the Palmina Piplović kindergarten which lost its partisan heroine’s name
in the 1990s only to partially regain it in 2024 after sustained civic
pressure, its adjacent informal public garden shaped by the same
citizens’ initiative. The Light House Monument preserves a fallen
unknown soldier grave, whilst the shipyard and scattered partisan
memorials destroyed after the Homeland War expose post-socialist
iconoclasm. Trogir’s Park Žudika once held the Franz Josef Monument,
blasted October 28, 1918, and removed March 15, 1919, its pedestal now
supporting a 1952 Monument to People’s Liberation. Fifteenth-century
Venetian Lions of Saint Mark, symbols of rule from 1420 to 1797, faced
nationalist obliteration in 1932 across Loggia del Consiglio, Town Hall,
Land Gate, Kula Svetog Marka, southern bastion, Church of Saint
Sebastian, Customs House, and Arsenal gate, their fragments alongside a
2005-unearthed lion housed in Trogir City Museum. The Dominican
Monastery of Saint Nicholas cloister integrates these lion spolia with
post-war rubble amongst Roman and early Christian remnants,
demonstrating how each era’s monuments overwrite predecessors in
perpetual cycles of assertion and erasure.
Sites featured: Palmina
Piplović public garden, Light House Monument, Split Shipyard, partisan
memorials, Park Žudika, Franz Josef Monument site, Loggia del Consiglio
lion, Kula Svetog Marka lion, Church of Saint Sebastiann, Dominican
Monastery of Saint Nicholas cloister, Trogir City Museum lapidarium
Several
sites associated with Hitler's service in the First World War hold
historical significance and shed light on his early life and rise to
power. One such site is the Ypres Salient in Belgium, where Hitler
served as a messenger for the German Army. Hitler's experiences in the
trenches of the Ypres Salient left a lasting impression on him and
shaped his worldview, contributing to his later militaristic and
nationalist beliefs. Hitler's time in this area influenced his later
attitudes towards warfare, sacrifice, and nationalism.
Sites Featured: Roeselare,
Becelaere, Lorraine, Hitler's artwork, Reims, Rethondes, Langemark,
Fournes, Ypres, Menen, Belgium, Compiègne, Douaumont, Vimy Ridge,
Messines, Fromelles, France, Ardooie, Poperinghe, Verdun, Arras,
Bayershof German Headquarters, Commonwealth War Grave Cemeteries, Le
Touret, Bapaume, Notre Dame de Lorette
Other
Visiting a number of sites in and around Munich that provided the locations for various films which include: The Great Escape, Das Boot, The Passenger, Last Year in Marienbad, Paths of Glory, The Three Musketeers, and Quax der Bruchpilot.
Deining's
Alpine backdrop, featured in The Great Escape's opening convoy,
contrasts with its modern appearance, highlighting unchanged landmarks
like the town church. Füssen's mediæval streets and Neuschwanstein
Castle provided iconic settings for escape scenes, with the Lechhalde
bridge and St. Mang's café vividly recreated. Markt Schwaben's
Ebersberger Straße, where Sedgwick steals a bike, and Großhesselohe's
former railway station, a Gestapo checkpoint, reflect wartime
authenticity. Oberschleißheim's Schloss Schleißheim, used in Paths of
Glory, juxtaposes the Great Hall's opulent court martial with its
historical role as a Nazi airfield celebration site. Nymphenburg Palace
and Bogenhausen's St. George's Church, featured in The Passenger, blend rococo elegance with WWII resistance narratives. Finally I take you into the interior of U-96 where Das Boot was
filmed and which can still be visted at FilmStadt outside Munich.
Through wartime photographs and contemporary views, the site captures
these locations' enduring legacy, connecting cinematic history with
their historical and cultural significance.
Sites Featured:
Deining, Füssen, Hopfen am See, Neuschwanstein, Pullach, Markt
Schwaben, Oberschleisssheim, Munich, Erding, Geiselgasteig, FilmStadt
Spent Christmas 2023 cycling around Vienna following the remaining traces of Harry Lime in order to explore the historical and cultural significance of post-war Vienna as depicted in the 1949 cinematic classic, The Third Man. By comparing original filming locations with their modern-day appearances, I illustrate how the city’s war-torn ruins and divided sectors serve as an essential character within the narrative. I highlights the film's authentic portrayal of Cold War tensions, specifically the atmosphere of paranoia, espionage, and black-market desperation under Allied occupation. Technical details regarding cinematography and sound design are discussed to show how the production manipulated real locations to achieve a specific aesthetic. I also connect various Viennese landmarks to the city's complex Nazi past and subsequent reconstruction efforts. Ultimately, I examine how the movie captures the moral ambiguity and social fragmentation of Europe in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
Sites Featured:
Zentralfriedhof, Schoenlanterngasse, Alserbachstraße, Spittelauer
Lände, Hoher Markt, Vermählungsbrunnen, Tuchlaubenstrasse,
Michaelertrakt, Wiener Riesenrad, Vienna Ferris Wheel, Morzinplatz,
Former site of Gestapo Headquarters, Am Hof, Judengasse, Shulhofplatz,
Mölker Steig, Hannakenbrunnen, Maria am Gestade church,
Schreyvogelgasse, Salesianerinnenkirche, St. Ruprecht's church,
Ruprechtsplatz, Ledererhof, Boersegasse, Tiefer Graben, St.
Ulrichsplatz, Josefsplatz, Neuer Markt, Schloss Belvedere, Justizpalast,
Schmerlingplatz,Hofburg Palace, Strauss monument in Stadtpark,
Beethovenplatz, Rathaus, Votive church, Schoenbrunn Palace, Belvedere,
Justizplatz, Wedding Fountain, Vermählungsbrunnen, Stephansdom, Lime's
apartment, Site of Lime's 'death', Lime's grave, Café Mozart,
Braunerstrasse, Portzellangasse, Marc Aurel Strasse, Metastasiogasse,
Minoritenkirche, Sonnenfelsgasse, Rennweg, Metternichgasse,
Salesianerinnenkirche, Wipplingerstraße, Judengasse, Shulhofplatz, Baron
Kurtz's apartment, Ballgasse
After
the game was released in 2018 which coincided with my family's tour of
Ancient Greek sites, I compared the sites from the game with how they
appear in reality and was most impressed by the level of research,
accuracy and creativity employed by the designers. Archaeogaming,
pioneered by Andrew Reinhard in 2013, merges archaeology with video
games, and this page compares the game’s meticulously crafted scenes
with their real-world counterparts. Guided by Drake Winston, we delve
into iconic sites like Athens’ Acropolis, Delphi’s Temple of Apollo, and
Olympia’s Temple of Zeus, blending historical accuracy with immersive
storytelling. Ubisoft Quebec, advised by historian Stéphanie-Anne
Ruatta, recreated Greece using over 13,000 reference photos and Google
Earth, ensuring authenticity in locations like Sparta and Mycenae. From
the Propylaea’s monumental gateway to the Parthenon’s Pentelic marble,
discover how the game balances historical fidelity with creative
liberties, such as anachronistic temples and fictional bronze gables.
Sites Featured: Athens, Delphi, Mycenea, Olympia, Sounion
In
2015 I travelled with my family down the Nile visiting numerous ancient
sites,f as always comparing them with how they might have originally
appeared. It features the Giza pyramid complex, housing the Great
Pyramids and the Great Sphinx, carved from bedrock around 2570 BCE, the
only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World. It explores Abu Simbel’s
monumental temples, relocated in July 1968 to avoid Lake Nasser’s
flooding, and Philae’s temple complex, preserved through UNESCO’s
intervention. The page showcases Karnak and Luxor, with their
sphinx-lined avenues and enduring hypostyle halls, alongside Kom Ombo’s
distinctive double temple, dedicated to Sobek and Haroeris. It also
details the Valley of the Kings, with 63 royal tombs, including
Tutankhamun’s, discovered in November 1922. Through vivid descriptions
and imagery, this site offers a deep dive into Egypt’s timeless legacy,
from ancient engineering to modern preservation.
Sites Featured: Esna,
the Pyramids, Cairo, the Sphynx, Kom Ombo, Luxor, Abu Simbel, Karnak,
Philae, Temple of Isis, Valley of the Kings, Temple of Hatshepsut, Aswan
Dam, Monument of Arab-Soviet Friendship, Mammisi, Temple of Philae,
Temple of Augustus, Chapel of Horus, Temple of Hathor, Trajan's Kiosk,
Avenue of Sphinxes, Hypostyle Hall, Akhmenu, Obelisk of Hatshepsut,
Sphinx Alley, Court of Ramesses II, Colonnade of Amenhotep III, Temple
of Hathor and Nefertari, Solar Cult chapel, Tombs of Ramesses IV,
Merneptah, Twosret, Setnakhte, Tutankhamun, Temple of Khnum
Twenty
years after having left Greece where I taught in the Peloponnese I
returned with Drake Winston, seeing how much has changed just in that
space of time post 2008-financial crisis. The Acropolis features
prominently, with the Parthenon, alongside its German occupation. The
Erechtheum's Caryatids, the Propylaea's monumental gateway, and the
Temple of Athena Nike, rebuilt after Persian destruction, highlight
ancient craftsmanship. The Roman Agora's Tower of the Winds, the world's
first meteorological station, and the Arch of Hadrian reflect Roman
influence. The Panathenaic Stadium, site of the first modern Olympics,
and the Lysicrates Monument, a symbol of ancient artistry, are featured.
Marathon's burial mound commemorates the 192 Athenian dead, whilst
Sounion's Temple of Poseidon evokes myths of Aegeus and Theseus. Through
Nazi-era photographs and contemporary views, this site captures Athens'
rich cultural heritage, blending its classical legacy with a resilient
historical narrative, offering a vivid portrayal of the city's enduring
significance.
Sites Featured: Sounion,
Marathon, Acropolis, Propylaea, Erechtheion, Parthenon, temple of Nike,
Areopagus, Arch of Hadrian, Temple of Olympian Zeus, Tomb of the
Unknown Soldier, Hotel de Grande Bretagne, Temple of Hephaestus,
Panathenaic stadium, Lysicrates Monument, Tower of the Winds, Gate of
Athena Archegetis, Library of Hadrian, Prison of Socrates, Pnyx,
monument of Philopappos, Academy, National Archaeological Museum,
Marathon Dam
A
few sites relating to the Nazi occupation but for the most part focused
on the sites found in Pausanias. Thermopylae showcases Leonidas’ 300
Spartans’ stand against the Persians in 480 BCE, with a 1955 memorial
and Nazi reenactment photos from 1941. Mycenae, Agamemnon’s city,
features the Lion Gate, Cyclopean walls, and Grave Circle A with gold
masks, linked to Homeric legends. Corinth displays the 6th-century BCE
Temple of Apollo and the Corinth Canal, dug in 1893 after ancient
attempts. Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games, offers the Temple of
Hera, Zeus’ statue site, and the stadium’s ancient track. Delphi, the
world’s navel, presents the Temple of Apollo, Charioteer statue, and
Athenian Treasury, tied to the Pythian Games. The webpage includes Drake
Winston’s site visits, archival images, and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
recreations, detailing Greece’s historic sites, from Spartan defiance to
Mycenaean treasures, Corinth’s engineering, Olympia’s athletic legacy,
and Delphi’s oracular heritage, capturing their cultural and historical
significance.
Sites Featured: Olympia,
Mycenae, Corinth, Delphi, Thermopylae, Tomb of Clytemnestra, Tomb of
Aegisthus, Temple of Atreus, Corinth Canal, Temple of Apollo, Beme,
Peirene fountain, Temple of Nemean Zeus, Temple of Hera, Heraeum,
Philippeion, Temple of Zeus, Athenian Treasury, Sacred Way, Theatre of
Delphi, Tholos of Delphi, Treasury of Siphnos
Returned
to Rome with Drake Winston, his mother driving the distance just to let
me bring my lorica segmenta in which to prance around and get
constantly hassled by the police. The highlight was fighting outside the
Colosseum with my son on Christmas morning with absolutely no one
around.
Sites featured: Arch
of Constantine, Colosseum, Pantheon, Basilica of Maxentius, via dei
Fori Imperiali, Trajan's Forum and Column, Curia Julia, Forum Romanum,
Temple of Mars Ultor, Temple of Castor and Pollux, Temple of Cæsar,
Capitoline, Arch of Titus, Circus Maximus, Theatre of Marcellus,
Aurelian Walls, Porta Flaminia, Arch of Septimius Severus, Arch of
Gallienus, Temple of Hercules Victor, Largo Argentina, Arcus
Argentariorum, Ara Pacis, Mausoleum of Augustus, Porticus of Octavia,
Arch of Drusus, Arch of Janus, Mausoleum of Hadrian, Pons Aelius,
Cordonata, Campidoglio, Statue of Marcus Aurelius, Column of Marcus
Aurelius, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Campus Martius, Stadium of
Domitian, Circus Agonalis, Pyramid of Cestius, Porta San Paolo, Via
Ostiensis, Via della Marmorata, Tivoli, Temple of Vesta, Hadrian's Villa
Besides
comparing as many of the sites as Drake Winston would allow on the day
whilst wearing my subarmalis and caligae with how the might have
appeared before 79 AD, focus is also given to the changes to the site
after the wartime bombing by the Allies when the site was held by the
Germans. I've also included some earlier images taken when I last
visited Herculaneum.
Sites featured:
Casa dei Cervi, Casa del Rilievo di Telefo, Porta Marina, House of the
Gladiators, House of Triptolemus, Samnite palaestra, Villa of the
Mysteries, Temple of Isis, Odeon, Large Theatre, Amphitheatre, Arch of
Caligula, Via di Mercurio, Via delle Terme, Via della Fortuna, Via del
Foro, Porta Nocera, House of the Bronze Bull, brothel, House of the
Faun, Casa dei Ceii, Porta Saliniensis, House of Fabius Amandius,
Fullonica of Stephanus, Via dell'Abbondanza, House of Ephebus, House of
the Tragic Poet, Temple of Vespasian, Stabiae Gate, Macellum, House of
Fabius Rufus, Forum Holitoriumis, House of the Fugitives, House of
Loreius Tiburtinus, Temple of Apollo, Forum baths, Stabian Baths, Statue
and Arch of Marcus Holconius Rufus
Took
advantage of a family holiday to visit various ancient Roman (and some
WWII) sites to present the historical evolution of Arles, Orange, Nîmes,
Glanum, and Aix-en-Provence, showcasing their past and present. It
features Arles’s Roman amphitheatre, restored for cultural events, and
Van Gogh’s Langlois Bridge and Café Terrace. Orange’s triumphal arch and
Roman theatre stand as ancient landmarks. Nîmes displays the
well-preserved Maison Carrée and Arena, reflecting Roman architecture.
Glanum’s mausoleum and arch highlight Roman conquests. Aix-en-Provence
includes Aquae Sextiae and the wartime Camp des Milles. The Barbegal
aqueduct and Montmajour Abbey illustrate technological and religious
heritage. Neolithic graves and the Chapel of Saint-Gabriel de Tarascon
add depth to the region’s ancient roots. Each site’s history, from Roman
times to modern restoration, is detailed with visual comparisons,
capturing their enduring significance.
Sites featured: Nîmes,
Arelate, Provence, Glanum, Orange, Carpentras, Nemausus, Barbegal
aqueduct, Aix en Provence, Gallia Narbonensis, Pont du Gard, Arausio,
Saint-Gabriel de Tarascon, Van Gogh Paintings, Maison Carrée, Temple of
Diana, Nymphaeum, Pont du Gard, Mausoleum of the Julii, St. Remy, Abbey
of Saint-Pierre de Montmajour, Hypogée du Castelet
I
currently live a three hour cycle ride from the very borders of the
Roman Empire, allowing me to visit remarkable sites and take part in
Roman reenactments including Augusta Vindelicum (Augsburg), a key Roman
municipium founded in 15 BCE, highlighting the Augustus statue at
Maximiliansplatz then and now, alongside its role as a trade hub. Castra
Regina (Regensburg) is depicted with its ancient Porta Praetoria,
Germany’s oldest stone structure from 179 CE, illustrating its military
and commercial importance. Sorviodurum (Straubing) reveals a thriving
civilian settlement with archaeological finds like the Fortuna
dedication stone, reflecting Roman frontier life. Abusina (Eining), a
well-preserved fort and UNESCO World Heritage Site, showcases
reconstructed foundations and the Caracalla altar, offering insights
into Raetian military history. The page also covers sites like
Cambodunum (Kempten), with its temple district, and the Raetian Limes’
watchtowers and forts, such as Weißenburg and Ruffenhofen, enriched with
artefacts and reconstructions.
Sites Featured:
Celeusum, Biriciana, Castra Regina, Abusina, Manching, Altmannstein,
Schirenhof, Castra Vetoniana, Hienheim, Augusta Vindelicum, Cambodunum,
Rustica Möckenlohe, Römerpark Ruffenhofen, Weltenburg, Dalkingen,
Mönchsroth, Regensburg, Augsburg, Passau, Straubing, Eining, Bad
Gögging, Weltenburg-Frauenberg, Hienheim, Pförring, Weißenburg,
Schwäbisch Gmünd, Buch, Mahdholz, Halheim, Dambach, Kreutweiher,
Kleinlellenfeld, Filchenharder forest, Pfünz, Sorviodurum
My historical and photographic survey of significant landmarks in London, focusing on their evolution from the Second World War to the present day during Drake Winston's first visit to the Mother Country . I explore how iconic sites like St Paul’s Cathedral and the Temple Church survived the Blitz, while detailing the origins of diverse treasures housed within the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Beyond wartime history, the page documents the engineering of modern structures such as Wembley Stadium and the scientific heritage of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. By comparing archival anecdotes with contemporary observations, I highlight the enduring legacy of British heritage and the preservation of global antiquities. Ultimately, my salute to London serves as a scholarly travelogue that connects mediæval knights, imperial history, and twentieth-century conflict within the urban fabric of the capital.
Sites Featured: British Museum, Temple Church, Natural History Museum, Imperial War Museum, Wembley Stadium, Royal Observatory, National Gallery, Abbey Road
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A short section devoted to my school, the Bavarian International School. Here I try to offer a detailed historical survey of Schloss Haimhausen and its surrounding district, tracing the site's transformation from a medieval fortress to its current role as the Bavarian International School. I explore the area's darker chapters during the Third Reich, documenting a local forced labour camp in Lohhof and the tragic Nazi euthanasia programme at the nearby Schönbrunn facility. It highlights the castle's significance as a clandestine storehouse for thousands of rare books from the Bavarian State Library to protect them from wartime air raids. Following the American liberation in 1945, the narrative transitions to the post-war period, featuring personal accounts from American soldiers who occupied the estate. Through the material I reflect on the modern preservation of these sites, using their complex legacy to educate current students on cultural resilience and the importance of remembering historical atrocities.
Sites Featured: Bavarian International School, Haimhausen, Lohhof, Schönbrunn, Unterschleißheim
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Berchtesgaden, Obersalzberg & the Eagle's Nest: The Alpine Nerve Centre of the Third Reich.gif)
Nazi Sites around Berchtesgaden: The Satellite Landscape of the Führer’s Mountain Headquarters .gif)
Schleißheim: Looted Art, Air Power and Forced Labour
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Split and Trogir: Partisan Resistance, Fascist Occupation, and Monumental Erasure.gif)
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Film Locations around Munich: 'The Great Escape', 'Das Boot', and Wartime Authenticity .gif)
Athens: Classical Antiquity, Nazi Occupation, and Modern Resilience
