Nazi Housing Development
The
government of Chancellor Brüning in 1931 established the small
settlement programme in order "to promote the population becoming
settled in the country to reduce unemployment and to facilitate
sufficient living conditions for the unemployed." The future settlers
were to be involved in the establishment of their own homes and gardens
and small animal husbandry to improve their supply in the economic
crisis. The Nazis took over the model because it fit into their
anti-modern and anti-urban ideology.
At that time it was necessary to build new healthy and cheap apartments in Munich. It has five entrances and thus five living units. In the first floor (Erdgeschoß) were stores. In the courtyard was a fountain with a sculpture of a drumming Hitlerjunge. The swastikas and the fountain were removed after war.
Google
Street view actually blocks the image of the entire building! Google
isn't known for respecting privacy, so could this have been pushed by
the authorities given the remaining Nazi-era reliefs?
The site on February 26, 1938 when it was officially opened.
It was reported at the time that
It was reported at the time that
[t]he topping-out ceremony for the new residential buildings of the Städtische Sparkasse, which will also include new rooms for the Sparkasse branch and the northern police section, will take place on Kurfürstenplatz Mayor Fiehler then points out that a number of needs resulted in the need for the new building, such as the space requirements of the savings bank, the police, the creation of apartments and the necessary redesign of the square to create an appealing urban design.
Starting in 1938, the blocks of flats with 37 2½- to 3½-room flats, a savings bank branch, a police detachment with affiliated shops and a coffee house were built. After the Second World War, house number 5 was the location of the Municipal Police Office North of the then Munich City Police for a long time.
The
coat of arms of Munich on the building with its form under the Nazis
and today. On the right the Nazi version reappears on the clothing of a
neo-Nazi in Munich.
Better photos of the building can be found on the the Munich thread at Axis History.
These
siedlung on Klugstrasse all have bizarre Third Reich, astrological,
masonic, and other obscure symbols over every door frame leading inside.
To me, it's incredible that they continue to survive and form the
entrances to people's homes:
The swastika is still faintly visible...
...whilst this one, dated 1933, is obscured by the shaking hands
Here the hakenkreuz has been erased, but the Nazi salutes allowed to remain!
Another excised swastika that completed the DAF symbol
And yet a couple have had their bizarre symbols completely removed.
The
left image shows swords and a steel helmet whilst the one on the right
reminds me of the lesson from the Disney wartime cartoon Education for Death...
Mustersiedlung Ramersdorf
The
settlement at Ramersdorf was opened on June 9, 1934 to serve as a model
for future settlement projects in Germany. Designed by Guido Habers,
this siedlung on Stephanskirchener Straße provided 192 homes with 34 different building types and
planned as an alternative to the multi-storey urban houses. The
ensemble is self-contained and , pursuant to the garden city idea
numerous green spaces. As executive architects, among others,
Friedrich Ferdinand Haindl, Sep Ruf, Franz Ruf, Lois Knidberger, Albert
Heichlinger, Max Dellefant, Theo Pabst, Christoph Miller, Hanna Loev
Delisle and Charles were responsible for the buildings. The hoped-for
propaganda effect of the settlement did not materialise because, among
other things, the generous living space for those days 56-129 m2 and
individual modernist elements were criticised.
After the exhibition, the settlement houses were sold as homes. In 1935
a Protestant church building was opened with the Gustav Adolf Church in
the settlement as shown in the then-and-now photos.
A number of frescoes remain, barely, from 1934:
St. Christopher on Stephanskirchener Straße 20. When I last visited in February 2018, it appeared to have been removed.
Further down at Schlechinger Weg 8 is this image of a German African colonial soldier. The original owner had served in Deutsch-Südwestafrika and designed the crest himself before giving it to the artist, Günther Graßmann.
Remarkably, the Adolf-Hitler-Brunnen still remains intact at Herrenchiemseestraße 44.
On
the base of the fountain a swastika with a lime leaf in raised relief
was etched and at the back was the following inscription:
DIESER·BRUNNEN·
WURDE·UNTER·DER HITLERLINDE·
UND·GLEICHZEITIG·MIT·DIESER·GESETZT·
ZUR·ERÖFFNUNG·DER·DEUTSCHEN·SIEDLUNGS·AUSSTELLUNG·
MÜNCHEN·1934
The
blocks of stone with the swastika and lime leaf above the water spout
were removed after 1945 as was the term " Hitler Linde". This fountain
is one of the 75 drinking water wells in Munich.
Another
water well at Törwanger Straße 2. In 1938 a small mosaic was set up as
seen in the photo with a swastika by the painter Günther Grassmann. The
mosaic has been coated with a thin layer of plaster and is left empty,
the well no longer in operation.
Siedlung Am Hart
The
Am Hart settlement goes back to the Reichskleinsiedlungsprogramm, which
Reichskanzler Heinrich Brüning had initiated on October 6, 1931 by
emergency order. The Reichsginsiedlungsprogramm was mainly for the
unemployed and provided for the erection of simply equipped housing
estates. All settlements were equipped with large gardening grounds for
the cultivation of fruits and vegetables and for keeping small animals
in order to allow for extensive self-sufficiency. After the end of the
Weimar Republic the National Socialists continued the program, but put
it into the service Their ideology. After two years of construction, the
Reichskleinsiedlung Am Hart, which was adorned with swastikas, was
officially handed over by Lord Mayor Karl Fiehler on September 8, 1935.
The expansion of the Nazi regime was reflected in the naming of streets:
Arnauer Strasse, Egerländerstrasse, Kaadener Strasse, Karlsbader
Strasse, Marienbader Strasse and Sudetendeutsche Strasse were already in
1934 after cities in the west of the Czechoslovak Republic or the one
living there German-speaking population, which Nazi propaganda wanted to
bring "home to the Reich" by means of a territorial union.
The
Volksschule at Rothpletzstraße 40 originally bore the inscription:
"This school building was built between 1938 and 1939 at the time of the
return of the Sudetenland to the German Reich." It remains unchanged
apart from the Nazi eagle which has been removed.
Siedlung Neuherberge
In August 1936, west of Ingolstädter Strasse, the Neuherberge settlement consisting of 169 small houses was completed. Those chosen to live here were selected according to criteria of the Nazi ideology. The settlements enjoyed a large portion of the garden for self-sufficiency and were intended primarily for poor families with many aryan families. Many of the settled settlers were employed as civilian workers in the neighbouring barracks or in the armaments industry. The central square of the settlement, the Spengelplatz, was originally named after a young Hitler Youth member. After the Second World War it was rededicated to the landscape painter Johann Ferdinand Spengel.
Siedlung Kaltherberge
In
1936-1937, east of Ingolstädter Strasse, the Kleinsiedlung
Kaltherberge, whose only direct access had ever been via
Gundelkoferstraße, was founded as a self-employed settlement for needy
workers' families. The Mettenleiterplatz is the centre of the
settlement, which originally consisted of 221 settlements. The Nazi
planners had originally named the square after one of the killed
participants of the so-called "Hitler Putsch" whom Nazi propaganda
worshipped as one of the "blood martyrs of the movement." After the war the place became after Johann Michael Mettenleiter, a copper cutter and lithographer. On December 4, 1945, the American Army confiscated all houses of the settlement, including the
facility, to accommodate about 2,000 Displaced Persons under the care of
the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRR).
Among those were numerous Jews from Eastern Europe who wanted to leave
Munich to the USA or to British Palestine. The previous residents of the
settlement had to leave their houses and were temporarily accommodated
by the Munich housing office; by 1949 most were able to return to their
homes.
Siedlung Neuherberge
With the ϟϟ-Deutschland-Kaserne in the background seen December 1938.
In August 1936, west of Ingolstädter Strasse, the Neuherberge settlement consisting of 169 small houses was completed. Those chosen to live here were selected according to criteria of the Nazi ideology. The settlements enjoyed a large portion of the garden for self-sufficiency and were intended primarily for poor families with many aryan families. Many of the settled settlers were employed as civilian workers in the neighbouring barracks or in the armaments industry. The central square of the settlement, the Spengelplatz, was originally named after a young Hitler Youth member. After the Second World War it was rededicated to the landscape painter Johann Ferdinand Spengel.
Siedlung Kaltherberge
Siedlung on Erich Kästner str.
This example of a siedlung consists of an huge building and on all four corners there are Third Reich reliefs.
The swastikas have been wiped out from the bottom of each relief
Similar decorative façade at the corner of Karl - Theodor and Mannheimer streets:
Another
surviving building from the Nazi era with its iconography intact (with
the colour still maintained) complete with reichsadler dating from 1936
found by odeon at Axis History Forum.
The Diana fountain on Kufsteiner Platz at the entrance to the Herzog Park in Bogenhausen. The Dianahaus in the background was destroyed during the war. It serves as a reminder that the area was formerly an almost impenetrable hunting area in Altwasssümpümpen within a meadow landscape with large deer. Thomas Mann recorded in his 1918 novella Herr und Hund his daily walks with his dog Bauschan in the immediate vicinity of his villa here.
The Diana fountain on Kufsteiner Platz at the entrance to the Herzog Park in Bogenhausen. The Dianahaus in the background was destroyed during the war. It serves as a reminder that the area was formerly an almost impenetrable hunting area in Altwasssümpümpen within a meadow landscape with large deer. Thomas Mann recorded in his 1918 novella Herr und Hund his daily walks with his dog Bauschan in the immediate vicinity of his villa here.
From
1933 to 1937 the Nazis set up Reichskleinsiedlung here at Am Hart,
Neuherberg and Kaltherberg after which time the housing policy
increasingly turned back to the multi-storey, which could be
accomplished more efficiently and cheaper.
pupils.
which was too small and an extension building as part of its southern
wing was opened in 1938. In 1943 the school building was damaged by an
air bomb. From mid-1944 to autumn 1945 no classes could take place.
After the war, over a thousand pupils were forced into the school, due
to the influx of exiled and displaced persons. It wasn't until the 1960s
with the construction of numerous school buildings in neighbouring districts that relief could be provided.
On
the right is the Advent Church in Aubing (a locality of Munich), owned
and used by a congregation within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Bavaria. The foundation stone for the church was laid on the 1st Advent,
1938 shown here and from thus the church took its name. The building,
planned by architect Horst Schwabe, was consecrated on September 29,
1940 by Oberkirchenrat Oskar Daumiller. Nearby at the intersection of
Hohensteinstrasse and Hoheneckstrasse was a forced labour camp owned by
the Dornier company which was built in 1941 and consisted of nine
barracks. A total of 833 people, including 144 women, are said to have lived there, including Russians,
Ukrainians, French and Italians had to live. It was destroyed in a
bombing raid on July 21, 1944; the number of victims is unknown. The
reconstructed barracks were occupied with German-born refugees after the
war. In the 1980s, a modern housing estate was built on the site of the
former camp.
This building at Mariahilfplatz 4, shown in 1934 and today where it now serves as an hotel, was originally used as an Hitlerjugend-Heim.
Pullach
From the time the "Reichssiedlung Rudolf Hess" was built nearly eighty years ago south of Munich over 68 hectares in size, the area above the Isar in the district of Pullach has been shrouded in mystery. A lifestyle and everyday life that was completely permeated by the Nazi ideology was to be realised here. "Sonnenwinkel" was the domicile of influential and high-ranking Nazis, above all Hitler's secretary and head of the Nazi party chancellery, Martin Bormann. Bormann noted Hitler's first appointment in Pullach in his pocket calendar on September 14, 1938: "Visit of the Führer in the Sonnenwinkel (long discussions with Ribbentropp in the Bormann house). Then drive to Obersalzberg." There, on September 15, Hitler received Neville Chamberlain; and also before the next meeting with the British Prime Minister, a week later, on his way to Bad Godesberg, Hitler scheduled another preliminary discussion on the Munich Agreement in the Sonnenwinkel House. These dates marked a new function of Bormann's staff leader villa: as a place of important political negotiations - admittedly without publicity and representative accessories. After
the Munich Agreement, Bormann was able to make the facility, attractive
to Hitler as a place for confidential meetings and discussions. However, the majority of the convivial receptions that Bormann gave for film stars and entertainers such as Marika Rökk or Hilde Krahl took place without any staged public attention - especially when Bormann entertained his lover, the film actress Manja Behrens.
Various Nazi locations around the Reichssiedlung Rudolf Hess
(aka "Sonnenwinkel"), built from 1936
by Roderich Fick (and later Hermann Giesler). The inhabitants of the
compound were mostly high-ranking members of the Stab Hess and
Parteikanzlei, among them Gerhard Klopfer, Gottfried Neesse, Helmut
Friedrichs, Herbert Reischauer, Edinger Ancker and others. But there
were some other Party officials living there as well for instance Walter
"Bubi" Schultze. Martin Bormann's house was later the living place of
Reinhard Gehlen. From 1943 to 1944 on the property east of Heilmannstraße the Siegfried headquarters was built as one of the Todt organisation's sixteen
headquarters. The Führer headquarters consisted of a central bunker,
defence tower, administrative and crew buildings, and was connected by
its own rail connection from the Isar Valley Railway. It was never used
as a headquarters.
At the site today, allowing one to see, as far as the barbed wire-covered wall allows, the architect’s design concept providing for spacious grounds in a symmetrical layout that were to be conducive to producing a community spirit. The one- and two-family homes that were situated around a rectangular green,were lined up to face the central staff building and were made accessible from today’s Heilmannstrasse via a loop called Sonnenweg. There was a large gardener’s shop with greenhouses, a car yard with workshops and garages and various houses for drivers and domestics. Despite the fact that the estate, which had been completed in 1938 and had been in use since was openly accessible to everyone, the individual houses were shielded from the public roads by head-high walls so that the privacy desired was maintained. Irrespective of the different sizes of the building types, there were recurring design elements in all the houses. They were simple, well-proportioned structures with steep roofs, strictly sectionalised facades with lattice windows that were let in flush with the external rendering and had folding shutters inside. It was characteristic that a uniform selection of simple materials was joined with a high quality of craftsmanship in the buildings of the estate. In their architectural type, they referred to a well-known antecedent from 18th-century architecture, namely to Goethe’s Gartenhaus in Weimar. 
The Stabsleiterhaus (Residence of the Head of Staff) lay at the centre of the estate. It was a representative villa which, on the ground floor, sported conference rooms as well as a music room, a dining room and a library, whilst the living quarters of the Stabsleiter Martin Bormann and his family was on the first floor. Bronze statues of the artists Josef Thorak and Fritz Klimsch, whom the Nazi regime patronised, were set up in the garden parterre which adjoined the south of the house and could be accessed through the large fireplace hall. The wing that had been added to the main building served as a maintenance building. The design of the garden had come from the landscape architect Alwin Seifert, who was responsible for planning all the open spaces and gardens of the estate. In 1939, the newly appointed Generalbaurat (General Building Surveyor), Hermann Giesler, took over the responsibilities of the architect Roderich Fick who had been appointed Professor of Design at Munich Technical University in 1936 and who was to become Reichsbaurat (Building Surveyor for the Reich) for the city of Linz later on. In 1943, he built the nursery school on the northern side of the communal green to form a counterpart to the Stabsleiterhaus. It was a building that was bound to the “Heimatschutzstil“ (“Style of Homeland Protection“, an architectural style favoured by the Nazis) in its architectural characteristics. The basement of the building was already converted into a shelter for the families living on the estate.
The Sonnenwinkel settlement was spared the direct effects of war for a long time. To protect against possible bomb attacks, the houses were given a dark camouflage. Until May 1943, the dictator was here for several days at least once a year. The area in an arch of the Isar was the perfect stop between Hitler's private apartment on Munich's Prinzregentenplatz and the Berghof above Berchtesgaden. However, the air raid shelter in the basement of the old building erected in 1914 on the lively Prinzregentenplatz could only be insufficiently converted into a driver's bunker. Therefore, since the beginning of air raids on Germany's cities, it made sense for Hitler to spend the night in the Sonnenwinkel when he was in Munich. Bormann had set up a bunker there. 
Albert Speer noted in 1944 that the system in Pullach, called "Siegfried" or "Hagen", cost 13 million Reichsmarks. That was more than a third of the Wolfsschanze and almost ten times the size of the new Führerbunker in the garden of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Whilst it hasd been assumed that Bormann had this facility built without Hitler's knowledge, in May 1943, during the last documented visit by Hitler, the 70.5 by 20 metre open-plan bunker must have been visible. The facility was generously equipped, especially if one compares it with the Berlin bunker. The more than thirty rooms were partly wood-paneled. The installations ran under the floor and met the most modern requirements - in Berlin, on the other hand, there were only earthenware tiles on the solid concrete of the floor slab. The usable area in Hagen was more than 700 square metres; in Berlin it was only a third. The ceiling was three meters thick, reinforced by a layer of 24 centimetre thick steel girders - only here was the Führerbunker in the imperial capital a little better equipped: with a total of four meters thick ceiling. A branch from the Munich-Wolfratshausen line to the restricted area was specially made to make the guide's journey more convenient. Two special trains could be parked side by side.
Although Hitler never visited the Pullach Führerbunker, the facility was used: Field Marshal Erwin Rommel prepared here in the summer of 1943 for the German invasion of the renegade ally Italy. Despite the fact that the Führerhauptquartier had never been used as intended, it nevertheless remained “in operation“ until the end of the war. The communications centre in the bunker was operated by signal soldiers and operators delegated from the Reichspost.
At
the end of March 1945, the families of the party leaders left the
estate. The next month most of the inhabitants fled to
South Tyrolia whilst the locals plundered the vacant houses. At the end of April, American soldiers occupied the area. The
total damage caused to the compound by aerial warfare was limited. Thus,
the bunker compound did not sustain any damage from the war, were
however ravaged by looters. A fact-finding commission of the American Army
that was there in May of 1945 rated the compound “modern and first
class." At first, the undestroyed buildings were used as accommodations
for troops passing through and as a prison camp, and for a short while
also served for sheltering “displaced persons”. In the autumn of 1945,
the Civil Censor Division was established, an institution for censoring
letters. The division existed until 1947 and then made room for the
“Organisation Gehlen“ in December. Because of the Control Council
Directive No. 50 of April 29, 1947, the freehold property was
retroactively transferred to the Free State of Bavaria in 1949, which in
turn sold the entire property to the Federation in 1962. In December 1947 the Organisation Gehlen moved
in. Eventually the location of the Führer Headquarters became the headquarters
of the intelligence agency of the German government, the
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), shown on the right from this time in 1979 before the agency moved to Berlin in
2014. This made Pullach a metonym for the BND just as Langley is for the
CIA. Some
of the buildings in the Reichssiedlung can be seen from the
Heilmannstraße via the BND wall although the site even today is not accessible to
the general public and photography is prohibited in the area of the
BND. 
Heinrich
Himmler's daughter Gudrun arranged Anton Malloth's stay at this nursing
home in Pullach, a supervisor of Theresienstadt from 1988 to 2001,
until he was sentenced to life in prison.
Just outside Pullach is the
former railway station located at Bahnhofsplatz 2 in the
Großhesselohe district of Pullach which, as with Füssen and Markt Schwaben, provided scenes for The Great Escape, shown here as Gestapo and SD arrive to search for the missing prisoners.with the site today. It had been part of the Munich–Holzkirchen railway line, about an hundred metres west of the Großhesseloher bridge. About
400 metres west of the station there is still the old railway bridge,
on which the Isar Valley Railway used to cross the tracks leading to the
Großhesseloher Bridge. The station was built during the construction of
the Bavarian Maximiliansbahn. The Munich – Großhesselohe section was
put into operation in 1854. Since the continuation of the route was
delayed by the necessary construction of the 300 metre long
Großhesseloher bridge over the Isar, Großhesselohe was the end of the
route for about 3 years. The next section, Großhesselohe – Rosenheim,
was not opened until 1857, and Großhesselohe station became a through
station. With the completion of the Braunau railway bridge in 1871, the
Großhesselohe station lost its importance for long-distance traffic, as a
large part of the long-distance connections were made over the shorter
new route. It was here in
1962 that the train station was used as a backdrop for the film The Great
Escape. For this purpose, the station building and the platform roof
were provided with a sign "Neustadt." 
Here Flight Lieutenant Robert Hendley (James Garner) helping the almost blind Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe (Donald Pleasence) onto the platform. Pleasence had
actually been an RAF pilot who had been shot down, held prisoner and
tortured by the Germans during the war. After offering advice to the
film's director John Sturges, he was politely told to mind his own
business. Later, when another star informed Sturges that Pleasence had
actually been a RAF Officer in a Stalag camp, Sturges requested his
technical advice and input on historical accuracy from that point
forward. A number of individual incidents shown in the film were mostly
based on fact, but rearranged both chronologically and regarding the
people involved as noted at the start of the film. In reality, of the 76
who escaped, three had managed to succeed whilst fifty were murdered in
reprisal, but in small groups and not all at once. 
After the escape and now masquerading as French businessmen, Flight Lieutenant Sandy MacDonald (Gordon Jackson) and Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett (Richard Attenborough) climb the stairs onto the platform at Neustadt station, now completely gone at the now closed Großhesselohe Staatsbahnhof. Whilst waiting to pass through a Gestapo checkpoint at a railway station, Bartlett is recognized by Kuhn, a Gestapo agent; Ashley-Pitt sacrifices himself by killing Kuhn, and is shot and killed. Bartlett and MacDonald slip away, but MacDonald blunders by replying in English to a suspicious Gestapo officer. MacDonald is quickly apprehended, and Bartlett is recognised and recaptured by Untersturmführer Steinach, an ϟϟ agent.
Based
loosely on a true story based on Paul Brickhill's 1950 book about the
real-life mass escape by British Commonwealth PoWs from Stalag Luft III
in Sagan (now Żagań, Poland), the first part of the film focuses on the
escape efforts within the camp and the process of secretly digging an
escape tunnel. The second half of the film deals with the massive effort
by the German Gestapo to track down the over seventy escaped prisoners
individually attempting to make their way to England. As
one sadly expects from American films, the nationality of most of the
prisoners were changed to emphasise the role of Americans at the expense
of British Imperial heroes.
Indeed, the real escape was by British and other allied personnel, none
by Americans. Coburn actually plays an Australian. Whilst Americans in
the PoW camp did initially help to build the tunnels and work on the
early escape plans, they were moved to their own compound seven months
before the tunnels were completed. A large part had been played by
Canadians, especially in the construction of the tunnels and in the
escape itself. Of the 1,800 or so PoWs in the compound of whom six
hundred were involved in preparations for the escape, 150 of these were
from the Dominion of Canada; Wally Floody, an RCAF pilot and mining
engineer who was the real-life “tunnel king”, was engaged as a technical
advisor for the film. Fourteen Germans were executed after the war for
their roles, which ended up being among the charges at the Nuremberg War
Crimes trial.
