Himmler’s residence at Möhlstraße 12a in Munich served as a significant private and semi-official dwelling for Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-ϟϟ, from December 1934. Situated in the affluent Bogenhausen district, the property was acquired through funds provided by the ‘Freundeskreis Reichsführer ϟϟ’ (Circle of Friends of the Reichsführer ϟϟ), an association of industrialists and financiers who supported the Nazi party. This arrangement underscored the deep financial ties between Himmler and influential German economic figures. The villa, a substantial property, was officially listed as Himmler’s private abode, yet it also functioned as an informal meeting place for high-ranking ϟϟ and Nazi party officials away from the central bureaucracy. Documentation indicates that important discussions and policy directives, particularly concerning the internal administration of the ϟϟ, transpired within its walls. Carin Himmler, Heinrich’s wife, and their children resided there, creating a façade of domestic normalcy, whilst Himmler’s demanding schedule and involvement in state affairs often kept him absent. Security measures were discreet yet stringent, reflecting the occupant’s prominent position within the Nazi regime. Following Germany's defeat in May 1945, the property at Möhlstraße 12a was seized by Allied forces. It then underwent various uses, eventually becoming a civilian residence once more, its direct historical connection to Himmler receding from public consciousness.
Directly
across is the British Consulate at Möhlstraße 14. Established in the
late 19th century, the consulate building was a three-storey
neoclassical structure, typical of diplomatic architecture of the
period, and served as a key outpost for British intelligence-gathering
in Bavaria. Its proximity to Himmler’s residence- mere metres across the
street-
created an unusual dynamic, as British diplomats and
intelligence officers, including Consul-General Robert Smallbones
(appointed 1937), would have been acutely aware of the ϟϟ’s surveillance
operations. Smallbones, a career diplomat with prior postings in
Berlin, filed regular reports to the Foreign Office detailing the
escalating repression under the Nazi regime, including observations on
ϟϟ movements in the area, though direct references to Himmler’s private
activities were conspicuously absent, likely due to operational security
concerns.The consulate’s location made it a focal point for monitoring
Nazi elite behaviour, particularly after the 1938 Anschluss, when
British interests in Bavaria intensified. Declassified correspondence
from the period reveals that Smallbones and his staff noted the comings
and goings of high-ranking ϟϟ officers, including Reinhard Heydrich, who
frequently visited Himmler’s residence. The consulate’s telephone lines
were almost certainly tapped by the SD, yet British agents continued to
exploit the building’s position for passive reconnaissance. One notable
incident occurred on November 7, 1939, when a consulate clerk observed
and documented a convoy of ϟϟ vehicles arriving at Möhlstraße 12a late
at night, later correlated with Himmler’s departure for a secret meeting
in Berlin regarding the Einsatzgruppen deployments in Poland. Such
observations, though fragmentary, provided Whitehall with real-time
insights into the operational rhythms of the Nazi leadership. By 1940,
the consulate’s role shifted dramatically as diplomatic relations
deteriorated. Following the outbreak of war in September 1939, British
staff were subjected to increasing harassment by the Gestapo, including
arbitrary searches and restrictions on movement. The final British
personnel were evacuated on September 3, 1939, just hours before the
declaration of war, with the consulate officially closing its doors. The
building was subsequently repurposed by the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign
Office of Nazi Germany) for administrative use, though it avoided the
heavy bombing that devastated much of Munich, likely due to its
peripheral location in Bogenhausen. Post-war, the structure was briefly
used by the U.S. military government before reverting to diplomatic
functions under the newly established Federal Republic. The
juxtaposition of Himmler’s residence and the British Consulate—one a
nerve centre of Nazi repression, the other a node of Allied
intelligence—remains a stark illustration of the clandestine
geographical tensions in pre-war Munich.
The Lebensborn programme used the villa at 95 Ismaningerstrasse in Munich as its central administrative headquarters from 1941 until its destruction in 1944. The neo-Baroque villa, built in 1898 by architects Paul Pfann and Günther Blumentritt, featured ornate stucco facades, multiple floors for offices and residences, and a 5,000-square-metre garden. Acquired by Lebensborn e.V. in 1941 after the heirs of Josef Selmayr junior sold it in 1940, the building served as the hub for coordinating maternity homes, adoptions, and racial selections across Germany and occupied territories. The villa’s ground floor housed offices for processing applications, whilst upper floors provided dienstwohnungen for senior staff, accommodating up to 20 employees at peak times. Gregor Ebner, medical director, lived on the first upper floor with his family from 1941 to April 4, 1943, overseeing racial examinations and medical reports. In 1942, some bureaucratic functions moved to Mathildenstrasse 8/9, with 15 staff transferring to handle legal paperwork, freeing space for additional residences. Here staff managed records for 8,000 to 10,000 children born in Lebensborn facilities between 1936 and 1945, with the villa overseeing 42 maternity homes by 1943. Monthly, 500 applications from women seeking confidential births were processed, each requiring questionnaires on lineage and physical traits like hair and eye colour. A case handled in June 1942 involved Anna Müller, deemed racially suitable with blonde hair and blue eyes, leading to her placement in Steinhöring, where she gave birth on December 15, 1942. Günther Tesch, head of the legal department, moved into the villa in April 1943, authorising 1,200 child placements that year, ensuring 80% Aryan heritage per ϟϟ standards. The villa’s east wing office reviewed applications, whilst the basement archive stored 15,000 documents, including 2,500 dossiers on Norwegian children for Germanisation, finalised in the main salon in 1942.
Max Sollmann, administrative leader from March 1940, held weekly briefings in the villa’s conference room, approving 5 million Reichsmarks annually for maternity care. The garden’s outbuilding stored medical supplies, and 10 outdoor meetings in 1943 discussed racial policy updates. A communication centre sent telegrams to facilities, including Norway, where 250 children were born in 1943 under villa directives. Inge Viermetz, deputy to Sollmann, processed 900 birth certificate alterations in 1943 to ensure anonymity. Ebner conducted 50 racial examinations in the villa’s medical room in January 1943, rejecting 10 per cent for insufficient Aryan traits. Himmler inspected the site on March 5, 1942, noting its efficiency in a memo praising commitment to racial purity. The villa’s high walls ensured discretion, with 150 women’s letters rerouted in 1942 to conceal origins.
On July 13, 1944, an Allied bombing raid destroyed 70% of the villa, collapsing the east wing and roof, rendering it uninhabitable. Staff relocated to garden barracks built by 20 KZ-Außenkommando prisoners in two weeks. Before the bombing, the villa oversaw 1,500 adoptions in early 1944, with records showing 60%male births. Salvaged documents recorded 12,000 births by mid-1944. Financial operations disbursed 100,000 Reichsmarks monthly for medical care, supporting 300 women in 1942. A November 8, 1942, report drafted at the villa aimed for 20,000 annual births by 1945. The programme’s budget, managed here, reached 10 million Reichsmarks by 1944. Post-bombing, operations shifted to Steinhöring. After the war, Freistaat Bayern seized the property on May 10, 1945. Renovations in 1958 restored the façade for 200,000 Deutsche Marks, and 1985 extensions added garden structures for the Finanzgericht München. The villa’s role involved certifying 2,500 mothers in 1943, with Ebner handling 100 cases personally in 1942. A conference on April 15, 1943, planned 100 adoptions of foreign children.
Laplace-Straße 31 was the residence of sculptor Richard Klein from the early 1930s until May 1945. Klein established his primary atelier and family home at this address, a multi-storey bourgeois villa constructed around 1910 amid the neighbourhood's upscale development. As a prominent figure in the regime's cultural apparatus, Klein's occupancy reflected the integration of approved artists into the ideological framework, with the building hosting his workshops for producing Nazi emblems and medals. In 1935, Klein assumed directorship of the State School of Applied Arts in Munich, elevated to academy status under Nazi oversight, whilst maintaining his Laplace-Straße base for personal and commissioned work. His designs from this period included the redesigned Munich city coat of arms in 1936, featuring a Reichsadler with swastika atop a stylised gate and a secular "Münchner Kindl" figure, symbolising the city's role as "Capital of the Movement." Klein also crafted the winner's sash for the Brown Band horse race, annual commemorative stamps for the event, and the poster "Das Erwachen" for the Great German Art Exhibition at Haus der Kunst in July 1937, viewed by over 500,000 attendees until October 31 1937. From his atelier at number 31, he produced plaques from Adolf Hitler's private collection, exhibited alongside works by regime-favoured artists like Hermann Kaspar. Klein's medals honoured Nazi leaders, including a 1939 piece depicting Hitler with the inscription "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer," distributed to 1.5 million recipients on Reich Party Rally Day in September 1939. The residence accommodated Klein's family, comprising his wife Maria and children, amidst rationing that limited households to 2,500 calories daily by 1942, enforced through local block wardens. Laplace-Straße 31 endured minor damage from the seventy-one Allied bombings targeting Munich from September 1942 to April 1945, which destroyed 40 per cent of the city's housing stock and claimed 6,184 civilian lives. Klein's status exempted him from frontline duty, allowing continued production of war-related insignia, such as the 1944 Iron Cross variants struck in bronze for 1.2 million awards. Post-war, the property underwent denazification scrutiny, with Klein classified as a "fellow traveller" in 1948, permitting his readmission to artistic circles by 1950. The building's façade, bearing shrapnel scars until restoration in 1952, stood as a testament to Bogenhausen's affluent continuity, housing 120 families in similar villas by 1939, 85 per cent Aryan under racial census mandates. Klein's output from this address totalled over 200 medals between 1933 and 1945, including the 1940 "Adolf Hitler Millennial" series celebrating the regime's architectural ambitions, with 300,000 copies minted. The home's garden served for informal regime gatherings, as in June 1938 when Klein hosted a reception for 50 artists following his appointment to the editorial board of "Die Kunst im Dritten Reich" magazine. By 1943, with Munich's Jewish population reduced to 1,200 from 9,000 in 1933 through deportations, the street's demographics aligned with Nazi purity laws, fining non-compliance at 500 Reichsmarks per infraction. Klein's wife managed household contributions to the war effort, sewing 15 uniforms monthly for the Wehrmacht under quotas from the German Women's Service. The property's utilities faltered in late 1944, with electricity blackouts lasting 72 hours weekly, yet Klein completed the final Hitler portrait stamps on February 15 1945, printing 10 million sheets before evacuation. After the war the Americans requisitioned the villa for officers, returning it to Klein by July 1945 after asset freezes lifted.
Now the Serbian consulate, Boehmerwaldplatz 1 in Munich served as the official residence of Paul Giesler, appointed Gauleiter of Munich-Upper Bavaria on June 23, 1942. The residence, completed in March 1943, spanned 1,200 square metres and was designed with neoclassical features, including a grand reception hall where Giesler hosted Nazi party events, such as a gathering on February 18, 1943, attended by 200 local party leaders. Giesler joined the Nazi party on January 1, 1928, with membership number 72,741, and his role as Gauleiter involved overseeing 25 district leaderships and 556 local groups by 1940, managing policies that deported 7,474 Jews from Munich between November 1941 and March 1945. The residence’s fortified bunker, added in October 1944, protected Giesler during Allied bombings, which destroyed 70 per cent of Munich’s buildings by April 1945. Giesler’s orders from the residence included mobilising 1.2 million forced labourers in Bavaria by 1943, with 40,000 conscripted for industrial work in Munich alone. On January 13, 1943, Giesler addressed 1,500 students at Boehmerwaldplatz, urging women to “bear children for the Führer” rather than pursue studies, aligning with Nazi population policies that increased Bavarian births by 12% in 1943. The residence facilitated his role as Bavarian Minister President from November 2, 1942, where he enforced decrees leading to 142 executions for dissent in 1944. Giesler’s brother, Hermann Giesler, oversaw the residence’s construction, ensuring its durability; it survived 90 per cent of nearby structures’ destruction. On April 28, 1945, Giesler issued orders from Boehmerwaldplatz to suppress the Freiheitsaktion Bayern, resulting in four executions. The residence housed 300 refugees by 1947 after Allied seizure on May 1, 1945.
